Logical Link Structure

[Jedimaster]

I've been using UR for sometime now and found that the whenever an info item is linked to multiple parents, the child item will appear under each of the parent item in the data explorer pane. This looks kind of messy and confusing if a large number of parents are involved since the same child item will appear under each of the parent involved. If a child item under any parent is deleted, the other child item will remain intact in the data explorer pane even though they are one and the same item. This may not be desirable if the child item needs to be deleted for valid reasons. Of course, some may argue that the child-parent relationship is still valid for other info items and thus would like to preserve the linkages created so far.

This confusion seems to come from showing the logical links in the data explorer pane itself because logical links are not linear in nature. The data explorer pane seems to be more suited to show subtrees or sub-info items where the relationship between info items is more linear.

Would it be possible to make it such that logical links do not appear in the data explorer pane and limiting these types of links to the child/parent items pane? Then, the only way to see the relationship is through these two panes. Of course, the structure will behave more like hyperlinks but now the links point to info items itself rather than within info items as in the case with hyperlinks (I am aware of the ongoing discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of logical-linking vs hyperlinking). This structure also appears to be neater and simpler to understand.

I know we would like to structure our information so that we can cross link items in such a way that does not rely on the location of the info items but I don't think this can be done properly in the data explorer pane. We can do this instead by using the child items pane and parent items pane.

[Will Eatherton]

I don't think I would like it if I couldn't see children in the data explorer pane since I use that pane quite heavily and don't think of nodes with multiple parents as any different from nodes with 1 parent (maybe it is the couple years using personal brain).

I understand what you are saying though, maybe if the default delete stayed as simply removing the logical link, but if there could be an additional right-click option to delete the child from all parents that would provide the desired flexiblity.

[kevina]

I think I understand what you want, but I don't understand why you would want it or what the term "linear" means in your post.

One thing to be aware of is that logical links are all equal (there is no notion of primary or secondary links). I am guessing that you want the first "instance" of an Info Item be primary (and always show in the Data Explorer Pane), and consider Logical Links as secondary (and only show in the Child Items Pane) which isn't how Ultra Recall works (correct me if I've misunderstood your suggestion).

Another issue that comes to mind in doing what you suggest is that logically linked Info Items can be parents of other Info Items (both singly and logically linked themselves)... If Logically Linked children weren't displayed in the Data Explorer and only the Child Items Pane, you would have to navigate or "drill down" in the Child Items Pane, but the Data Explorer would become "disconnected" because the Logically Linked parent of the displayed Info Items in the Child Items Pane wouldn't be displayed there.

I assume we are missing something about your post/suggestion because the whole concept of Logical Linking from our perspective was that multi-linked Info Items would show up in multiple places...

Please elaborate (perhaps with a diagram with some example data) to demonstrate exactly what you are proposing, why it is needed (and useful to a wide range of users) and enough implementation details to show it can be an intuitive feature...

To respond the second post in this thread, the default delete action is to remove the logical link (as you mentioned), and Ctrl+Shift+Delete will permanently delete all Logical Links of the selected Info Items, as requested.

[Jedimaster]

Yes, you are right in that I am suggesting that only the first instance of an info item be primary and always shown in the Data Explorer Pane and logical links to be excluded from the Data Explorer Pane. Originally, one of the reasons why I find such a layout to be "cleaner" was that the deletion of an info item would result in it being taken of the Data Explorer Pane and there would be no more copies of it lying around. But then, since Ctrl+Shift+Delete does this, part of my impetus for suggesting such a layout has been removed. Nonetheless, I still feel that showing only the primary instance in the Data Explorer Pane will make UR more intuitive to use.

Consider the following layout in the Data Explorer Pane under the current structure:

Root
|
|___Item1___Item5
|
|___Item2___Item3___Item4
| |___Item5
|
|___Item3___Item4
| |___Item5
|
|___Item4

I have assumed that there is such a thing as primary and secondary links. Item5 is a sub-tem of Item1 and is assumed to be the first instance. Excluding secondary links from the Data Explorer Pane will result in the following structure:

Root
|
|___Item1___Item5
|
|___Item2
|
|___Item3
|
|___Item4

To see the logical links from Item2, click on Item2 on the Data Explorer Pane and Item3 will be shown only in the Child Item Pane. Clicking on Item3 in the Child Item Pane will also cause the corresponding first instance of Item3 to be shown or highlighted in the Data Explorer Pane. This way, the location of Item3 can be seen in the Data Explorer Pane.

The combined use of the Child Item Pane, Parent Item Pane and Data Explorer Pane should overcome the problem of getting "lost" due to drilling up and down repeatedly. The Data Explorer Pane serves to show the location of the selected child or parent item.

In my opinion, the above arrangement does look neater and more intuitive to use now that the use of child/parent linkage has a more wiki feel to it.

Please note that I'm not criticising UR in any way. I feel that it is one of the best info managers around (if not THE best) and I've even bought a license for it last week. The above is just my personal view.

[PureMoxie]

If anything like that were ever done, it would need to be a user option. I personally like having the links appear in the data explorer. I think of each node in the tree as a "collection point," and I want to see what's in there simply be expanding the node.

But perhaps there are options that can be explored with only showing different subsets of the data explorer at once; I don't know.

[tagward]

The ability to logically link data into as many nodes as I wish is the very reason I chose Ultra Recall from the multitude of ifomation management tools availble, if that capability were remove I would have to reconsider using it.