ConnectedText has a view called the Topic Navigator, which allows you to navigate the graph of links between notes. It’s kind of like a dynamically generated map view based only on links and ignoring containers. Is this something that has been considered for Tinderbox? It seems like it could be useful.
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I can certainly recall requesting similar (though connectedText is new to me). Up until v.5 Tinderbox had a Paths view, which had me wanting a more visual display of a per-link-type network. I think such views would help breath new life into links and link types, beyond being a link-line in maps or jump-links between $text or (exported HTML pages). It looks like CT’s Topic Navigator is essentially showing an outline (as mindmaps/concept maps essentially are).
A limit of maps is - at least to see a full link line - that all elements must be sibling notes. Big containers/maps can get unwieldy. Being able to see the link pathways though a document would be good.
I feel there are two somewhat similar views missing of a Tinderbox document:
- Akin to the suggestion above, a method to see all the things linked to/from the current item. I think the challenge is scale - how many links out from the current note does one allow (heavily-linked docs might prove difficult), and how does the view alter with change of selected item. If only N number of links out from the current note as drawn, does a selection change re-draw the view. Potentially this would benefit from a single link-type filter option.
- A view based on a single link-type showing how that (link type) path inter-connects notes (thinks: trails). Here the emphasis is less “what links to this note?” and more “how does this link type inter-connect notes and where is the corpus over/under linked?”.
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Agreed — I feel like there’s quite a lot of exciting potential there!
Yes, but the outline is dynamically generated with the selected note as the root, and all linked notes as children (and eventually all reachable notes as descendants).
Yes, a Navigator view in Tinderbox would create a map-like view where the elements are the notes reachable from the selected note, independent of the actual parent/child/sibling relationships.
I think the Roadmap is all that Tinderbox offers here, which doesn’t have the graphical element that allows you to get a visual impression of the structure of the document.
I’m not following. Could you give an example?
I’m thinking about finding notes that should be linked (and aren’t), or linked in a different way. IOW, spotting that from subject X, some people will need to visit - or be able to divert through to - subject Y. Once the hypertext grows this gets too big for a single Tinderbox map and then hard to do in one’s head across the whole doc.
By watching emergent structure/linkage it can also help with working out if new notes are needed or need to be split and re-linked (the latter a task involving lots of paper notes at present).
This might not be the need of others … but it rather segues into my PhD area so I’ll stop before I get too off-topic!
This came up on the old forum too – but I can’t seem to access it at the moment. Anyone else have this problem?
Looks like the legacy forum is offline.