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

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

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

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

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

Jimbo,

Ah; you're correct; thanks! I apologize.

That feature was easy for me to miss, probably because there's no visual clue unless one hovers over the link. I remember now that it was added a while back, but I forgot about it.

I'll have to give ConnectedText another try. Like I said, I want to like it; it has many compelling features.

Regarding what data might be better kept in a Wiki than an outline, I use WikidPad to keep track of all of the software I download, evaluate, and eventually purchase or uninstall -- I'm a CRIMPer like many others who post here. I keep lists of software: ToLookAt, UnderEvaluation, Rejected, as well as registered software by classification. I like how hyperlinks are automatically created whenever I type a program. This feature allows for interesting interconnections.

Regarding MDE InfoHander, I'm nearing the end of my 60-day eval. I haven't had much time to play with it, but hope to do so this upcoming long weekend. It's taking a bit more effort for me to make a decision; as Daly said, it's something different, unlike an outliner or a wiki. It feels more like a database to me than anything else, and I'm having a difficult time figuring how to put data into it in a manageable way. I've got a vocabulary I need to study for a class I'm taking; I think this will be a good data set to use to take InfoHandler for a spin.

I think part of my difficulty is in using tags. For some reason I have a difficult time organizing data by tags. I tried ndxCards, but abandoned it; I really didn't like its query interface. I couldn't really figure out how to tag things consistently in del.icio.us, so I use Spurl instead -- Spurl allows you to sort your bookmarks into a tree as well as by tag.

InfoHandler seems _much_ more powerful, with a very nice query interface, so I hope I "get" tags this time.

- Wes

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Again I am trying out Connected Text, and again I am wondering, why wiki?

Daly,

Well, I think it is fair to say that whether or not you like the wiki way will depend upon your own sensibilities. Other than Zoot, all my PIM/Outliner/Wiki use is still somewhat of a trial. I use ConnectedText at home and see a lot of power in this approach. Generally, it seems to me that the power in wikis is that they allow you to create structure on the fly. In this way, it is a more organic approach to data management. Also, your information is organized in a more three-dimensional way than in a typical hierarchical tree. That is, Item A can link to Item B which can link to Item C which can link back to Item A. Of course, other programs have hyperlinks, so this advantage may be diminished some, but there remains the ease of creating the links.

Specifically, CT offers some wonderful features. My favorite is the ability to add categories to any article. So, for instance, you can create a category called "Contact" and the article is automatically indexed in an article called "Contact." Now you can click on that article and see all you contacts listed alphabetically with with hyperlinks automatically in place. Pretty neat.

Steve Z.

Stephen, I think I need to work with CT more, and also ZuluPad, which I downloaded at work and played with (very simple, straight forward), to better appreciate the three dimensional aspect of data arrangement.

Re CT and applying categories == MDE InforHandler does that I believe, although the process is different.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Again I am trying out Connected Text, and again I am wondering,
why wiki?

Daly,

Well, I think it is fair to say that whether or not you like the wiki
way will depend upon your own sensibilities. Other than Zoot, all my
PIM/Outliner/Wiki use is still somewhat of a trial. I use ConnectedText at home and
see a lot of power in this approach. Generally, it seems to me that the power in wikis is
that they allow you to create structure on the fly. In this way, it is a more organic
approach to data management. Also, your information is organized in a more
three-dimensional way than in a typical hierarchical tree. That is, Item A can link to
Item B which can link to Item C which can link back to Item A. Of course, other programs
have hyperlinks, so this advantage may be diminished some, but there remains the ease
of creating the links.

Specifically, CT offers some wonderful features. My
favorite is the ability to add categories to any article. So, for instance, you can
create a category called "Contact" and the article is automatically indexed in an
article called "Contact." Now you can click on that article and see all you contacts
listed alphabetically with with hyperlinks automatically in place. Pretty
neat.

Steve Z.

Perhaps someone can answer this question:

Why is it that with wiki we have to get into mark up language (Note Studio) or use other ways of designating formatting in an editing environment that is not wysiwyg?

This seems like a step backward from the customary approaches that have been the norm for the last 10 years.

Is there something about making a wiki work, ie. the links all over the place, that precludes having wysiwyg? Or is it a lazy way to design software? Or is it simply a blatant appeal to the geeks in the crowd?

The way that one has to do formatting in Note Studio, Connected Text, etc. is to me a real drawback from using these programs.

If I want categories and links going every which way I can do it with existing programs such as MDE InfoHandler, and I believe that TreePad also has good linking capability.

So I guess what I am looking for is the rationale for why wiki programs are designed the way they are.

Sorry if I am flogging a dead horse here, but I am really curious about this -- a seeming step into the past to offer some trendy new approach that to my mind should be fully possible without stepping backwards.

Daly

Why is it that with wiki we have to get into
mark up language (Note Studio) or use other ways of designating formatting in an
editing environment that is not wysiwyg?

This seems like a step backward from the
customary approaches that have been the norm for the last 10 years.

IMHO

1) All information is in the text. Nothing is hidden.
2) You focus in text input not in formatting. Once you get used, to mark a word bold is much faster than using a wysiwyg editor.
3) Using a style sheet as in CT makes formatting uniform, something more difficult in a wysiwyg editor, unless you can create style and apply them with criteria (requires more work)
4) Linking is much easier in wiki style. Just add [[ ]]. Want an alias? Easy, enclose it with the link. And you do it without moving your fingerts from the keyboard. Can you do the same in a wysiwyg editor?

Daly,

I agree with you that formatting is the stumbling block for me. Perhpas I'm just used to doing things in the WYSWYG mode these days. I agree with others that linking and free-flowing structure are the key strengths of Wiki, but no matter how many times I tried Connectedtext or NoteStudio, I always abandoned it for another program that offers the WYSWYG edit mode. I need to keep track of a lot of information, and my main needs are quick entry and organizing, excellent search and export(file/print) capability, and ConnectedText and NoteStudio seem to be good at search/export, but fails me greatly when it comes to quick entry (with formatting) and quick organizing (category and keyword assignment). Also it should tax the system performance and resouces a lot since I'm running it 24/7 while the PC is on.

For now, I found Evernote 1.5 to be the best of the bunch when it comes to meeting my needs. YMMV however.

Daly,

Think of Zoot and BrainStorm - two unique programs that have a lot of power for harnessing and working with information. Both are plain text, not WYSIWYG. Unless you work in a field that is highly visual (photography, design, etc.), chances are that most of your information is textual.

The idea of just starting to type (or paste) stuff in without regard to structure has an organic appeal that's missing from very structured approaches to managing information. The structure evolves over time in a wiki, and you don't have to make any up-front decisions about categorization, etc. And you can actually link to things that don't even exist yet. I've always found the wiki approach well suited to freeform brainstorming and thinking; it's not the best approach for a set of well-structured records that belong in a database. There is also the whole online collaborative tradition of wikis, and while a personal wiki doesn't have the collaboration, if you are used to using web-based wikis, having your own probably comes more naturally than if you come from some other background.

Think of presentation or formatted display as a separate step - if you need that, most wiki software lets you get your stuff into a format more conducive for formatting, but daily usage removes all of the extraneous font menus, paragraph alignment dialogs, etc., and lets you focus on quickly working with your information. Wikis aren't really meant to be word processors. I think the concept is to be fast, simple, and focused on building a small personal web of information rather than adding formatting that is often extraneous. The mechanism for hyperlinking is also very quick and doesn't interrupt the flow of your typing; other info managers that have hyperlinking usually make you go through some sort of dialog just to add a link.

There are also a lot of benefits to plain text data storage: easy to copy and paste among different applications without losing anything, easy to script and automate using any number of scripting languages, less vulnerable to becoming outdated as technology progresses (I can still open plain text files I have from 1994, but information I had in, say Ascend, is no longer accessible to me). Of course, not all wiki apps use plain text storage, but many of them do.

Of course, it all depends on your needs and usage patterns, but I'll note that even in programs that have formatting (like Ultra Recall), I hardly ever use bold, italics, etc. - 99% of the time I am just typing what I need to remember or do, etc., and the ability to format doesn't add anything to that ability. On the flip side, if I'm preparing a document that needs to be well-formatted and read by others, I'll inevitably end up in a word processor even if a lot of the source text comes from other programs. There are times when a little formatting for personal use is helpful, which is why I won't try to dissuade Zoot from eventually having RTF, but to me formatting seems like a little tiny bit of gravy and the real meat is the actual text.

The BrainStorm "namesakes" feature actually seems very close to wiki-like links to me, perhaps more so than it seems like "cloning." The difference is that a whole line has to be a "link," not just a word or two within a line, but the combination of BrainStorm's outliner-like features with wiki-like links may be very unique (also consider that even BrainStorm essentially has an edit mode and view mode). I also found Tkoutline at http://tkoutline.sourceforge.net/wiki/ to be an interesting combination of single-pane outliner with the ability to add wiki-style links *between outlines.* Another interesting approach...

Chris

Chris,

I don't think there is one best information manager that I know of. I think 80% of my information is plain texts, but I do keep tables, bullet and numbered lists on many of my notes. I just think the extra formatting requirement gets in the way for me, although ConnectedText does have tool bar buttons for some formatting functions.

Also, once I started to create the links, then some of my notes gets buried so deep inside the links that I have to utilize the search function to locate the notes. So, the advantage of Wiki disappears for me in that regard.

Anyway, I'm not here to tout whether one form of system is better than the other but to capture my experience in using these programs.

One thing I find great about Evernote is multiple methods to organize my notes (dates, manual and automatic categories, keywords, etc). It also has a great search and export features now.

When Zoot becomes 32-bit and support rich texts, I might go back to it as my main organizer.

Ken

Kenneth Rhee wrote:

Anyway, I'm not here to tout
whether one form of system is better than the other but to capture my experience in
using these programs.

Kenneth, same here. In fact, I'm not using a wiki at present but do understand some of the appeal.

One thing I find great about Evernote is multiple methods to
organize my notes (dates, manual and automatic categories, keywords, etc). It also
has a great search and export features now.

When Zoot becomes 32-bit and support
rich texts, I might go back to it as my main organizer.

I'm looking forward to when Evernote has a Pocket PC version, as lately I've been trying to work out ways to get most of my notes on my Windows Mobile phone, as well. I've tried out DayNotez and like the seamless synchronization between phone and desktop, but I couldn't figure out a way to also have the same notes on a computer that doesn't sync to the phone.

One good thing about Zoot is that you can get at least certain items to sync with a Palm or Pocket PC via Outlook. However, this pretty much has to be a small subset of items unless you want all of your notes to be Zoot memos and confined to a single database.

While Ultra Recall has a lot going for it and I've used it as my main app for quite a while, I do miss the Zoot rules + actions combo - there is something about having the software do a lot of the upfront categorization and filing that I really miss. In fact, I might just fire it up right now... chronic debilitating CRIMP syndrome kicking in...

Chris

Daly -

I tried out ConnectedText over the summer, and my views are much the same as yours. Clearly, it is a matter of how people prefer to work, and what they are working on, though. For collaborative work on or off the internet I can see the appeal of wikis. For most of my work, however, wiki software seems to be more trouble than its worth. I find a single-pane outliner a much more effective tool.

I like the text-only orientation of wikis, but find a combination of Zoot and Grandview (or Brainstorm) provieds this, and gives me all the freedom and flexibility I need.

Derek

As some people pinted out already in the forum, if WYSYWYG is what is most important to you, then a Wiki or Wiki-like software (like ConnectedText) makes not much sense. The strengths of such applications lie elsewhere.

1. They allow very easy hyperlinks (as pointed out by someone else already). And this can be very useful for organising materials (on the fly and more permanently).
2. They allow sophisticated searches. This is especially true of ConnectedText. I do not see that "organizing" and "searching" compete with one another. Searching allows a different and valuable view on the data than organizing. A wiki is a database application in the end. (But I agree that one- and two-pane outliners fall into this category too.)

More importantly, however, there is a fundamental difference between WYSYWYG and what may be called "structured text" (actually, the name is used by a particular application, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles/STX for instance). But it can also be used as "a general name for various kinds of simple markup. It refers to a method of creating typographically or semantically rich plain text files, using only ASCII characters found on most keyboards, that can, if needed, be translated into more traditional markup languages. They are usually formatted on the fly by a program such as Web Browsers, formatted and printed, or compiled into a file such as a PDF." (See http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Category:Structured_Text DocBook and LaTeX are perhaps the best examples of structured text. Wikis implement a sub-set of the more complicated structured text languages. Why is this of interest to the non WYSYWIG crowd?

1. Structured text is text; or if it isn't text, it can easily be transformed into text (without loss of the formatting and linking information). It can easily be rendered as HTML.
2. Structured Text is format-independent.
3. Structured Text incorporates semantic information.

More might be said on behalf of wikis (as I have done in the past). I just want to say: yes, Daly, you are right, Wikis are an a fairly radical ALTERNATIVE to WYSYWYG. If you are comfortable with what WYSYWYG applications offer (and do not anticipate such needs as structured text may meet), you should stick with them. If you are looking for more, Wikis might be an alternative.

Manfred

Manfred (and other wiki users)

I just came across this:

WWW: http://wikindx.sourceforge.net/

"WIKINDX is a free bibliographic and quotations and notes
management and article authoring system designed either
for single use (on a variety of operating sytems) or
multi-user collaborative use across the internet."

Derek