On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:44:46 -0700 (PDT) Josef <[email protected]> wrote:
> Recently I evaluated docear - a mind-mapping tool for collecting reference > data (written in Java). It automatically extracts bookmarks and annotations > from PDF files, and more, but it's support for authoring is still not up to > the task. I think it would be great if Leo could do some of the tasks > docear is doing. > > Leo is primarily a literate programming editor, but also quite good at > organizing bits of information. I would describe it as an general purpose outline that's very good at editing code. > Dragging a PDF into Leo currently just > creates an url to the PDF. This could be expanded to also extract data > (bookmarks, notes) from the PDF and to sync this data between Leo and the > PDF. This info could be placed in child nodes: bookmarks and notes could > even jump directly to the page in the PDF (although each PDF viewer seems > to have a different syntax for doing that). This would be a great way to > organize data sheets and specifications stemming from external sources. I'm not really sure how notes get embedded in PDFs. As an aside, there is also capability for using Leo to manage bookmarks to web pages, with notes, tags, and snippets. Look at the mod_http plugin. It uses a javascript bookmark button in your browser to communicate with Leo. > Combining the above with an improved LaTeX support, one would get a very > powerful research and authoring tool - in my opinion with a much more > convenient interface than docear. > > Perhaps it is too much work to duplicate all the work docear is doing. An > alternative may be to sync data somehow between docear and Leo. Docear > stores the data in a freeplane mind-map. Has anyone else thoughts about > this? Syncing between the two sounds a little cumbersome to me. I wonder if the PDF stuff could be integrated with some sort of BibTeX .bib file management? Do you really need the mindmap UI of docear? I used to use Freemind which has a very similar interface, but switched to Leo. I like what http://cmap.ihmc.us/ does, but it only does idea organization, no authoring etc. To me cmaptools is better at idea organizing than mindmaps. There is also the backlinks plugin for Leo, which allows arbitrary networks of links instead of just the directed tree, and graphcanvas, which allows graph layout of nodes. There aren't comparable with the mindmap layouts, but they head in that direction. Also note Leo's hidden UI flexibility in the context menus on the pane dividers, you can open a new window for the graphcanvas plugin, which gives it much needed screen real estate. Cheers -Terry -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor?hl=en.
