Forum Posts Feed
Visual Outliner (new from the developer of Goal Enforcer)
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 18, 2018 at 02:38 PM
OK got it. But are there other authoring tools for ReqIF outside IBM DOORS? (Hopefully not as high priced as that!)
Rochus wrote:
>But keep in mind that DoorScope is a reader/review tool, not an
>authoring tool.
Posted by Rochus
Nov 18, 2018 at 04:04 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
OK got it. But are there other authoring tools for ReqIF outside IBM
>DOORS? (Hopefully not as high priced as that!)
If you like Eclipse and Java-based tools, you can have a look at http://www.eclipse.org/rmf/pror/. I haven’t used it yet. What features are you looking for?
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 19, 2018 at 08:10 PM
Eclipse ProR is now available as ReqIF Studio http://formalmind.com/tools/studio/
The basic version is available for free, after (also free) registration to https://reqif.academy/ There is a premium version of the editor https://reqif.academy/software/extend/ which adds various features, such as creation/editing of tables (the basic editor can only view or paste them)
I’ve never worked with such a tool before, but I am intrigued. If I find the time to explore it, I will report back here on a separate thread.
Posted by Rochus
Nov 20, 2018 at 12:05 AM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>I’ve never worked with such a tool before, but I am intrigued. If I find
>the time to explore it, I will report back here on a separate thread.
I’m curious if you like it. Personally I’m not a big fan of Java based tools in general including Eclipse-based tools. For some years now I write all notes, reports and specifications with CrossLine, export them to HTML and convert the HTML to PDF using Chromium which even preserves links.
Posted by 22111
Dec 29, 2018 at 12:51 PM
So this thread has obviously run bonkers, nothing to to with the original thread title anymore (and that’s why I had overlooked it all those weeks, before searching for the thread-starter software bec/of the (ridiculous) bits offer today). For “Taking Hostage”, I’d like to add TB, but also, and even less understandable, TB’s import; let’s face it, import is even more than export, for software marketing - whilst not for the software user that is.
I would have been interested in the percentage of users who use MS Word’s outlining function; my guess is around 15-18 percent but of course I could be mistaken; ditto for “Atlantis” (or WordPerfect, the numbers allegedly being even more minuscule than “Atlantis’” ones).
As for OPML, it seems to be some Mac format, more or less; almost no major Windows developer provides it, probably because it could be too limited, but that would remain to be seen.
Notwithstanding the fact that “washere” likes to argument ad hominem, instead of staying factual, I suppose he wanted to combine his so-called “outing” (upon which, I hope, people give a heck) with the assertion that notwithstanding some “core” outliner evangelists (who never developed some outliner of any kind themselves, i.e. the old “critics know better than authors” phenomenon) preaching the 1-pane kind the “real” one, he thinks the “minority” (by appreciation by those self-authorized “critics”; the “market” informing quite otherwise, but then for gays, appreciation provided from some “authorities” (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, no but that’s incredible in this case!) seems to be very important from what I’ve seen so far) is the more useful outliner variety, whatever those “experts” say (overwhelming “hetero” vs minority “gay” I suppose, but then, I dare challenge that “authority” (and furthermore, their alleged predominance) anyway.
But I would like to go back to the original subject, por favor.
It seems to me the (above-mentioned) “elephant in the room” is the fact that the outrageousyl-priced software which gave its name to this thread is NOT a 1-pane outliner BUT a SCHOOL OUTLINER, i.e. allows just for management of 1-line entries (without, or even with wordwrap? I don’t know), or then I’m grossly mistaken).
And that seems to be the CORE SUBJECT of outlining, or rather, the lack of adoption of it by most more-or-less-writing adults. (Hence the very low numbers - IF I’m right about them - for the outlining functionality use within so-called “text processors” (or should we say “minor Word clones”, acknowleding the realities of today’s marketplace?).)
Whatever, most people seem to be disgusted-for-live by that incredibly-fallacy-ly outlining they were tought in school: the 1-line item variety, WITHOUT even some additional ideas/hints WITHIN that item, and it seems (to me) that today’s (rare) 1-pane outliners - but not even one of them, speaking just of the Windows flavors here of course - are not able to overcome that prejudice “a (school-tought) outliner will not extend my possibilities but will REDUCE them, by my even LOSING ideas by its use” - whilst on the other hand, the 2-pane variety “invites” to note “ideas” (i.e. inline elements which do NOT have there own item count identifier), too.
I agree that technically, there is no hindrance, but there seems to be some psychological hindrance indeed; fact is, 1-pane outliners have had their time, they have almost all vanished from the market, one after the other; again, that’s a fact which no argumentum ad hominem could make vanish, he, he.
So let’s speak of the inherent “advantage” of the 2-pane variety, over the 1-pane flavor: for adding sub-item (I mean non-item) elements, it’s “3 keys” in the former (leaving your current item, going to your target (by holding down, more or less, the down (or up) key), and then a “tab” again; in the 1-pane category, you’ll do a lot of “shuffling around”, visually and psychologically at least: all there is, is “on your shoulders”, whilst only the 2-pane flavor takes all that load “off”, by clearly distinguishing between two tree elements.
Let’s face it, coders have never been interested in machine-user-interaction, in “ergonomics” or whatever you call it (and the big software houses don’t pay for that, to everybody’s harm, theirs AND the users’, and those coders obviously don’t know much of it, most of the time and with individual differences of course), and today’s software shows it, as software has always has always done.
That being said, even the 2-pane variety doesn’t have too many adepts, while shuffling around items / sub-trees is so much easier there; again because having been harmed by the outlining paradigm in their school/student years - valid ideas got lost, by associative thinking being interrupted, appreciations were lower than they could have been -, people avoid what they have become acquainted to as being harmful to the flow of their ideas - all this because in the original outlining structure, there simply had not been a place, room, for sub-item (i.e. inline) ideas.
And this “Visual Outliner” or what they call it, at 60 bucks plus VAT which makes it 80 bucks and more in the E.U., is a JOKE, just replicating (as far as I understand it) all those disgusted people’s school outliner.
All the more so, the term “Visual Outliner” is misleading - I could have said: is an imposture -, since there is some outliner-flowcharter (don’t remember its name currently) which allows for typing with indents in Word or similar and then creates the according flowchart:
That would be a “visual outliner” for me; some overpriced and fallacious 1-line-per-item basic outliner with then some visual “skins” certainly is not, and, btw, from that variety, at the very least, we ask being available on various “platforms” (Google and Apple mobiles: phones/tablets), and some competitors of that newcomer are indeed if I remember well.
Btw, IF that currently not-worth-much-thing hadn’t been a newcomer, my 229 search results for it would have been a problem indeed.