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A useful property of 2-pane PIMs
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Posted by Cassius
Feb 17, 2008 at 06:24 PM
I was just about to test EverNote’s usefulness, when I discovered another useful property of 2-pane PIMs. (For outlining, I still prefer 1-pane.)
I was “thumbing through” (browsing) the left pane of a PIM file when I came across an article I had forgotten about…one that was highly relevant to a current interest. Since I had forgotten about the article and was not searching for the topic at the time, I doubt that I would have found it in Evernote.
-c
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Feb 18, 2008 at 02:31 PM
I agree with your conclusion. It is the same reason that I was not attracted to Zoot until I had to many journal articles to organise on a tree.
May I ask which specific 2-pane PIM you were working on? In my experience, not all are equally good at this kind of browsing approach.
alx
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 18, 2008 at 04:01 PM
What are the qualities that help facilitate browsing? Certainly easy navigation through the list of items, and ability to quickly view the content of any particular item would be among these qualities. The latter is why the two-pane approach works.
But, as you said, Alex, some are better at this than others… so what’s the secret? And are two-pane outliners the best at this? That is, does the outline structure add functionality to browsing or hinder it? I could see it being more of a hinderance… if headings are collapsed, you have to take an extra click to expand the sub-headings.
I am recalling HyperInfo (or whatever the name of that now defunct software was), which had an outline view, but also had an Index view… so that you could see your outline flattened with headings arranged alphabetically. I think that would facilitate serendipitous browsing.
In fact, here’s a feature I would like to see: A view listing all items in all open databases, flattened and arranged alphabetically—or by whatever method of sorting you like. That would be a powerful feature, I think.
Steve Z.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Feb 18, 2008 at 08:22 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>But, as you said, Alex, some are better at this than others… so what’s the secret?
>And are two-pane outliners the best at this? That is, does the outline structure add
>functionality to browsing or hinder it?
What personally attracted me to 2-pane outliners (something I realised after using the software for quite some time) is the ability to combine a view of the structure (outline tree) with a view of the detail (info or note or detail pane, whatever one calls it). In theory, mind maps and concept maps are better at presenting the overall structure, however I find that the relevant software is vastly inefficient in its use of space (I have not as yet tried a dual monitor setup, with the map on the left and the detail on the right, but having the average male’s limited peripheral vision I believe that it would be hopeless).
>I am recalling HyperInfo (or whatever the name of that now defunct
>software was), which had an outline view, but also had an Index view… so that you
>could see your outline flattened with headings arranged alphabetically. I think
>that would facilitate serendipitous browsing.
You are refering to Hyperclip, which I shortsightedly chose over UltraRecall back in 2004, only to find the developer disappearing sometime later. The ‘flat’ view was one of my favourites but only for its sorting capability, i.e. I could view all priority items straight away, no matter where they were in the outline.
>In fact, here’s a feature I would
>like to see: A view listing all items in all open databases, flattened and arranged
>alphabetically—or by whatever method of sorting you like. That would be a powerful
>feature, I think.
I think that more or less any outliner having a database as its underlying mechanism could do this. IDEA! has this as its default view, i.e. all records are shown in a spreadsheet-like table and can be sorted by any field; they can also be filtered at will by the outline folders, as well as appearing in their respective positions on the actual tree. In Zoot one could keep all entries in one folder and group them in ‘smart’/virtual folders rather than regular ones. In UltraRecall one can create a generic search and all items will be listed in the search results table.
alx
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Feb 18, 2008 at 08:31 PM
SQLNotes has this capability to show/hide the item hierarchy, plus sort, filter, etc to quickly find the items that you want even if deep in the hierarchy.
BTW: a new version (0.9.22) is fresh off the press and free as usual. Relating to this thread, new features are:
1- CTRL-Q will perform a quick live-search in the tree, a column or the 2nd rich text pane.
2- CTRL-Alt-N is a system wide shortcut to quickly add content. Most of you already know this, but it can work as a 1-pane OR as a 2-pane outliner.
http://www.sqlnotes.net
Pierre Paul Landry, main developer.