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Thoughts on Ecco in light of recent events
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 7, 2008 at 06:29 PM
Ken wrote:
>But, I am surprised that more developers cannot see
>the value of customizable columns and the ability to look at the same data in different
>contexts. Perhaps I have not been looking, err I mean CRIMPing, hard enough, but I
>would have thoguth that this “concept” would be more polular over the years? Are
>MyInfo and IQ the only two that make an attempt to meet this need? Tagging and
>categories are great, but they do not easily seem to offer multiple views on the same
>data.
Well, frankly, I would argue that tagging is indeed a way of showing different views of the same data. So are other possibilities provided by the various info managers discussed here:
- Imagine a common two-pane outliner, where information items are organised on a hierarchical tree.
- Now imagine those items being tagged, and tags organised on another hierarchical tree.
- Now switch to the tag tree view (you can do this in Surfulater for example) and you instantly have another view of the information items.
- Surfulater in particular can also show a chronological tree, with items automatically organised in month folders. (From what Neville Franks has written, other views may be offered in the future).
Here’s another approach in mind mapping:
- Imagine a mind map with a central topic and several branches.
- Now imagine being able to choose any topic from any branch and rearrange the map by making that topic the central one (I think MindGenius can do that; obviously, the program actually relying on this approach as its main advantage is Personal Brain)
Now, obviously, all of the above are modern “visual” approaches, and what you are referring to are more classic “database” views. I would argue that not all data is suitable for depicting on a table.
In any case, it is true that there’s very few information managers that combine outlining with multiple database columns. You mentioned InfoQube, which is by far the most versatile, and rapidly developing. Another one is List Pro which is definitely worth a second look. I should also mention UltraRecall, though its columns can’t be viewed on the tree.
In addition, it is worth noting that “attributes” are slowly but steadily making their way to mindmapping. Both Freemind and Mind Manager support attributes for their topics. I imagine that it’s only a matter of time before someone offers the ability to view those attributes in a single sortable table.
Cheers
Alexander
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Nov 7, 2008 at 06:46 PM
Ken wrote:
>Stephen, do you find the Ecco Extension easy to work with? And, is it
>stable?
Yes, it has been easy to work with—once I figured out that I need to use Ecco Extension to start the program. That is, I had to create a shortcut to Ecco Extension, and that opens Ecco and adds the new functions—one of the chief of which is system tray support. So far I’ve found it very stable, although when I go to exit Ecco, it creates some sort of issue with a clipping program I use, and that shuts down too.
Steve Z.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Nov 8, 2008 at 12:02 AM
A friend of mine tipped me off about Emacs “org-mode” today. I was amazed! (I had taken a look at it years ago and at that time it wasn’t anything special, but it’s come a very long way.) It’s a text-based outliner mode for Emacs, with support for todos, contexts, tags, appointments, recurrences, file aggregation, *columnar data*, and multiple views including calendar, agenda, and filtered views. A couple things it does that Ecco doesn’t do include multi-state todos (e.g. undone, in progress, deferred, completed, etc.) and the ability to tentatively schedule todos. Also, it can generate iCalendar files for viewing in another application like Outlook or iCal.
Really quite impressive. The downside is that it’s meant for extremely technical users who can appreciate Emacs. But it should appeal to cross-platform users and those who like the “Zen” of working primarily in text mode. I’m going to investigate more. The website is here:
http://orgmode.org
—Chris
Posted by Hugh
Nov 8, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>The Mac world makes having different views of your PIM data easier—as many
>programs integrate with the Apple calendar application, iCal. In Circus Ponies
>Notebook you build outlines, any item of which can be a task, which can be sync’d to
>iCal, for instance. But even in Macs, having customizable columnar data is not
>common. I’m sure there are other choices, but the only one I’m aware of off the top of my
>head is OmniOutliner, but that doesn’t have a calendar application.
>
>Steve Z.
Steve
Just to add TAO Outliner, which like OmniOutliner does customisable columns but also does clones and other functionality that OO doesn’t yet: http://artec-software.com/products/neo/en_index.html.
Not to be confused with a Windows application with a similar name.
It’s easy to be critical of TAO (the UI for one is very far from from straightforward, development seems to be sporadic at best and I’ve suffered the odd freeze, though never lost any data), but once you’ve figured it out it’s very versatile. I’ve recently used it successfully to plan a book in a way that would probably have been less easy if not impossible with OO.
I hope OO 4 will provide a step forward - soon. But I’m led to believe TAO already approaches the sorts of levels of functionality possessed by old-style outliners like More and Grandview that I’m too much of an upstart to remember!
H
H
Posted by Ken
Nov 8, 2008 at 10:52 PM
Chris Thompson wrote:
>One thing I’ve
>considered is getting one of those small 9-inch netbook computers just to run Ecco
>(and perhaps a mail client)—basically the ultimate single purpose PIM.
Chris,
I had the exact same thought when the EEE PC came out w/XP installed. Now our netbook choices seem endless! I only wish there was a way to have an XP machine boot up quickly. I like DateBk on my Palm, but I believe that a netbook with Ecco would be ideal for me.
—Ken