random links pane - please

[wordmuse]

Hi,

I like the parent-child related windows.

But there's a missing window. I need/want a related window.

When I link one item in the Data Explorer to another, I'm not establishing a parent child relationship. I'm saying that there's an ad-hoc connection - and that connections should read both ways - from one to the other and back again.

The problem with the parent child relationship in this context is that clicking one doesn't necessarily show up in the related window I happen to be looking at.

So what I really want is - Parent pane, Child pane and Random Links pane.

Does this make sense or should I elaborate further?

Regards,
Bal

[zargron]

I think the linking in UR is really cool and would like to understand further what you mean. How are you "random" linking in the "Data Explorer" window and NOT creating a parent-child relationship? Sure, your intention might be to create an "ad-hoc" connection, however, how are you avoiding it being parent child? I presume you are using "logical" linking?

I'm relatively new to UR so apologise in advance if I'm well off the beaten track.

[wordmuse]

Hi Zargon,

Thanks for the question.

Think of it this way: doorways.

You go from your living room to your bedroom. Which one is the parent and which is the child? Neither, right? And if you're in the bedroom, you'd like to be able to go back to the living room right?

Alternatively, you might also want to go down the hall to the bathroom. Again - which is parent and which is child? Doesn't make sense, right?

OK - so...

Same thing with URP3. I create links between items, perhaps randomly. I want these links to be two-way. If an item is related to another, then that other item is related to the first one. I can simply look in my "related items pane" and not have to concern myself with whether I'm dealing with a parent-child relationship. Sometimes such a relationship matters to me; oftentimes it doesn't.

I don't want to get rid of the parent or child panes. I want an additional non-hierarchical view.

There used to be a product called IZE that provided this and I'd forgotten all about it till I saw a modern rendition in MyBase. Seems to me that if you can create a hierarchic relationship you should be able to show a non-hierarchical view, which, after all, encompasses less information than a hierarchical view.

I welcome additional thoughts on this.

Regards,
Bal

[zargron]

OK - if I've digested your comments correctly, I reckon I've grappled with this situation several times in the past. In normative terms, for a particular "entity", I've created a "relationship" table and a "relationship type" table. Any "entity" can have any "type" of relationship with any other entity. Furthermore, setting the relationship in one direction can optionally (usually) automatically establish the appropriate relationship in the opposite direction, eg. setting "item A belonging to assembly Y" implies that "assembly Y has a sub-item A".

Perhaps in UR, when logically linking, users could optionally establish the nature of the outward and inward relationship. The "Item Parents" pane could be replaced with a "Related Items" pane. If the user NEVER availed themselves of the facility to establish the nature of the relationship, then all entries would always say "Item title - Parent", eg:
"JOB 5985 : Parent"

If however the nature of the relationship was used from time to time, then you would get something like:
"JOB 5985 : Parent"
"Part A : Sub-Item"
"Part B : Sub-Item"
"Frank : Primary Technician"

Pretty Rolls Royce functionality being proposed and of course I humbly invite criticism since I've just rattled this off without thinking about it all that hard...

[quant]

Originally posted by wordmuse
I don't want to get rid of the parent or child panes. I want an additional non-hierarchical view.

I think this was suggested before. What it basically means, is that instead of Data explore "Tree", we'd have Data Explorer "Graph". In graph theory, you can have directed connections, this is "parent-child" relation, but also undirected connection, which would serve exactly what you're asking for ...

I sure would love this, especially if the Graph could be visualized (ie. instead of Data explorer tree, we could see graph), that would be sth like TheBrain ...

[wordmuse]

Hi -

Thanks for the clarification. I recall the previous discussions... Just didn't connect them with what I suggested here.

As long as the interface for the links is clean and easy to navigate, I'm not partial to one mode of representation over another. It's the getting around and navigating synaptically that interests me.

Regards,
Bal

[zargron]

What's the priority? Perhaps we ask for the fundamental architecture as V1 of this "undirectional" connection facility with fairly primitive navigation. Once users have implemented it using real life data, they contribute to ideas for the next version (V2), which has a first cut at a more powerful graphical navigation interface. Then a V3 could be released that polishes it all up once users have had experience with V1 & V2.

[quant]

Originally posted by zargron
What's the priority? Perhaps we ask for the fundamental architecture as V1 of this "undirectional" connection facility with fairly primitive navigation. Once users have implemented it using real life data, they contribute to ideas for the next version (V2), which has a first cut at a more powerful graphical navigation interface. Then a V3 could be released that polishes it all up once users have had experience with V1 & V2.

fine with me
The third pane for "undirectional connection" (first and second are parent and child panes), as wordmuse suggested, could be V1 ...

I suppose tree data explorer would be preferable navigation for a long time, but if user could optionally switch to "graph view" that would be nice. Already the fact that item can have more than one parent means that tree structure is not enough to display this properly and user needs to have parents pane open to have the full picture.

If the undirectional links are supported, user will need to have open two additional panes apart from data explorer tree pane to see everything, ie THREE panes to see everything, as opposed to just ONE pane for data explorer graph.

I know that displaying graph in such a way that it doesn't look messy is not an easy task, but if at any point only one level or two level connections (this could be customizable) are displayed, user might have very good "local" picture of his/her data structure. In fact, there are many sites now that use self-organizing maps, I'm sure there must be an algorithm or maybe a code as well for it, sth like this
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html (try typing UltraRecall for example)
or as used in http://www.connectedtext.com/Image/sc2.jpg
or http://www.google.com/ig/cache/5f/8e...68e7325256.png or TheBrain ...

Any ideas, comments?

[zargron]

WOW - cheers quant for the heads up on that TouchGraph stuff - that's amazing.

I thought of a few things after looking at the navigator in ConnectedText...

Introduce a "Connections" pane:
- Allow any item to optionally have a connections view.
- Once an item is selected, its connections view becomes active in the "Connections" pane.
- Allow drag+drop items from existing panes to the "Connections" pane.
- Allow move items around and resize.
- Allow flexibly link from any item to any item.
- Perhaps the nature of each relationship (or link) can be described / defined?

With "Item Parents" pane:
- Conceptually retain the "Item Parents" pane in UR for all the usual reasons.
- Enhance pane to optionally show all parents and/or all connections.
(Provides clear flat view of "all" associations for selected item.)
- I guess the "Item Parents" pane would be renamed?

To start with:
- Allow printing of connections view with standard footer/header
> optionally include note (of selected item only) below the connections view
> ie. this note might describe the selected connections
- Allow connections view to be exported to graphics file.
- Don't worry about any 3D stuff in the Connections pane.
> perhaps allow font formatting & box color?
- Don't worry about any other fancy data import/export.
- Don't introduce item insert or delete in the connections pane:
> the existing item manipulation is rich enough.
> encourage users to focus on classification & visualisation of existing items/ideas

Cheers.

[Hilary]

I like the sound of the 'connections' pane!

I came over to the suggestions forum because I've got in the habit of using text links within items. I like the ease of dragging an item from the tree pane into the text pane, and having a link appear there. I was thinking I'd like to view a list of incoming and outgoing links for each item, but the 'connections pane' idea is more elegant. It'd be good for these text links to be included there automatically as a two-way association.

[zargron]

Giday Hilary,

...I like the ease of dragging an item from the tree pane into the text pane, and having a link appear there ... It'd be good for these text links to be included there automatically as a two-way association.

Interesting - as you commented - we already drag items to the Item Details Pane to establish or capture a rudimentary item association / relationships / connections type of view. In one of my earlier posts i suggested the introduction of new Connections pane. I was thinking along the lines of another separate pane. However, a couple of ideas come to mind from your post:

First of all. Perhaps a Y/N system level item attribute is introduced that determines whether an item has a connections view. Then:

(Idea 1) This new attribute determines whether the Item Details Pane acts as a rich text editor OR a connections editor.

(Idea 2) This new attribute determines whether any tabs appear at the top of the Item Details Pane. With "Connections=NO", there is no tab. In other words, UR behaves as it does now. With "Connections=YES", two tabs appear titled Text and Connections. Obviously you click each of these tabs to show either the item text or connections view.

Just food for thought. Sounds a bit silly when I read it back through but I'll post anyway.

[Hilary]

Isn't it fun to play round with ideas when we're not responsible for implementing them?

I don't want to lose rich text editing for the sake of showing connections. I want both; I'm greedy that way. So I'd like my connections in a separate pane. Maybe the 'child items' and 'parent items' views could evolve into a more complete 'connections' view?

There are so many ways in UR to connect and associate items. Parent/child on the tree; value of specific attributes; shared user-defined keywords; text links. How to make it possible to get an overview of all of these, without having a list half a mile long? And all on an obstinately two-dimensional screen?

[quant]

Originally posted by Hilary
.... And all on an obstinately two-dimensional screen?

but one can display 3d-graphs on 2d-screen,
http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=173&lang=2
http://servus.itn.liu.se/courses/TNM048/ref/graph.htm

[zargron]

Good links quant - thanks for those.
Although i'm further away than ever before from knowing what sort of representation i'd prefer to see in UR!
Somebody else please just make a decision and Kinook can prepare to implement...

[quant]

Originally posted by zargron
Good links quant - thanks for those.
Although i'm further away than ever before from knowing what sort of representation i'd prefer to see in UR!
Somebody else please just make a decision and Kinook can prepare to implement...

if I were Kinook, this would be my decision

- I'd buy Tom Saweyr MFC code:
http://www.tomsawyer.com/tsv/tsv.mfc.php

If offers static, but various layouts of graphs (I think even TheBrain offers only two of them).
- Incorporate the library into new Graph view pane, have a look at examples of circular, hierarchical, orthogonal, symmetric and tree layout of the same graph: