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Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 15, 2022 at 08:48 AM
Nah, it really did (does!). People don’t realise that the underlying Numbers concept is precisely that: a gigantic blank object-oriented canvas (with no apparent limits, according to my own experimentation). I’ve already read the MacStories review, and the more I read, the more it made me smile, especially the phrase “The app is easy to use and impressively feature-rich for a new release.” There’s nothing essentially new about it – Numbers has done almost everything (possibly everything; I’ll have to make a detailed comparison) that Freeform does for years.
I was also amused by the comparison with Notes – Freeform’s DNA has much more in common with Numbers than with Notes. If you drag objects around, you soon discover that a Numbers backdrop is essentially unlimited.
But it appears that very few people use Numbers in any depth. I’ve always loved it because its whole approach to spreadsheets is so much friendlier than Excel’s.
It’s worth remarking that we’ve been using it in the business as an internal whiteboarding/brainstorming tool for quite a while. Freeform is essentially just Numbers, but by default, the blank Numbers template automatically dumps a spreadsheet object in the canvas. You can place every kind of object in there (including shapes, rich test, sketches) and just like Freeform, it’s not great on linking (although you can create links with lines, with or without arrows).
The backward step in Freeform is the lack of access to Freeform files. You can access (and collaborate on) Numbers files in iCloud anytime.
satis wrote:
>
>MadaboutDana wrote:
>
>> Apple Numbers already did all this stuff
>
>I really don’t think it did.
>
>https://www.macstories.net/reviews/freeform-leverages-the-freedom-and-flexibility-of-a-blank-canvas/
Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 15, 2022 at 04:41 PM
... in fact, I’ve just upgraded my system and have been playing with Freeform. To my very considerable amusement, the only thing Freeform does which Numbers doesn’t do is support third-party files (which can be opened directly from Freeform).
On the other hand, Numbers has a larger array of media options (including audio recording directly into the file and multiple video options). And of course supports complex spreadsheets, which Freeform doesn’t do.
You can use lines to link one object to another – not as simply as in Scapple, of course. Ironically, it’s actually a bit more fiddly in Freeform, because it lacks the “Format” panel that can be opened on the right-hand side of Numbers, but it works perfectly well.
I do like the fact you can drop more or less any kind of file into a Freeform board – that’s quite cool. And if you want a spreadsheet, you can always embed a Numbers file!
Still, it’s essentially a nice, simple app (and even supports tabs, which is always nice; Numbers does tabs as well, of course).
Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 15, 2022 at 04:58 PM
Comments in Freeform are horribly constrained. They’re a separate type of thing in Numbers – always attached to another object. That’s because you can format Numbers text boxes in many different ways, so it’s not difficult to make them look like separate comments, whereas the text box formatting options in Freeform are very limited.
Freeform also doesn’t appear to be able to access Photos (and all the multimedia in Photos) – clearly a bug, because Numbers can access everything in Photos, and is also capable of inserting Movies and Music directly from your Apple library. Mind you, you can always drag and drop the files into Freeform.
Interesting. Horses for courses, I’d say. Freeform’s a great place to store files for multiple people to access and comment on. That’s certainly very useful.
Posted by ShiJianhui
Dec 15, 2022 at 05:35 PM
Do you mean something like this?—> https://imgur.com/a/IRD6Zz1
Hiding ‘actual content’ is a default setting, you can change it.
You may find this topic interesting: https://forum.eastgate.com/t/literature-review-with-tinderbox/5721
Dellu wrote:
>Can you draw maps like this using
>Tinderbox?https://medium.com/@reorx/a-look-into-heptabases-split-writing-experience-87f9c2bfb257
>
>No, you cannot. Tinderbox hides the actual content under the
>title/folder, unless you want to write paragraphs of content on the
>Title itself; which will lead you to complicated problems, if possible
>at all.
>
>Tinderbox is good for database kind of stuff.
>
>But, for figuring out lines of argumentation, that I described at the
>beginning, there are better tools. Scapple or Moro, or Heptabase or
>scrintal let you figure of conceptual flows in a couple of minutes with
>ease so that you will use your valuable time for actual productive work.
>
>
>
Posted by steveylang
Dec 15, 2022 at 06:33 PM
I had read your comments about Numbers before, I guess I just pictured typing or inserting stuff into different cells in a grid (or something like that?)
But I finally fired up the most recent version, and yeah wow- Freeform is really just like Numbers!! ;-) I had no idea that Apple went with this new format for Numbers, where a spreadsheet is just not the file itself but just an object on a page/canvas- pretty cool! It even has Apple Pencil support on the iPad.
MadaboutDana wrote:
Nah, it really did (does!). People don’t realise that the underlying
>Numbers concept is precisely that: a gigantic blank object-oriented
>canvas (with no apparent limits, according to my own experimentation).