More Notebook information in collage/corkboard view

[orrenm]

I have just begun doing research for my next novel. Currently, I am creating Notebook Entries for the various areas of research I am doing. For example, so far I've begun research on the vessel my protagonist will use for interstellar travel, and on the planet he will original from.

 

I have this information on a third view window, so that I can easily click to my research whenever I want.

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My choices for how to arrange the third view to include a top-level view of all research documents is outline or corkboard/collage. In corkboard or collage view, instead of a single line, I get a notecard. However, the notecard only contains the title information. See the red circles—there's a lot of room for additional information!

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I would like to request that the notecards contain as much information under the title as will fit. How much will fit will be determined by the zoom level and the window size, so this will need to be dynamic. But it would be great if at a glance, I could see the first however-many lines of my notes. That way, I could arrange each Notebook entry so that the most referenced information is close to the top, so that it might show up without even needing to open the entry.

 

Orren

[Steve E]

I do a cut & paste (from Text View to Collage View) into the body of the note. But I can see how you might want the option to automate this, as it is automated with, for example, the Synopsis area of Section Sheets.

 

Seconded.

- Thoth

[orrenm]

I dod a cut & paste (from Text View to Collage View) into the body of the note. But I can see how you might want the option to automate this, as it is automated with, for example, the Synopsis area of Section Sheets.

 

Seconded.

- Thoth

 

It seems that I must not understand notebook entries as well as I thought I did. I would have thought that logically any text I create in a notebook entry would be visible in ANY view mode I am in. But it seems you are saying that text entered in text view mode is only visible in text view mode, and is separate from text entered INTO THE SAME FILE in storyboard view mode? I would have thought that a "view" mode is just that-a view mode only. Or do I misunderstand?

 

This doesn't change my request, I'm just very surprised that notebook entry text wouldn't be consistent across the view modes. The title is the same in all view modes, and i'd expect all view modes to display the same body text to the limit of their space.

 

Orren

[Steve E]

It seems that I must not understand notebook entries as well as I thought I did. I would have thought that logically any text I create in a notebook entry would be visible in ANY view mode I am in.

Nope. Just text view, unless you manually duplicate it in the commentary portion of the note's index card. But why do that? Part of the note, sure, but not the whole thing.

 

But it seems you are saying that text entered in text view mode is only visible in text view mode, and is separate from text entered INTO THE SAME FILE in storyboard view mode? I would have thought that a "view" mode is just that-a view mode only. Or do I misunderstand?

I'm not sure what you mean by "INTO THE SAME FILE". It's the same Storyist file, sure, but there is the text contents of a note and there is commentary about what is in the note. The commentary is what appears on the index card under the title line of the note. When working with sheets (as opposed to Notes) this commentary is the same text as you would find in, for example, the Synopsis field of a Section sheet. Notes work differently since there is no Synopsis field.

 

This doesn't change my request, I'm just very surprised that notebook entry text wouldn't be consistent across the view modes. The title is the same in all view modes, and i'd expect all view modes to display the same body text to the limit of their space.

Again, we're dealing with two different kinds of data: content and commentary on the content. If you want the area of the index card (under the title) to reflect the content of the Note then where would you put the commentary?

 

- Thoth

[orrenm]

I'm not sure what you mean by "INTO THE SAME FILE". It's the same Storyist file, sure, but there is the text contents of a note and there is commentary about what is in the note.

 

Apologies, that was my audio background leaking through again. In audio software, each audio track is a separate and distinct file on your hard drive that you can manipulate independently. So I'm used to thinking of anything in the "project view" (or "track view" in audio software) as being a separate and distinct file. But you are of course correct, all the data entered into a Note Entry is not a separate file from the Storyist file.

 

The commentary is what appears on the index card under the title line of the note.

 

Thank you Thoth! Having never used comments, I had never seen any text there, and thought it was simply wasted space. I understand now.

 

If you want the area of the index card (under the title) to reflect the content of the Note then where would you put the commentary?

 

I bolded "you" because the answer depends on who "you" refers to. If you refers specifically to Orren Merton, I will not ever use comments (to me, comments are strictly for revising/editing), so for me, if I can not display the text of the Notebook Entry, the space is wasted. For me, I would have comments displayed in a separate window (I believe that Jools has suggested something similar).

 

If you refers to someone who uses comments, I can now see that they might want the space used that way.

 

The answer, it seems to me, is a preference setting. Ideally, a setting per note, so that people can chose if they want comments or body text to display in the storyboard for each Notebook Entry.

 

Orren

[marguerite]

I haven't used note comments this way until now, not having really grasped the fact of their existence. Instead I've used notebook folders and descriptive names. But now that I understand what is on the note index card, I think I would use them. Each of my notes focuses on a single subject, so a comment that would let me skim an entire folder for the one note that records how fast a horse can travel or the distance between points A and B actually would be quite useful. And the feature would be is even more helpful for notes that relate to a particular library book, which may cover a bunch of related topics—too long to describe in the note title.

 

But beyond the confusion (now cleared up by Thoth), is it not just as many clicks to select a card by its title and click on the text button (or use Cmd-1—even faster) as to double-click on the card?

Best,

M

[orrenm]

But beyond the confusion (now cleared up by Thoth), is it not just as many clicks to select a card by its title and click on the text button (or use Cmd-1—even faster) as to double-click on the card?

 

Standard Mac human interface guidelines are that double-click "opens" (or launches) what you are clicking on. And for those who don't know about comments appearing in the index card, you expect that "opening a Notebook Entry index card" = reading the text of the Notebook Entry. If you sit users down who doesn't know what they're doing in front of a Notebook Entry index card, I would suggest that they are far more likely to attempt to double-click if they wish to see the text contained in the index card than they are to attempt to single click and then do something else. This gets to the idea of discoverability, intuitiveness, etc.

 

In other words, without reading the manual or knowing that comments show up on an index card, I tried to double-click the notecard to get to the text. Without doing a survey of Storyist users, I'll bet that is a fairly common action to take when clicking on an index card in storyboard view and wishing to read the text of the Notebook Entry. Because that is the way I believe a fair number of users and potential users would expect the GUI to operate, I think it should be possible for Storyist to operate that way.

 

Orren

[Steve]

Hi Orren,

 

It seems that I must not understand notebook entries as well as I thought I did. I would have thought that logically any text I create in a notebook entry would be visible in ANY view mode I am in.

 

Like a card catalog entry, index cards contain the "metadata" of the project item: in this case the title and summary (description).

 

Adding the feature to be able to include an excerpt (or other property) in the card contents is a great idea.

 

-Steve

[Steve E]

Adding the feature to be able to include an excerpt (or other property) in the card contents is a great idea.

There you go.

Just so long as the feature is easier to use than the Cut & Paste process I use to get excerpts onto the card I'm happy.

I'm all for options.

- Thoth

[Joolissa]

I like the idea of being able to include an excerpt on a notecard, though I'd like it to be optional since I use the "commentary" approach a lot. If you were to implement an excerpt type thing, it would be useful to be able to choose where in the note (scene, etc.) the excerpt would start. If the user could pick a starting point, it could then dynamically change how long the excerpt was based on zoom level and all of that which Orren said. Picking a starting point would be useful because the excerpt that made the most sense may not be the beginning of the note etc., it may be the middle or the end.

 

- Jools