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Celtx -- Anyone aware of this program?
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Posted by Dr Andus
May 12, 2013 at 12:36 PM
Gary Carson wrote:
Outliner 4D is basically a combination of a traditional outliner with an
>index card view. It’s a good idea, but it doesn’t work that well in
>practice. The outliner’s OK, but the index card view is unreadable
>because the program tries to cram everything together to fit onto the
>screen. What you end up with are a lot of very thin vertical lines of
>text that only contain the first few words of a scene description. It’s
>almost impossible to read vertical text. You can expand the index card
>view, zooming in on particular cards, but there’s no way to get a
>universal overview of the entire outline. That’s a deal-killer as far as
>I’m concerned and it boggles my mind that the designers would make such
>a goofy design decision.
Yes, I’m also starting to think that it was the design decision to lay out the outline horizontally, rather than vertically, which is crippling the Timeline view in O4D. If you could rotate the view by 90 degrees counterclockwise (i.e. present the outline horizontally, as is standard), then the whole sorry business of having to read vertical lines would disappear.
What other software are out there that could lay out an outline in table form whereby the hierarchy moves from left to right (the sub-tasks stay within the overall rows of the parent tasks)? Off the bat I can think of TreeSheets. The main principle is the same, i.e. that the parent is a box, and all children are boxes within their parents’ boxes. Nevertheless TreeSheets doesn’t quite present the sub-tasks in a horizontal view.
Posted by Hugh
May 12, 2013 at 03:09 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
Gary Carson wrote:
>Outliner 4D is basically a combination of a traditional outliner with an
>>index card view. It’s a good idea, but it doesn’t work that well in
>>practice. The outliner’s OK, but the index card view is unreadable
>>because the program tries to cram everything together to fit onto the
>>screen. What you end up with are a lot of very thin vertical lines of
>>text that only contain the first few words of a scene description. It’s
>>almost impossible to read vertical text. You can expand the index card
>>view, zooming in on particular cards, but there’s no way to get a
>>universal overview of the entire outline. That’s a deal-killer as far
>as
>>I’m concerned and it boggles my mind that the designers would make such
>>a goofy design decision.
>
>Yes, I’m also starting to think that it was the design decision to lay
>out the outline horizontally, rather than vertically, which is crippling
>the Timeline view in O4D. If you could rotate the view by 90 degrees
>counterclockwise (i.e. present the outline horizontally, as is
>standard), then the whole sorry business of having to read vertical
>lines would disappear.
>
>What other software are out there that could lay out an outline in table
>form whereby the hierarchy moves from left to right (the sub-tasks stay
>within the overall rows of the parent tasks)? Off the bat I can think of
>TreeSheets. The main principle is the same, i.e. that the parent is a
>box, and all children are boxes within their parents’ boxes.
>Nevertheless TreeSheets doesn’t quite present the sub-tasks in a
>horizontal view.
Tinderbox has its ‘treemap’ view, which is vertical in the sense you describe above. I’ve never used this view, because its outline, timeline and map views are much more useful.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
May 14, 2013 at 10:41 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>What other software are out there that could lay out an outline in table
>form whereby the hierarchy moves from left to right (the sub-tasks stay
>within the overall rows of the parent tasks)?
I think the most obvious example is Tree for Mac http://www.topoftree.jp/en/tree/ (the fact that it’s the first that comes to my mind even though I have never myself used a Mac is rather indicative).
I wouldn’t say that TreeSheets expands strictly horizontally, but rather more diagonally. Anyway, you can select the Horizontal Layout Style for Rendering which enhances the effect.
Otherwise, the ‘affinity’ or ‘left to right’ style in mind mappers is probably what you will usually encounter. A similar approach is provided by B-liner http://www.bliner.com/gallery-2/
Posted by Dr Andus
May 23, 2013 at 09:19 AM
Hugh wrote:
>Tinderbox has its ‘treemap’ view, which is vertical in the sense you
>describe above. I’ve never used this view, because its outline, timeline
>and map views are much more useful.
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>I think the most obvious example is Tree for Mac
>http://www.topoftree.jp/en/tree/ (the fact that it’s the first that
>comes to my mind even though I have never myself used a Mac is rather
>indicative).
Unfortunately I don’t have a Mac :(
>Otherwise, the ‘affinity’ or ‘left to right’ style in mind mappers is
>probably what you will usually encounter. A similar approach is provided
>by B-liner http://www.bliner.com/gallery-2/
Thanks for the B-liner suggestion. I played with it a bit and it’s interesting what a difference square connecting lines make vs. the usual rounded lines in mind mappers.
However, I’m still yearning for a horizontal Outline 4D solution. I’m finding that with B-liner and mind mappers it’s all too easy to forget what the top level hierarchy was about, as you keep drilling down into the sub-sub levels.
While with an O4D-type solution each sub-level is a box within the level above (a box within a box within a box etc.), so it’s easier to see that a higher level hierarchy literally contains its lower level items. I’m surprised that there aren’t more software that picked up on this seemingly basic but very useful idea.
I’ll need to play a bit more with B-liner, but for now it seems expensive at USD89.95. I’ve also just received a “special” (?) offer for a Mindjet perpetual license for GBP238.80, which is a lot more but sounds like you also get more for the bang?
Posted by Dr Andus
May 23, 2013 at 09:22 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
>I’ll need to play a bit more with B-liner, but for now it seems
>expensive at USD89.95. I’ve also just received a “special” (?) offer
>for a Mindjet perpetual license for GBP238.80, which is a lot more but
>sounds like you also get more for the bang?
I mean “more bang for the buck” (before someone takes this the wrong way:)