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Wiki -- Why?
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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 1, 2006 at 01:53 PM
Again I am trying out Connected Text, and again I am wondering, why wiki?
Other programs can use internal links without having to enter text in an edit mode that looks funny, and then having to flip back to a read mode. It sort of undoes years of wysiwyg.
The whole enterprize just feels counter-intuitive as all get out.
Can someone explain, please?
My other beef is the poor quality of documentation most of these programs provide. It is as though they figure we are all geeks, or that wiki is so intutive to them that it should be to the rest of us also.
Thanks.
Daly
Posted by criss
Sep 1, 2006 at 04:46 PM
Hi Daly,
I’m very happy with ZuluPad http://www.gersic.com/zulupad/
Headed towards http://www.flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/ for Mac.
Easy page-generation and linking (wikilike) but no edit-mode.
The combination with Personal Knowbase for storage works great for me. Both are beautiful simple applications.
best regards
Criss
Posted by Wes Perdue
Sep 1, 2006 at 07:06 PM
Daly,
That’s an excellent question. I think the best answer for me is a wiki’s lack of structure. I use WikidPad for certain types of information. I like how the structure isn’t strictly tree-based even though it shows the hierarchy in a tree. I also like how the structure naturally develops as the database grows. It’s much less restrictive than an outliner, and the automatic linking is nice to have.
I very much want to like ConnectedText, as it seems so feature-rich. But I always seem to use WikidPad. I think it’s because I don’t like having to switch between viewing mode and editing mode. That’s required in ConnectedText, as you can’t navigate hyperlinks in edit mode.
WikidPad has both an edit mode and a view mode, but I almost never need to use the view mode, as hyperlinks are navigable in edit mode.
Thanks to Chriss’ recommendation, I’ve found that ZuluPad has only an edit mode, and automatically links hyperlinks. I’m going to give it a try. Its one big advantage versus WikidPad is word wrap. A lack of automatic word wrap in WikidPad is to me one of its biggest weaknesses, and makes it difficult to use for long-format text creation.
I’ve found that certain projects or databases lend themselves better to outliners, and others lend themselves better to the free-form Wiki-style applications.
I remember a while back that Manfred Kuehn made a very good defense of the use of ConnectedText as a general-purpose PIM in the outliners-pims Yahoo group.
Regards,
Wes
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 1, 2006 at 07:23 PM
Wes, thanks for the post.
I think with CT’s need to have a non-wysiwyg edit mode and WikiPad not having word wrap it’s like stepping way back in time.
I’ll give ZuluPad a try.
I’m willing to accept in theory that some databases may lend themselves better to wiki and others to outliners—but I am not able off hand to imagine what kind of database is better with wiki. I think this is a reflection of my lack of appreciation or intuitive understanding for wiki.
I use MDE Infohandler for a lot of my work, and it is not a true outliner, though there’s a way to see infoitems in an outline made up of groups and categories.
Back to my main stumbling block with wiki—why can one not have all the linking features without having to have an edit view that is non wysiwyg, and with the formatting limitations that went out the window with the advent of the GUI?
Daly
Wes Perdue wrote:
>Daly,
>
>That’s an excellent question. I think the best answer for me is a wiki’s lack of
>structure. I use WikidPad for certain types of information. I like how the structure
>isn’t strictly tree-based even though it shows the hierarchy in a tree. I also like how
>the structure naturally develops as the database grows. It’s much less restrictive
>than an outliner, and the automatic linking is nice to have.
>
>I very much want to like
>ConnectedText, as it seems so feature-rich. But I always seem to use WikidPad. I think
>it’s because I don’t like having to switch between viewing mode and editing mode.
>That’s required in ConnectedText, as you can’t navigate hyperlinks in edit
>mode.
>
>WikidPad has both an edit mode and a view mode, but I almost never need to use the
>view mode, as hyperlinks are navigable in edit mode.
>
>Thanks to Chriss’
>recommendation, I’ve found that ZuluPad has only an edit mode, and automatically
>links hyperlinks. I’m going to give it a try. Its one big advantage versus WikidPad is
>word wrap. A lack of automatic word wrap in WikidPad is to me one of its biggest
>weaknesses, and makes it difficult to use for long-format text creation.
>
>I’ve
>found that certain projects or databases lend themselves better to outliners, and
>others lend themselves better to the free-form Wiki-style applications.
>
>I
>remember a while back that Manfred Kuehn made a very good defense of the use of
>ConnectedText as a general-purpose PIM in the outliners-pims Yahoo
>group.
>
>Regards,
>Wes
Posted by Jimbo
Sep 1, 2006 at 07:25 PM
>I very much want to like
>ConnectedText, as it seems so feature-rich. But I always seem to use WikidPad. I think
>it’s because I don’t like having to switch between viewing mode and editing mode.
>That’s required in ConnectedText, as you can’t navigate hyperlinks in edit
>mode.
>
That’s not true. I don’t remeber in which version it was introduced but in the latest version it is possible to click in links in edit mode. When you move the mouse around the cursor turns in a hand over a link.
The nice part in ConnectedText is that I can collect pieces of information and organize them in any way want without to plan ahead. For instance I can start a text and in the middle of it I discover I can need some information. I create a link to it and can fill it later.
There is so much that can be done with ConnectedText that I cannot live without it anymore. I used Wikidpad before but the text presentation is rather poor and lack many features that ConnectedText has.
Best,
Jimbo