Why are we still reading? Moving from text tags to "Visual Speed-Reading" (The Cover Flow + AI Icon Concept)

Unfortunately the OP left, dishartened – a point largely unadressed…

But if my reading is correct, the proposal had 2 clearly readable dimensions:

  1. Let´s think about ways to make large – largely textual – databases more browsable by thinking about spatio-visual interfaces, cuing and automated data digestion (see prior posts). So, on one dimension it was a general invitation to think about visual navigation and minimal-friction browsing of content, in DT (and generally)…

  2. a plugin to achieve that, attached with some very concrete, if prelim, ideas: using auto-generated/applied icons as labels, and more extenstive use of color coding (which currently is limited to the 6(?) colors of the labels… something btw also regularly leading to discussions here…)

So, in a way 2) is not really different from Ammonite: Tag visualizer and search utility – that old plugin that – at the time – visualized the tag cloud outside of DT, and was highly appreciated by some power users here. Actually it´s relevance was that big, it seems, that the principle – pointing to a then missing dimension of visual overview, browsing, interaction, interaction in DT – was later taken on board by DT, or at least by now has a functional equivalent in the (fabulous) interactive tag cloud. A good example that openess to external impulses is sometimes worth acknowledgment and openess of mind. (Similar arguments could probably be made about the recent massive evolution of the graph, esp in light of a similar – complex – discussion about external users craving for a graph in DT, and even going in direction of implementing things as third-party, plugin etc. – Node Graph for Document Links )

So, I think it is not really that opaque, if one reads along and into it w/ some (critical) sympathy …
Also what shows again here, is that some internal interlinking of (historic) debates w/in forum would sometimes make things more straightforward and productive – a problem of a lot of unmoderated forums, where collective knowledge or just reference often gets lost in the stream… (and btw something where AI might also be a modest remedy against frail human wetware or information overload)

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