Douglas Johnston reviews Tinderbox as a writer's environment (which I've mentioned several times here). It's currently a Mac-only app (a Windows version has been in the works for a while).
In a way, Tinderbox is like the Emacs of information management applications. Beneath each deceptively simple exterior (and, after all, Emacs does seem to be just a text editor), there lies a very powerful system with seemingly endless possibilities. Both require some effort and dedication before you begin to understand the depth of the applications and the myriad uses which slowly make themselves known as you explore their non-obvious capabilities. Like Emacs and its underlying elisp, Tinderbox has some powerful tools beyond the basic ability to write and organise text, and this case, it includes scripting tools, agents, rules, versatile export codes, prototypes and multiple views. And, unfortunately, just like Emacs, both applications are often relegated to niche power-users while mom-and-dad computer users have moved on to more straight-forward, simplistic and user-friendly software.
Let me get back to digital brain-storming for a moment. I’m a strange mix of visual tinkerer and textual thinker, and for me, things like colour, size and proximity of items have to strike a balance with text note names, hierarchy, and the ability to enter large amounts of material. For example, I like the ability to rapidly create notes as little boxes with various colours and short descriptive names, then move them around the various sections of the screen to play with categories and relationships. But once these categorisations are made, I want to be able to see the outline of all my ideas, and to write text and annotations for each item.
Like Johnston, I've been experimenting with a combination of Tinderbox and DevonThink. I'm still on the short side of the learning curve for Tinderbox (it's a pretty deep and complex app--see Johnston's emacs comment above), and I've had an easier time getting a wide range of media into DevonThink. And the indexing features of that app seem more robust. But (like Johnston), when I want to start arranging information in creative ways, making connections among sources and adding new material, Tinderbox is much better. Tinderbox is more of a freeform brainstorming app and DevonThink is more of a card catalogue or OS X Finder on Steroids (at least in the ways that I use them). (Both apps have 30-day trial versions, and relatively cheap academic prices [under $100], so they're worth checking out.)
[via Mark Bernstein]
Posted by johndanseven at December 23, 2005 01:51 PM