Difference between DT and Tinderbox?

DEVONthink Scenarios
21

Thanks! I now feel as if I have at least some insight into TB’s appeal. Frankly, the way it came from Classic to X with interface asolutely unchanged made me wonder, as it does in all such cases, whether the emphasis is on development–or on selling software.

Still–and I have ticked off any number of men by saying so–isn’t the process of writing the way those little smart agents meet up in the brain / show up on the page? It is for me, as a woman. it’s so integral, that sense of discovery, the connections that appear in the process of the work–never mind the ones the writer never makes, but readers do–isn’t this what writing is? I know that this is so for the, er, female, or intuitive [insert whatever description] right brain. Initially, way back, oh, maybe a year ago (how long is that in internet time?) that seemed to need pointing out.

I daresay Devonthink is never going to be like Tinderbox–these people are a stubborn lot–but perhaps you’ll find a way to integrate a mind-mapping app with DT, and let us all know?

Zo

22

Hi, Connie:

I do love that sense of discovery, when connnections not previously seen come togehter.

Personnaly, I don’t get much from mind maps. In fact, my brain goes numb when I see one of those spiderweb graphic thingies, especially the ones that can be grabbed and moved around. I suppose I’m more a verbal and abstract than a visual type. Which is not meant to put down visualization, by the way. :slight_smile: I tend to follow trails of connection using See Also and Words, which I find very powerful.

But Christian has hinted in the past that some visualization tricks may eventually make it into DT and/or DT Pro. Perhaps even I can learn to use them. :slight_smile:

By the way, who’s more stubborn? The Tinderbox people, or the DEVONtechnologies people?

23

Me too! Geesh, I was just trying to be encouraging. Though I’ve had interesting results “clustering” or “mind-mapping” with a big sheet of newprint and a crayon, for some reason dragging the spiderweb graphic thingies around a computer screen made me feel like a horse’s ass. Just between you and me.

Well there you go! I’ve done that too, just happen to be in a drag and drop phase.

He didn’t! Maybe it was the move? Does Eric know about this?

Well, Bill, I tell ya, there’s cutting edge stubborn, and there’s OS 7.6.1 stubborn. I think I’ll stick with the former.

p.s. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, after the introduction of DT Widgets. Next thing you know: Skins!

24

I need to clarify/correct something:

  • Tinderbox manages notes, not ‘data’ in the sense that DevonThink does.

  • Tinderbox is an XML based outliner on steroids with a couple of smart features but with limited OS integration (services and applescript for example) and limited input/output options other than (text and html primarily). It also can be a blog editor and RSS reader.

  • Tinderbox expects the user to get into ‘scripting’ and messing under the hood in order to do clever stuff, but ultimately its a hypertext writing environment (testimony to the developer’s background and interests).

  • DevonThink is a database, a personal information manager. It can deal with many media types and import export from many.

  • If you collect podcasts, PDFs, web pages, RTFs etc etc… AND want to find them, display them, manage them, search them, relate them, then Dthink is for you. You can also use Dthink to read RSS feeds.

  • You can write inside Dthink too if you want, but it might be better to use something else as a compliment that specialises in outlining and lets you write.

As discussed in other threads you WILL need a combination of tools - at least 2

  1. An outliner/writer like TinderBox, OmniOutliner, Hog Bay Notebook, Circus pony notes, Devon notes?, Mellel etc that suits your style and needs. These are purpose built, fast and easily portable (small files).
  2. AND DevonThink to manage and ‘farm’ all your data, references, media and so on (complimented by Spotlight on OSX 10.4)

Run each together and you have something quite efficient. I use Omnioutliner/HogBayNotebook which integrate wonderfully with Dthink (try dragging outlines and notes straight into Dthink!).

The main thing I’d like with Dthink is the visual mapping view we’ve been discussing, but there has been a misinterpretation of “map”. Im not talking about a visualisation, or just simply a ‘map’ of the Dthink database like so many dataViz and infoViz systems out there, that would be of limited use if any in this context. Im referring to another way to search and organise the data on top of whats there, not limited to hierarchical lists or the outline format in text, and the ability to move between these views yet still conduct the same tasks in either. I bet even those who feel they can do without a visual approach would find occasion to use it depending on the task… if not come to rely upon it.

This flexibility is not easy to create and would be a major task for the Dthink team of course as has been stated somewhere else in these forums. There would be little to gain by simply grafting a simple map-visualisation on top of whats there - just ‘candy for the eyes’. It would need functional purpose, it would need to assist in the process of moving the data around, categorising, meta-tagging, searching and so on.

Think back to the original transition from the graphical interface on computers from text-based interfaces and the advance that represented in our use of the computer. Reflect on how much we rely on (and take for granted) the ability to drag, drop, create folders and manipulate data on a Desktop - a metaphor and visualisation, a map of our hard drive! So we already visualise our data to make managing our ‘stuff’ easier.

Its not just a visual image of my Dthink database that I want in order to tell me whats there, Im proposing a complimentary alternative graphical interface for manipulating my data. Inspired by Tinderbox, but even better because its part of DevonThink.

25

Hi, Andrew:

I was kidding with Zo, not being critical at all of your comments. Hope I didn’t offend. :slight_smile:

Zo: Eric, Christian, Annard and I were sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Budapest, and the subject of a visual map was mentioned. But I suspect that lots of other good stuff will get here quicker.

26

and me kidding with Bill, Andrew, sorry. the temptation was too great. besides, genius struck, doesn’t everyone think? the idea of skinning devonthink? i just know eric will say it’s a go. maybe a teen theme for openers.

maybe i need to use emoticons after all.

27

Doop! apologies, me too. :slight_smile:
I didn’t take anyone’s comments personally, I just had my all too ‘serious head’ on and it may have come out in context as seeming I was offended. Not at all, and all comments welcome. Sometimes asynchronous chat can get muddled.

Regards, Andrew

28

Yes, you are not wrong, at this stage in DT Pro you almost have to use an external text editor to design your text. I have tried writing in DT Pro and even something simple with a few subheadings and quotes; I had to expend a lot of time just on the design. If I am a writer I would like to create some styles, for my subheadings, my citations, etc. And I can do that in DT Pro, but statically, that is, changing a style in DT Pro does not change the text that has been previously assigned that style. When at some later point I went back to my original document (created in DT Pro), and noticed that my subheadings should have been bold, (to be more aesthetically pleasing), I had to change each of the subheadings individually. Time consuming, and not something I would like to spend my time on as a writer. This is the design features I was speaking about in my previous post on this thread. I do not ask for “eye candy”, but for practical typographical features in DT Pro.

Andrew, mentioned that we need a combination of two tools. Ok, but the integration between those two tools must to be very tight. And dragging and dropping inside DT Pro although great as it is, it is not desirable. Why? Because I (and I guess others, too) use tool as a writers research tool, and therefore the information in DT Pro has to be up-to-date to be useful, and dragging and dropping,* linking, or even importing do not accomplish this. In summary, I would have no problems using an external application to write my documents as long as DT Pro automatically kept track of the changes I made to documents edited externally. Is this possible? I do not know.

Personally, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that DT Pro, with OmniOutliner’s text styles handling capabilities would be the ideal. Not far from that ideal, is complete integration between these two applications, or any other with good style handling capabilities.

  • Dragging and dropping from OO does not even maintain the styles (line or paragraph spacing) of the original documents, and notes are imported inline, which defeats the purpose of notes in my view.
29

Hi Zo:
As for mind-map integration, you can get some interesting results with DT and NovaMind, using OPML as a bridge. I wanted to say “and the free mind-mapping tool MyMind,” but I can’t, as it doesn’t support OPML import, only export.

–F

30

Two-way synchronization of the text content read by DEVONthink and it’s corresponding file type, e.g., a Word .doc document, will become possible in DT Pro version 2.0. So you will be able to edit a previously imported Word document, and see the RTF content captured by DT Pro updated when the revision is saved.

Will that be true for all file types? Perhaps not all, but certainly a growing number. That’s one of the objectives of the revised database structure for version 2.0. :slight_smile:

31

Thats true, but for me Dthink is a master warehouse where I can deposit, search and extract the things I need. Its the text content of my OO outline that is important in this way, not the style. Styling for me occurs later in a word-processor.That said, everyone use these things differently and therefore has different needs.

Perhaps DT can add ‘watch folders’ whereby your outlines are always visible in there original finder location from within DT. May be this is already possible with DT under Tiger10.4? (Im sure theres many more possibilities using Spotlight with DT). As for opening and editing while maintaining styles, Im not sure.

Interoperability is the key, rather than one application that does it all. It seems DT is pretty good at dealing with the OS and other file formats already, and I presume it will get better with an Plug-in/extension API (is that coming?). Once we see this, then its conceivable that someone could create a OmniOutliner plug-in. Perhaps if the API was freely available, we would also see all kinds of wonderful capabilities appear just as has occurred with FireFox browser and GoogleMaps for example.

32

My $0.02

I think Andrew provided a rather lucid dichotomy describing the uses of DT and TB.

I suspect that the folks who use DT, TB and similar information tools are a minority compared with the computer-using user base.
However, there still seems to be an interest in a Swiss army knife type tool for use in information creation/gathering/management efforts.

As a thought experiment, it’s interesting to think about the kinds of virtual tools we say we would like to see developed versus the kinds of tools we actually use in the physical world.

Many of us seem to desire a single digital tool that “does it all” though I can’t think of a single skilled trade that makes use of only one tool.
Imagine a trade of your choice and take a mental inventory of the tools necessary for successfully performing most daily tasks. Now imagine a single, physical composite device that encompasses the functions of each of the individual tools.
Even something as simple as framing homes (framing hammer, square, measuring tape and pencil- assuming all of the lumber was pre-cut) would result in, what seems rather like, an ungainly monster of a tool.

This forced me to rethink my own preference for the “holy grail” of information gathering/management tools.
While I certainly prefer a minimum number tools I was previously on a mission to find the one information gathering/creating/management application that could “do it all” (well, most actually).
For me, it simply didn’t exist but I persisted in my quest.
After rethinking the concept, I am convinced that it doesn’t exist for good reason… and I hope it never does.
Having one, two or even three primary digital tools and a small set of ancillary tools in our digital toolkit is probably the best of all possible worlds.

With regard to visualization and DT, I believe that presenting a visual map that details relationships or patterns among groups or between ideas would fit in nicely with DT’s AI abilities.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to move from the “see also” list to a concept map that visually presented the same results.

For a “visual” example, imagine the length of lines linking multiple groups representing the relative “relatedness” or weight between them.
There may be a central group forming a web to all other groups or multiple groups with the same “weight” in a conceptual core each forming a unique network with other related groups.

I am, unlike some, both a “text or data driven person” as well as a “visual person”. I can certainly appreciate the use of both methods for display. For me, having both adds another dimension or perspective to patterns in the data.

Perhaps there is a way to export some of these sorted patterns, such as the results of a “see also”, in a format usable by visual applications such as OmniGraffle (OPML?).

Sorry if the idea is not well developed, I am primarily thinking outloud.

Cheers

:slight_smile:

Edit: I didn’t see Fred’s post regarding OPML export and NovaMind prior to posting.

Fred, can you post a graphic of something interesting comparing the results displayed in DT and in NovaMind?

thanks

33

Agents can be useful when you decide tagging is necessary to retrieve information in a controlled way. I have such a use for one database, in which I have different queries to a collection of sources, but I don’t want these queries to be based on the text but on my analysis—hence the need for tagging (metatext). Maybe that can be done with DT, I’m not sure.

Zo, did you ever try Ulysses?

34

Well said, milhouse. Well said. The tool metaphor is quite appropriate, I think. I had come to much the same realization, but I hadn’t formed the thought as clearly as you.

35

“Get info” on a DT item and you can add aliases (separated by semi-colons). These work as far as I know like personal tags when you search or correlate/“see also”… but may be a DTech person can confirm how they work?

Adding comments is possibly another way to add both personal and semantically meaningful text to an item (and you can search comments specifically in the search interface).

36

I exported to OmniOutliner format from DThink,
opened in OmniO and deleted unneeded time/date columns that were also exported, and resaved.
I then opened in Novamind and adjusted the layout for compactness (Titles, URLs and comments all kept intact).
I exported a scaled version from Nmind for showing you online.

Devonthink version: http://www.eccentrix.com/members/andrew/DT_NM/dt.html
Novamind version: http://www.eccentrix.com/members/andrew/DT_NM/nm.html

37

I tried Tinderbox. I have nothing against it and I do know it has its aficionados. But the learning curve is way too steep, Tinderbox was always between my ideas and me if you see what I mean. I spent more time trying to understand Tinderbox than organizing my ideas. It’s not for me.

38

Just my 2 cents- I tried to live with Tinderbox a couple of years ago and managed to climb much of its learning curve. The results were promising but never quite satisfying - for a number of reasons.

  1. Reliability: despite admirable efforts by the developer (Mark Bernstein) via iChat, I never managed to get Tinderbox to be entirely stable on my system, partially because I was dealing with largish imports that TB never seemed seemed able to properly digest. It used to crash on me at the worst of times. And each new version I’ve demoed since has had similar problems, despite major upgardes and cleanups in my system. Maybe it’s an isolated issue, but i very much doubt it.
    DT pro has completely earned my trust- even in betas.

  2. I’m sold on cocoa: all that carbon weirdness seems so dated and ugly to me. This also means that some functionality which I consider very basic is lacking, like font size preferences in text mode (the font in “Nakakoji” view is too small for my aging eyes)

  3. While I defend Eastgate’s right to design it’s upgrade policy any way it likes, I don’t have to like it. Frankly I haven’t seen enough change in the program to justify paying $75 or more each year for upgrades…especially when much of the programming effort has apparently been put into getting a windows version out. I just don’t see that kind of value in the upgrades and I dislike feeling that I’m otherwise locked into an old version. I suspect Eastgate’s policy isn’t working that well fo the company either, since it has been forced to rely on some pretty cheesy “productivity porn” like overpriced italian leatherbound notebooks to improve it’s bottom line. The worse kind of 'all show and no go."

Devonthink’s development, demo and upgrade policies strike me as eminently fair, and the company has won my loyalty. As long as you keep genuinely improving your product I’ll give you my support, and my dollars.

39

I didn’t have stability problems under Mac OS 10.4.6 but I agree with what you say about the carbon weirdness. Also, I’d like to point out that Tinderbox’s interface is, IMHO, ugly :confused:

40

Tinderbox now supports services and Cocoa font management (but not yet the colours, intended for the next update). It also has a side panel in the Text window. And it has separators in outline view.

You do not have to update, you can skip any update you like. Yes, it’s not cheap. But there is active development, and that’s worth something to me.

Tinderbox has been rock solid on my system, more than DT (Pro), which has crashed not a few times. I suspect, however, that it is fair to say that both products are stable and solid, and that negative experiences in this regard are exceptional.

As for ugliness, Tb’s OS9 look is dated. But it’s not very sophisticated to base an opinion on fashion, nor is DT the product whose looks are to be envied. The point is, what do you do with it? I get a lot out of Tb which is simply impossible to get out of DT Pro, thanks to its maps and attributes/agents (DT would have generated too much noise). Tb clears up my mind, playing around with it helps me think clearer about things. I can’t play around like that in DT. I can’t create handy overviews via agents, on which I have come to rely, because I would have too much difficulty in getting the search as precise as I want in DT. And I mean precise. Like exactly the 39 references which have this particular attribute in them. As an attribute, not the very same string as part of the text.

There is little to be gained in bashing Tb’s difficulty or looks. If you want what it can bring to you, you’ll learn soon enough. I once thought it was too difficult, although I knew I just did not want to go through the manual. If you can drive, you can learn Tb too. But does it pay — that’s an individual question. I suppose DT Pro is less selective, suits far more users.

The main point, then, is that you can use both, as many of us do, for different purposes. I rely on DT pro for storage of all PDF’s, which is to increase dramatically, or feeds, websites etc. My DT databases are already over 10Gb. It’s a great great product, and I love its scriptability. Still, I don’t use it as a bibliography manager; that’s BibDesk for me. I don’t use it as a Photo manager. There is a tool for everything.

And Ulysses is for the real thing, writing. It’s about a week from 1.5 and I can’t wait.