Hi Daly,
As is my English, but posting regularly in the www helps, at least for writing (and some sort of thinking even)... (And again at the end...)
Hi Everyone,
I would like to clarify that my above "take it or leave it" is NOT to be seen as my words being evangelical, but if I seem bitter here and there, it's for the absence of real discussion, here and in other forums. That is to say, to survive in a world getting more and more ferocious for almost everybody, in order to survive you need a "vision", or just call it a smart positioning of your product on the market.
A little here and a little there isn't sufficient anymore, and the prominent places are taken, by the big players. Thus, "minor" players (= by their actual stamina) must see that they find an appeal that goes ways beyond their select market penetration - AS and IS being perfect examples of how to cut a (once) not-even-so-select but rather comfortable market penetration in pieces, on purpose!
And thus, what every such program needs today, is an "integral philosophy", a sort of "rounded-up image", what do you call it in English, a "perfect shape"? coherent gestalt? You see what I mean.
And in order to build up such a gestalt, instead of a bunch of dispersed features clutter, you normally would use a sort of "learning by thinking in common", a sort of "this is good, but here's even better", and of "yeah, but did you bear in mind that...", and of "oh, I overlooked this, but this gave me the idea to even betters yours, here's how", etc., etc. In this way, a team - and there are some quite smart people around here and on other forums -
could shape in common the real thing.
Whereas in practice, I'm quite monologuing, and past objections were poor, weren't aimed at topping my ideas, nor at make me rethinking on them, but just at discarding them in an all-embracing, summery way... and have stopped since long altogether.
It's in this state of affairs that I say, take it or leave it when no integrative efforts of others are present: In the absence of something better, my "philosophy" displayed here is the best we've got, when in fact I had thought to create a real discussion going top-down and from the minor details up to top again.
Thus, what I'd like to express is not that I am right in my proposals, down to the last details, nor when designing the global sketches; what I want to say is, in the absence of something better, i.e. a group creation, we are well advised to do with we've got, my monologues, since they are 100 p.c. better than wishful thinking that with cluttering features together from which some will appeal to some, and others to other people, MI will become a "great" program, and the non-great programs seem to be doomed in the medium term.
And BTW, let's put it frankly, when hoping to get something else, better, will not produce this other thing, it's always true that working together on this one doesn't produce any "visible" financial benefit to us, and this is a major aspect in the absence of real participation in such a brainstorming...
whereas real work groups are (either political, religious, or) paid for this... but those have their specialised software.
Thus, all those people out there, crying out for cloud applics for "workgrouping", wish in their heart that non-commercial work-groups (= hence the inability for them to pay for specialised, high-brow softwares for this) might succeed, where in fact, when given the occasion to join one, they defect.
That's the truth, folks, and that explains my bitterness shining through here and there, but be assured, if Petko or anyone wants more details, explainations or better solutions to this or that, I'd be GLAD to rethink what I've proned in my about 120 posts here up to now.
The gospel is to be taken as such; my thoughts on information management for independents and little businesses are subject to discussion, anytime. But let's be specific. Let's work hard. Let's avoid another "nightmare", as AS's Wade splendidly put it.
And again, Hi Daly,
UR cannot rely on its columns, UR will have them soon.
I'm not out to (try unsuccessfully to) foul-mouth Neville, it's just that he must got plenty of money, so that he could produce everything he would like to realize... but then, again he was on sale on bitsdujour some weeks ago; again, I tried out Surfulater; again, I could not do anything with it; again, I thought, well, if really I needed to save wep pages, I'd use WebResearch for it, but not this thing there I really hate in its actual state; seems to be sort of a 3-panes outliner, when in fact I would be glad to have a 3-panes outliner, the first pane being the projects, the second one holding together hundreds of items, and the third one containing the item contents - but if I understand it well, Surf is one of those programs who awkwardly try to put a max of items in the third pane, making the saving of the first pane. In short, the panes philosophy is terrible, in my opinion, with endless clutter in the pane in which I'd expect the contents, and with way too much screen real estate for the first pane then since "everything" is in the second, which by this replaces the "normal-first" one.
There is another, even more ugly 3-pane outliner created by a (prominent) German law professor, Fritjof Haft, google for "haft outliner" - such programs are terrible (and will never really succeed as long as they stuck with their weird philosophy).
IMPORTANT
BTW, ANY outliner needs two more panes, for projects, and for recently visited items... and perhaps even for recently visited trees / tabs. Those tabs could easily replace, by toggle, the search pane there, on the right side of the screen, the 3 panes on top of the others: projects, trees, items, in various lengths as the user wants them to have, that's how real work goes, not in fervently searching an invisible "recently visited items" list, triggering the same command 5, 8, 12 times, as a blind man, each time needing to check first, was this the tree / item I wanted to go back to?!
NOW FOR ADM
Since I cannot get this mythological program, I wondered if it is legal (in US, in EU) to use a formerly "illegal" copy since it's abandonware?! For scientific use perhaps? For re-engineering purposes? Or has the owner of a program the right to bury it altogether? For how long then? For 15 years perhaps, since even patents fall into public domain after 15 years?
ADM-that-cannot-be-found-anywhere, what is it good for? Perhaps, some formerly illegal copies of its manual should be allowed to consult in the web? Parents don't have the right to bury their children... but developers having got this right with respect to their software... even if it's the most ingenious and brilliant software of its kind?!
RE different sets of columns for sub-topics.
Since UR is (for the time being) the all-your-stuff-in-one-tree philosophy (i.e. perhaps 3 or 4 trees in real for all your things, as opposed to my 200-plus MI trees, and I'm continuing to cut down...), perhaps they will get it, but again (we spoke about this feature), in my opinion, it would clutter even more, when in fact the smart combination of sub-groups of info, in various ways, seems to be the ONLY way to resolve information management problems one and for all - UR might be great for somebody's stuff of 1 GB... but how to scale it for 100 or 1,000 people?!
And let's put it bluntly: I FEAR THIS UR's upcoming abilities since MI is not so strong in them as I wish it to be!
As said above, UR is "better" in many things than MI is; so MI must differenciate itself from the all-in-one-file philosophy of UR, in order to avoid direct comparison, in which it would perhaps lose, in the opinion of many people - and in fact, that's fact even today, cf. UR forum participants' numbers and MI's ones.
But as explained by me in this forum, MI's philosphy - if it is a philosophy, a "vision", and if not, let's make it one! - IS SCALABLE... UR's is not.
This is the core sentence of all my 120 postings here. MI must show excellence for people who fraction their info, then combine it in every which way; it's its only way to success, as its competitors do not have engaged in this way yet... at least, they don't show any sign to be engaged in scalable solutions where every info item is there at any place you want it... and in a synched state.
Hence the absolute need for synched loading of many different topics = MI files, AND of synching even items of other topics, as explained before.
As MI, UR has nothing for those needs, as have all competitors I know (= not even Kühn's cherished ConnectedText), so this could be MI's royal way to success: It would be the first and premier software where lawyers and other people with money to spend, but with needs to be fulfilled before they'll spend anything on such a program, can separate their (1,000 or more) cases into different files AND have commun info handy with every such file - such a system is scaleable into whatever you want.
Now compare with UR - theoretically, they could all this do, as MI could do it! But they are in their big file containing it all state of mind...
And the same with the big contenders. Everything I said here with respect to MI's potential success, they could adopt, but at this time, nobody seems willing to do the real work this would imply.
That's Petko's chance, and not giving way to wishes like "I would like to do this with it" and somebody elses, "Could I pay some dollars in order for you to realize my wishes first?" NO PUN INTENDED, in no direction.
But MI or any other software of its kinds needs a VISION to succeed.
BTW, Scriv has one, a tremendous one... and as we all know, they're Windows now...
And there's always InfoQube, in some sort of a years-long waiting stage...
EN has the mass appeal, I gave a vision for a more select contender.
But appeal to people "for me it's sufficient", be them otherwise erudite or not, is a too select one as a vision in order to survive among the wings of this new world's errant sharks.