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Awesome article re: organization and notetaking

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PPLandry:
Hierarchies can be used to help you get organized. The problem is that they can also hide your valuable information.

Being able to view the same information in hierarchy view and in flat view is essential to truly benefit from hierarchies.

Also, items must be able to belong to multiple hierarchies. Being limited to a single simple tree is very limiting

Paul Keith:
Yeah, I agree PPLandry.

Out of curiosity, could you explain if IQ does that?

I know that the spreadsheet style combination allows you to control what data comes out but I think for most of us, we're used to the idea of multiple hierarchies as being filtered by tags. Could help us further expand our perceptions of organization. (though it might sound like shilling your product, that's why I'm deliberately requesting for your answer so it doesn't come off that way)

Also, I don't think IQ has a real flat view in the sense of a real dashboard view and not just a tree-list screen with a tree-list hidden. Could you also expand your thoughts on that?

PPLandry:
Hi Paul,

Yes, IQ hierarchy display is optional. All items exist independent of the existence of parents, children, etc. (think of items as if they are people, you and me)

You can group people by various hierarchies (work related, family related, etc) and you can also view them in flat view, i.e. no hierarchy. This flat view makes it easier to find information (at times) and also to sort it. In general, sorting is another problem with hierarchy views (try sorting files from 2 different folders...). IQ also has a hierarchy view that sorts correctly.

Tags are basically a "smart" category field (type=text). IQ has category fields. Fields can be Text, Number, Date, Yes/No. All these (i.e. not just tags) can be used for filtering purposes.

re: True flat view: IMHO, IQ has a true flat view, but we can discuss what exactly you mean, using a practical example.

Pierre

Paul Keith:
Thanks for the clarification PPLandry. Sorry if I had to make you repeat those words. I've read you describe IQ that way before and it just didn't sink in.

You might want to bandwagon on the usage of tags. I went to your site just to verify if IQ has tags as a feature and I didn't see it so it might help boost your program a bit if there was a link explaining IQ's tag-like feature.

I really don't have a specific definition of flat view. For me, flat view is just when you can see all your data without "activating" anything.

To use Compendium as an example:

1) This is normally what you see when you have Compendium's Tag View open. Why is this not a flat view to me? Because I have to "think" to "activate" the tag view. I need to have a mindset of opening something rather than just snap my mind into it.

I need to click on something.

Use a hotkey on something (although hotkeys help in transforming anything into a flat view)

I can't just screenshot the screen in front of me to get an overview or even better, the core of what I want.

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

Now this is the screen you would get if you hide the tag view. Normally this is what I think people might consider as a flat view. Something that's in front. Something default. I guess if this were the criteria than IQ's Welcome Screen would be it's flat view.

I apologize for not thinking this through when I asked you a question about flat views. I tend to ask questions through my perspective and often forget what others normally consider something as.

[attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb]

Now why is this both enough and not enough? It is not enough because this screen doesn't always have what I want. Sometimes this screen hosts a folder and I need to click it. Sometimes this screen is not where I want to be or how I want it to look so I need to go elsewhere.

At the same time, why can this screen be a flat view? Because when I want to see something, it's in front of me.

Where as in a tree-list you have to click on an area of the tree to see the content and the tree is the overview/flat view or you have to click on the manage bookmark screen so that the bookmark screen becomes the flat view, this screen allows me to preview both the contents of the items in this screen and the items themselves without leaving or thinking of activating anything as seen on this screenshot where all I needed to do was hover the mouse on the asterisk to see the contents inside.

[attachthumb=#3][/attachthumb]

In that sense, a flat view to me can be something more akin to a desktop when opening Windows or a dashboard or a floor with all the pages of a book in front of me rather than staring at the table of contents page to get hints as to where I should go to see my notes.

Another way of looking at it is the Compendium text entry box.

[attachthumb=#4][/attachthumb]

Why is this a flat view? Because after I've clicked on it, I no longer have to activate anything to see what I want to see or do.

It's like when I want to edit something and I'm staring at the MS Word screen, I don't have to convince my mind that this thing staring at me is where I need to edit stuff.

Of course the illusion breaks when I need to click on the GUI or add some complex stuff but if I don't, my mind goes..."Flat view".

I guess technically all programs have a flat view inherent in them and what I was actually asking is whether IQ has a "Overview" or Dashboard Flat View. I mean I know you can limit and add to any stuff you want to see in front of you but is there a place you can go to where you can just go "Ok, I don't need to think go anywhere once I'm here."

I guess I also forgot that IQ is a multi-purpose software and not just a notetaker because when I was thinking of this, I forgot that if you only factored in numbers, records, database content and hierarchies then IQ already has a flat view. It's only when you write something paragraph long that you need to click on something just to get a clear overview of which text is which but I'm only basing this on superboyac's screenshot of how IQ can also be a notetaker: (Note that Compendium also cuts the text off when it's too long so it's not really because Compendium does this well but rather because I don't use Compendium to write long texts that I can consider the screens above as flat views)

[attachthumb=#5][/attachthumb]

Another good example of a flat view is when staring at a monthly view of a calendar app rather than how it's shown in IQ. Chart images can also be a criteria for a flat view. It's basically an overview that doesn't need extra filtering options but could have one.

xtabber:
FWIW, the Chandler Project was started by Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and author of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.  The original concept came from Lotus Agenda, an organizer that nobody ever could figure out how to use, back in the DOS days, and which Kapor had had a hand in developing. Kapor dissassociated himself from the Chandler Project a year ago (and stopped funding it). He is also responsible for the Foxmarks synchronizer for Firefox and is on the board of the Mozilla Foundation, among other things.

I was once interested in the idea of Chandler, but as it grew more complex, it also got more diffuse, eventually devolving into a nebulous concept that had no chance of turning into a usable product.  A fine example of how not to create software.

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