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Old 12-01-2012, 03:22 PM
schferk schferk is online now
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Join Date: 11-02-2010
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I

In another thread, armsys states, "Apparently you missed the answer to your oft-mentioned RM vs. UR."
Well, I don't think so, and it's not RM vs. UR, it's MM _A_N_D_ UR, but then, MM plus some scripting, be it provided by RM or by macros or your own, and it's about holding it as simple as possible since this external scripting on MM quickly gets outrageously un-handy for the "end user", by blowing-up all those coffee brakes he's forced to get whenever he wants his data updated.

(Sideline: from github.com: "VimOutliner is an outline processor with many of the same features as Grandview, More, Thinktank, Ecco, etc. Features include tree expand/collapse, tree promotion/demotion, level sensitive colors, INTEROUTLINE LINKING, and body text." (my markup) - UR does it, too, as we know - but what about simplifying the process necessary to do such a link? And what about updating such links when necessary?)

So, from a workflow pov, it's evident that anybody should do a max within a good PIM like UR, and a minimum only within additional sw that lacks even basic features, and where this absence then makes necessary (outstanding but bloated, hence the coffee brake) external scripting.

On the other hand, my new ideas for any given prob / area of a given project (and having their own MM map) have tripled, from what I got when I exclusively relied upon my outliner-only setting some months ago: As said before, it seems to be the compactness of items in lists / trees in list form that in outliners PREVENTS, more or less, new ideas coming to you for such a given subtree,

whereas to the same set of existing items, also technically in tree form (only), but spread in all directions, the "de-compacting" effect of non-bloated mm maps works often wonders.

EDIT: If you permit this allegory: It seems that the compactness of items within grouped lists (lists in textform, in outlines) blocks possible new ideas / elements / your associative thinking that makes you find new elements that'd belong here though, whilst the free space - IF there is enough free, white space that is! - within an mm map virtually attracts these new elements virtually FALLING IN PLACE THERE, just like a magnet would attract bits of iron. In order for this happening, you must see the map, hence my 2-screen set-up: Before me, the IMS, and to the left, any MM map to which I need further ideas or new elements helping to resolve the central problem. Btw, the same thing does NOT function, for me, with print-outs: the map must be backlit and seemingly await your entering data - in direct comparison, a print-out, probably because not appearing "a thing in the making" anymore, seems more or less "dead" and "unwilling" to receive new ideas, just as lists (even on screen) do. So there is certainly a big effect "white, backlit space eager to be filled-up in real-time", that cannot be replicated by a print-out, independantly of the frequence of your entering added handwritten data into the original file and print this out anew.

(EDIT STILL) Sideline: The set-up above isn't invariable: Whenever I grasp lots of clippings from the web, into my IMS, that's switched to the left, and in front of me appears my browser. But that browser, normally, toggles with the MM maps in the screen to my left, i.e. I'm working on something in my IMS, in front of my, and the browser is secondary, for looking up things, here and there (just as my other secondary tools are: file manager, calculator, dictionary) - so, secondary screen: default use, any MM map, or other uses whenever I need a screen for any applic; primal screen: IMS, or, whenever I work some time in my browser, browser and IMS are switched. But to tell you the truth, since my two screens get the browser, the IMS and the "current" MM map to hold, and I make frequent use of these secondary tools above and more... next time, I'll see that I get a mini pc (instead of my numerous notebooks), with a THREE-screen graphics card - there's always space on my right, waiting for the third screen ! (I trigger and switch all these with additional keys; if I had to do it by Alt-F4, oh my!)

Btw, such clones would not only be needed in order to replace the currently necessary (RM-style-of) "shuffling items up into the dashboards", but also in order to have cloned items in several of your "second-level maps", i.e. your working maps, one aspect of your projects playing a role in several (just otherwise more or less self-contained) contexts - for me, this seems to be the most urgent thing to implement in mm sw (and I explained above that intermap item cloning is certainly not a technical problem.

Sideline: People in mm-related fori sometimes complain about their NOT finding solutions to problems, etc., within their mm maps, and whenever they describe their maps a little bit, it becomes evident that they have NOT segregated the "difficult parts" there into new and additional "work maps" (the provisional-only term of "work map" indicating the opposition to any kind of "aggregation map" in my terminology), whilst that is the clue in mm:

You cannot expect an mm producing better-than-outlining results when you leave it cluttered and leave it a mess: One matter, one map, in order for mm to become really benefiary! "One matter" consisting of a bunch of little things / details belonging together, of course, and they even SHOULD be kept together, in a group of not more than 30, 40 items (which works for me, perhaps even 60-items maps will work for you, but then, you'd be well advised to also try not-so-crowded maps and see if those will even work better for you then). But as soon as a sub-branch in your little map will become too big, OR PROBLEMATIC !!!, make it an additional, for heaven's sake! If you don't, mm will NOT help you to get better results from your work, than you'd get from an outline.

Last edited by schferk; 12-01-2012 at 06:51 PM.
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