Note Blizzard

Latte And Now For That Latte
41

Ha, well Chinese is quite a bit more sophisticated than a stop sign or a hospital sign—and it’s also quite a bit more difficult to learn. :slight_smile: In that analogy of language to UI, Chinese would be like Cubase or something that does in fact build logical, complex systems out of graphical components. It’s also quite a bit to learn how to use.

And Hugh, I think a graphical way of doing stuff would be fantastic! The great thing is that Tinderbox already has a wonderful way of describing complex systems: it’s own map! If attributes and temporary states could be expressed as nodes on a map, with operators as links, there could be a graphical way of setting up “the wiring”. It wouldn’t be like in EagleFiler where you select from 10 things and choose from 4 things and then type in “hospital”, but it would actually map to a reasonable degree, Tb’s actual capabilities. Like Cubase though, it wouldn’t be something you could learn overnight. I’m not opposed to some way of doing things graphically—but would be strongly opposed to it as a replacement.

Whether that is something a single developer could tackle, I don’t know, it seems like a lot to me. Describing Tinderbox itself, visually, not just the information you put into it, would be almost as big a job as coding Tinderbox, it would seem to me.

I think Tinderbox does have a broader appeal than Maya, though, too. It to a degree has a level of specialisation that is only found in programs like Maya, but I wouldn’t quite put it to that degree. So I agree with you on that point, that it appeals to a wide audience. Lots of us have notes, and lots of us desire to do more with those notes, yes, and there aren’t many programs in between Tb’s all-in approach and a sea of programs that are barely more capable than Finder+Spotlight for that.

42

Not “replace” – instead, “augment”?

43

Much better word. Even for a coder such as myself, visualisations of data flow can be awfully useful. If there were a way to somehow see what the above chunk of code did, and more importantly, how it fit in with everything else that was going on in the Tinderbox document, that would really be something cool. If all of this was real time, showing you which notes were getting trapped by which queries and where their data went, it would be a powerful meta-tool for analysis as well as a good entry point to taking Tb to the next level. Pity it’s probably too much work though. :slight_smile:

44

Something just occured to me … (that actually does happen from time to time).

There are two kinds of notes in my life:

  1. Every day notes: shopping lists, passwords, ticket ref numbers, recepies etc.
  2. Creative notes: Ideas for stories, notes on projects, bits of dialogue etc.

And they don’t mix well.

Now, kind 1) is irrelevant. I can put those into Evernote or some other app. Whatever.

Kind 2) - the creative notes - need a better home. This is what I am looking for.
My creative notes may look like this:

  • Write novel about giant squid
  • Squid is autistic
  • “I don’t love you. I never loved you”
  • Check names in chapter 23
  • Check title with editor

These notes have some characteristics:

They are mostly text
Some are comments to existing stuff
Some are input for parts of a project
Some are ideas for a project
Some are just … random thoughts that I don’t know what to do with yet
Some are tasks or to dos
Some belong to more than one project
You go back to them and work on them
You sometimes group them
You sometimes arrange them in a hierarchy

… etc. etc.

Notes of this sort tend to have a non-committal or playful feel. You don’t want to commit them to too much structure just yet. Or you want to be able to go back to their original state and try again.

Well… What occurred to me is that Scrivener already provides some of what I need in the form of Scratchpad. Scratchpad allows me to have project independent notes and to copy them to and from the scratchpad.

Scratchpad does not allow me to group my notes very much (except by having different Scratchpad Files). One might hope for further development of Scratchpad in the future. (Tags? Outline feature? Folders?)

What would be really great would be to able to interact with Scratchpad files from mobile devices like iPads and iPhones. Then I could do stuff on the road and have it instantly available when I open Scrivener on my mac. Then I could delegate them to the relevant project(s) when needed. That would be cool.

(I saw a post somewhere about someone wanting to make an iPad version of Scrivener. But I don’t need that - I just need access to Scratchpad. That would be insanely great.)

Maybe it is already possible?

Cheers
Erik

PS: Tinderbox - still playing around with it. The learning curve reminds me of L’Alpe d’Huez! You have to figure everything out from the bottom. For instance, how do I make a flattened map view of a deep hierarchical structure of notes? I have a feeling it might be possible - but also that it would require some intelligent code work - ?

45

If I understand correctly what you want to do, this should be pretty easy. Just create an agent that selects all the notes, then open that agent as a map view. Your original notes remain in the structure you’ve created, but you’re viewing aliases in the agent.

Steve

46

Yeah - I tried that yesterday, but then the notes are locked in place. If I move them, Tinderbox moves them back ??

47

I think there’s been discussion of what you could call “flat maps” on the Tbx forum. If not, as you’ve discovered, Mark Anderson is quick to help. As Steve says, aliases will be involved.

48

That’s a very good observation. I sort of slowly came to the same view. I also noted that the less formatting, pictures or fancy stuff I add to type 2 notes, the more useful they are over time. And (which, I know, nobody wants to hear): If I can bring myself to spend just 10 to 30 extra seconds to tidy up the note, then I’m much more likely to look at it again at a later point.

I’m not trying to push my app here (well, it’s free anyway), but just want to emphasise again that SlipBox is specifically designed for type 1 notes: Important notes. Notes you care about. (It works for type 2 notes as well, but that’s just a convenient extra.) BTW, if you have ideas on this overall process, I’m always keen on hearing ideas on how improve SlipBox for just this purpose!

49

You have to “freeze” the agent. Open the agent configuration and set its priority to “Off”. It will get a hollow icon bar in the outline when it is frozen. Now it is effectively just an ordinary container until you switch it back on.

A good agent query for this kind of thing is:

Name != "" & OutlineDepth >= 2

The last part after and including the ampersand can be removed if you want to match everything. The way this is set up here, it will ignore top-level items.

Oh, and welcome to the boards, Maestro SlipBox. :slight_smile: I’ve used your app; it is indeed good for that “type 1” type stuff. If you’ve ever read my ramblings around here on the topic of notes and archival, you’ll know I completely agree with you on the concept of keeping your creative notes free of glitter and taking a few seconds to make sure they are tidy and set up in a way that will make them easy to find in five years.

50

ahem … for those of us who have never/will never/don’t want to learn how to write a line of code, i STILL recommend the “sorter’s inbox” (had to look in the services menu to get its name) that comes gratis with devonthink.

i have the pro office version of dt, and i’m not sure if the other versions have the sorter’s inbox, but frankly, i don’t see why i would need any other note taker on any of my macs. it will accept just about any kind of file, including simple rtf of my own devising. i can send notes to a global inbox for later filing, or sort them into whatever database i want.

i have three dt databases, one of which is a personal database where i keep records for my business, correspondence, receipts, etc. each of these databases has a notes file. it’s just presto-chango to put things into the inbox, or to file them elsewhere. making a note to myself is as easy as typing.

i mentioned earlier that the FREE note deal on my iphone is good for making short notes; not long complex things, but reminders that i can act on later. it syncs painlessly into my mail application where i can do … whatever … with the note later.

for more involved notes, or for dictation for my office, i use a small digital recorder that i carry in my purse and dragon naturally speaking. this IS expensive, at least at the outset, and it requires training the software and kind of working through the initial kinks in the process. but once that’s all done, it doesn’t cost anything else, and it allows me to input everything from correspondence and records updates for my office to pages of actual writing; all while i’m driving or peddling on my elliptical or waiting for some idiot at a meeting to shut up so i can go home.

as for tinderbox: i own it, and i keep trying to use it. but whatever i try, it always seems that scrivener or devonthink or now aeon timeline do it easier and better. for those of you who love tb, i know; you LOVE it. but for me, it seems kind of like trying to build a watch when all i really want is to know how long i have to wait before it’s time for lunch.

51

With recent versions of Tinderbox you no longer have to “freeze” the agent. Set $CleanupAction to “none.” Saw that today in Mark Anderson’s response to Barfoed.

Tinderbox, SlipBox, DEVONthink, and of course Scrivener–all fantastic tools, truly an embarrassment of riches!

52

Thanks for that; I’m still not up to speed on post 5.5 as I haven’t had as much time to keep up with new changes since the Scrivener prep and post-release. I’ll have to play with that and see how it works in practice.

53

@AmberV:
Yeah, I used the

$CleanupAction=none

as suggested by Mark Anderson. It works quite well.

@SlipboxMeister, AmberV
I agree with you both - notes should be kept simple.

But … everybody seems to ignore my notion that Scrivener’s Scratchpad files should be accessible from mobile devices?

Cheers
Erik

ps: Tinderbox keeps growing on me even though I have yet to learn many basic things. It has already proven very useful. But it is not useful for taking notes :slight_smile:

54

No, not ignored at all, Erik. It sounds sensible to me (I’m dead keen on easy in-boxes) and was in fact suggested by someone very soon after 2.0 was released, IIRC. But for myself I’m holding back on any suggestions until KB and his team have had time to let 2.0 bed down and to enjoy some post-launch R&R…

55

That’s why this thread is in the “And Now For That Latte” part of the world :wink:
And I am so impressed with the work of KB and his gang. I have used Scrivener 2.0 pretty heavily since it was released (I’ve met two deadlines for novel translations and done two serious plot reworks for my own work) - and I’ve only discovered one bug (I fear) and one quirk in the program.

This note thread is interesting for several reasons. It has helped me discover Tinderbox, DevonThink, EagleFiler and other applications I either didn’t know or didn’t really get; it has shown how differently people view creative work flows …

And it has - once more - revealed to me why I like Scrivener so much: Scrivener lets me write. Sometimes I wish it could do this or that specific task that it cannot, but that never shakes my world. Scrivener lets me write. It puts me at ease in that proces. Writing is hard. Scrivener isn’t hard. It’s just there.

I want the same for my creative notes.

56

Word. I agree with this and I’m using the Windows Beta, although I did previously have access to 1.5
4 mac version.

57

just a quick follow up. i tried simple note. it’s great! i’ll be using it for my notes on my iphone from now on. the sync with scrivener is the best!

i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: 2.0 (now 2.01) is a work of art.

thanks for the idea about simple note and for this grrrrrreattttt software !!

58

rebecca, thanks to your posts I got re-acquainted with DTP’s sorter. I do throw stuff inside all the time, but I totally ignore its quick-note function, scribbling blissfully in Notational Velocity. But now I’m thinking, what the heck am I doing, scattering info all over the place? There’s stuff in DTP, there’s more stuff in Notational Velocity, and of course there’s yet more in Scriv’s research folders… Heck, some STUFF is still stuck in Surfulater (Windows), and needs exporting to the Mac side… And I’ve got tons of PDFs in the folder system, just waiting for me to tag them and decide if DTP should index them or import them. Seriously, I’m suffering from info overload. No centralization. No Law & Order! :open_mouth: Maybe I should start by writing notes in DTP’s sorter. And get everything into DTP. Wishful thinking… :cry:

59

dtp is one of the two or three softwares that i use almost constantly. when it comes to vacuuming up info and then spitting it back out when you need it, it’s the best.

btw, i sent your cucumber video to several of my friends (all female) they said … well … it’s not repeatable here. let’s just say they thought it was a hoot. thanks for the laugh

60

:smiley: …LOL rebecca, that cucumber just begged to be shared!