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Just what is an outliner?
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Posted by Larry Kollar
May 7, 2017 at 04:09 AM
jaslar wrote:
>I do see a difference between outliners in which every paragraph is a
>“header” and ones in which some text blocks are not hierarchical
>(embedded notes that operate more like regular word processing. But -
>and I do realize this gets tricky - I don’t think that’s a core feature.
>It’s just an APPROACH to outlining. KAMAS had an 88 character limit on a
>header; attached text could be paragraphs long, but your couldn’t use
>outliner function on those, just the headers. MORE treated any paragraph
>as manipulable. Both both were outliners.
An approach — exactly! Another example, I would argue that a mind mapper is another approach to outlining — one where hierarchy is important, but not sequence. Some mind map tools can import an OPML outline without losing anything but a firm visualization of that sequence, after all. Both have their advantages — I’ve found that a mind mapper is excellent for world-building, while an outliner is better for roughing out a story into chapters and scenes. For one use, sequence just gets in the way; another use requires it.
In a more specific implementation of jaslar’s point, Tines has a mechanism to mark a node as “text.” Functionally, it makes no difference to the outline itself — a text node can have children and siblings as well as parents. When you go to export the outline, though, you can use that information to turn text nodes into paragraphs (text under text might become bulleted lists, or not). Or if you don’t want that, you can ignore the text attribute, and handle all nodes the same way. It’s just a marker.
Posted by Dr Andus
May 7, 2017 at 11:36 AM
Chris Murtland wrote:
>In any case, I do love that there is a place where heated debate can
>ensue over the definition of an outliner!
This is exactly what I was thinking! The very fact that there are people that can get passionate about discussing the definitions of outlines and outliners is worth celebrating.
@Paul Korm
Your contributions are much appreciated here, so I hope you won’t leave. If you re-read the comments, you will see that this is just a debate about ideas, nothing personal. Disagreements are part of the social process of working out meanings.
Posted by Hugh
May 7, 2017 at 02:54 PM
For what it’s worth, my own (completely un-academic) definition of an outliner involves purpose: it is a device designed to produce an outline. And what is an outline? It seems to me that an outline is a skeleton of a longer form of expression, the outline produced for reasons of time-saving (almost always), communication (frequently) and experiment (quite often). Insofar as the outline is produced for reasons of time-saving, its articulation will need to be abbreviated, and, possibly, graphical. Insofar as the longer form of expression is likely, at least in part, to depend upon logic, then the outline is likely to require hierarchy. Insofar as the outline itself is likely to be, at least to some extent, experimental, it will require malleability and ease of manipulation.
(Incidentally, I exclude from my definition, at least in my mind and perhaps controversially, so-called “outliners” which are more in the nature of “hierarchical containers” - although I’m very ready to concede that the two categories frequently blur into each other. If I were to allow such devices into the category I define for myself, then the macOS Finder is an outliner, and so is the British Library. Of course, they could all be used for outlining - after a fashion - but that is obviously far from the principal purpose of each. But I do enjoy and learn from the discussions of such hierarchical containers - in the digital world - on this forum!)
Posted by Hugh
May 7, 2017 at 03:02 PM
@Paul Korm. I’d like to echo those who have both praised Paul and requested that he reconsider his decision to withdraw from this forum. I’m one of the - I’m certain - many who have learnt from him. And after all’s said and done, isn’t learning a major reason for reading what’s written here?