From: Paulo Diniz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: November 15, 2005 6:58:33 PM PST
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Feature request for Chandler or other
OSAF app - Tag-based organizer implementation
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi from Brazil, Mr. Kapor,
I'm pretty sure the idea has been evaluated by
the OSAF staff, for what i've seen on a brief
reading of Mimi Yin's reports on
(http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/MimiYin)
But even though, i'd like to make an "special"
request for this feature: make personal
organizer software that is fully incorporated
with data "TAGGING" , just like del.icio.us. I
mean, extend the flexible tagging concept from
del.icio.us to any kind of data, not just
bookmarks. And with this concept, make it
possible for the user to TOTALLY abandon rigid
taxonomies (outlining), which is only good for
a limited ammount of data, but turns out into a
problem when you have to organize HUGE
quantities of data.
I'm no app developer, just a long-time PC user,
but i think the following idea would be
compatible with the semantic web effort.
(maybe?)
My concept of the ideal PIM software is the one
that can deal with the massive ammount of info
we have to deal with everyday, and make that
availiable over an very big ammount of time (a
lifetime span?), and is efficient for filtering
the exact info you desire from that lifetime
database. I've been thinking a bit about how
that application would have to be, and i've
gotten to the following conclusions (the
following is copy of a draft i wrote, so sorry
for any repetition of ideas):
----
1) hierarchical is a waste of time, because it
works just like real world. one data only can
be at one place, unless you are willing to copy
and paste like crazy. Rigid taxonomies are good
for science, but no good for inputing info on a
fast way, and then finding it, after you¹ve
grown a massive database.
2) hyperlinking is a waste of time, because it
envolves the same work as copy and pasting.
you¹d have to go beserk hyperlinking all around
after you build a large database, to make it
work.
3) the human brain works just like tags on
delicious. when you think of a chicken, you
dont think about kingdom, phylum, class, orden
genre, specie. You basicly think ³ANIMAL,
BIRDS, CHICKEN². We tag stuff free of a rigid
structure.
4) massive search (e.g google) is good, but you
dont have any control on the results other than
the search keywords. If you tag, you do,
because you reviewed that info, and added the
tag metadata to it. You say what it is.
5) if you want to build a big database out of
tagging, you need to have a good tag searching
mechanism, because sometimes it takes 4 or 5
combined tags to filter the things we dont
want. Just like del.icio.us: you can combine
tags and see which bookmarks have all the tags
you selected. You need to be able to merge or
split chunks of info, and you also need a very
good tag manager: you need to be able to mass
tag stuff, mass un-tag, etc. You have to be
able to fastly select TAGS for an information
you will be inputting. The organizer cant get
in the way.
6) Its known that the the more you input
information, the better your database is. If
your database uses tags, theres another factor
on the equation. The smaller are your tagged
bits of information, the better your database
is, upon retrieval.
Example:
I go to my history class, with laptop, about american history.
the teacher starts to talk about the american
independence, lets say im a history illiterate
and dont know the very basics, so i start
typing most of the information told to me by
the teacher:
³The american independence was in 1776. The
first president was George Washington. He is a
founding father of the american republic. The
expression founding fathers is related to²
And tag the class information as: history, world, USA, independence.
When i got home, i would review the class for a
exam on the next day. I could take the chance
to create new tagged bits of information, more
specific, with what i consider the most
relevant information. This helps further
searches, as well as helps in the learning and
memorizing process. Example:
³The american independence was in 1776.²
TAGS: history, world, america, USA, independence, year
³The first president was George Washington²
TAGS: history, world, america, USA, country, president, first, leader
³The expression founding fathers is related to²
TAGS: history, world, term, expression, america, USA, republic
and then 6 months later, i go into brazillian
history. Off all of the information i captured,
as ³history, local, brazil² i can make an
example of this specific bit i could tag:
³The brazillian independence was in 1822.²
TAG: history, local, america, brazil, independence, year.
So, 50 years later, when helping my grandson on
a school paper about independence of american
conutries, i could filter the tagged bits with
only the following tags:
³history, america, independence, year²
and would get a list of tagged bits containing
all the independence years of countries i have
studied on america. Cool huh? I just dont know
if the ammount of data generated by this could
be handled over an extensive ammount of time.
Ask the people that wrote Google Desktop Search.
7) its good if you could be able to input data
from the web and other documents, in a snap,
with a key combination. Lets say you are in a
web page and you find that interesting fact you
just cant miss. you select the text, use a key
combo (lets say ALT+Z), and the organizer
imports that bit of info, giving you the chance
to tag it on the fly.
-----
Concluding, my ideal PIM has the following UI elements:
1) no outline pane, instead of it, on the left
side of a screen, a "thin" panel act as an
index of tags, from where you can select tags
(one or multiple) to filter the chunks of data.
2) Below the menubar and toolbar of the app, a
"tagbar", from where you can see what tags are
active (being used to filter data on a given
moment). Instead of using the left pane to
select the active tags, you can type directly
the desired tag on the tagbar, and the
application would suggest the nearest tag to
what you are typing. As you do this, the
above-mentioned tag-index left-panel scrolls
automatically to the suggested tag enabling you
to see other similar tags.
3) On the rightmost portion of the "tagbar", a
chronological filter. This would enable you to
filter only chunks of information that were
recently edited.
4) Taking about 75%-80% of the screen, the data
visualizer. If no filter is on, and no tags are
enforced, you see all the chunks of information
(of course that would not fit on the screen,
but thats what scrollbars are for) you have
inputed, sorted chronologically, the most
recent on top. A thin line separates each and
every piece, and on the top of each one, you
can see the tags attributed to that piece.
Well, thats it, i 'm just selling this idea
because i think it would be great to have such
a software. I'd be glad if that
input would be of any use on chandler or by
OSAF. Keep up the great work on opensource!!!
- Paulo Diniz
