I’m using DT now for several months. Today while working on a presentation I find myself using three applications DT, OmniOutliner, and Keynote.
Then I started dreaming: what’s about doing it all within DT. I use wiki-markup, RTF, and templates that I can attach to the DT-outline, and best of all I can use the sorting-mechanism that OO offers together with the possibility to add columns for attributes (like name, category).
Then I could create and use DT for presentations without Keynote. It even gives me hyperlinks and multimedia.
Now, finally awake I wonder if templates are an option. By templates I’m thinking of a way (via CSS) to make decisions on fonts, font-color, background color aso. And adding metadata (columns) to ad DT-item would help sorting.
A full screen view with easy jumping from item to item would be nice as well.
Presentation and/or mindmapping tools are already on our suggestions list but no schedule yet as we’re not sure if there’s a common interest for such features or how to implement them (and implementing them will be a huge effort).
Finally, more flexible columns will be introduced in version 1.9. The upcoming "Merge View" (displaying multiple selected contents as one) might be useful too.
Product roadmaps are quite popular with open source projects but less common with shareware and commercial software so I commend you for doing it and will continue encouraging other developers to do the same. It’s one way of reducing redundant forum questions asking if/when feature X will be available (or at least making succinct "it’s on the roadmap" responses possible), which I think you and a few frequent, veteran participants here might appreciate as the growth continues.
Seriously, one large forum I was involved with was generating so much traffic with (near-)duplicate questions/replies that I eventually stopped using it because it was taking too much time and effort finding anything new and interesting. That phenomenon tends to favor "newbies" and infrequent visitors while penalizing veterans during times they’re not there to be "helpers". This forum seems far away from that ever happening, making it easily one of the most enjoyable ones I currently participate on.
So whatever changes and new off-forum information DEVONtechnologies provides in the future (e.g. the roadmap) that helps preserve a useful and enjoyable balance of forum activity for everyone, regardless of background (novices to pros) or amount of involvement here (infrequent or daily), certainly has my encouragement. IMhO, it’s a "healthy" way to run a technical forum and is often overlooked during growth with increased traffic and diversity. But this (still) ain’t the place for a deeper analysis of that topic, and last year I posted some thoughts/ideas here and here and a few other places so that’s more than enough about it for now.
Let me add my voice to those who appreciate Christian & Co. for being so open about about the roadmap, even though it is commercial software.
I sense that DT is still relatively young as software, and it’s good to know that what we see is not all there’s going to be.
Knowledge management software is more of a committment than most other kinds of applications, because it’s where you keep your most important stuff, and it affects how you do your work.
If I didn’t know various features were coming, I might keep looking for something else that met my needs.
Hearing about the plans makes me feel I’ve boarded the right train.
Well said and excellent points, birameus. Glad you boarded this train.
I think small, dynamic companies like DEVONtechnologies producing these kinds of important, quality Mac applications are vital for the success and growth of the Mac software marketplace. Maybe that sounds clichéd but it seems there’s a relatively large contingency of users who’d take that for granted and some wanting all software to be free. I’m betting it’s still a struggle for most companies to make a comfortable income producing Mac-only products. But if Apple’s hardware and Mac OS X continues improving there’s more potential to entice some decent developers who’ll create useful and “novelty” products that can eventually make it a less risky market to be in. And customers need to encourage the forward momentum with their support, of course.
Anyway, I see DEVONtechnologies as a company with attitudes, openness, and passion that are fine examples for the Mac developer community. Maybe they’ve spoiled me a bit.
thanks for all the feedback. Although a roadmap will come, this roadmap will list only versions and their features but no release dates. I guess everybody knows that release dates might "sometimes" slip ;D
