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Idea Management/Navigation Software?
psychonaut asks: "My work involves a lot of research and writing, and I often find myself jotting down brief notes on scraps of paper, in text files, in the margin of books, etc. The idea is to later use these ideas as the basis for various papers or even books I plan to write. However, because I have no central repository for all these ideas, finding long-forgotten thoughts and citations months after I've recorded them becomes a nightmare. Can anyone recommend an open source knowledge management, visualization, and navigation software I could use to bring together and classify all these disjointed ideas?"
"The system should be hypertext-based, allowing explicit links between nodes, but it would be nice if it could also derive some relations on its own. Having built-in support for referencing web links, printed publications (BibTeX integration?), and arbitrary files would be great. Text-based and perhaps also non-text-based searching capabilities (e.g., graphical visualization of node relationships) would also be very useful.
I've looked at some wiki systems but the choices seem overwhelming, and most of them are geared towards collaborative rather than individual work. Is there some wiki or database system that does what I need, or should I be looking for something in an entirely different paradigm?"
If you can bite your pride and use closed source, Microsoft One Note sounds like exactly what you're looking for.
That's what wiki / blog software is all about. Wiki probably better as you can organize things in a more natural way.
I recommend a notebook, and a pencil.
If you don't care how crude this idea is, you could try this out:
Take all of the scraps you write, and spend a bit of time making 75-100 DPI scans of them. Place all of the images into a folder for "notes" and such. Inside this folder, categorise all the files by using folders/directories.
This does not meet the requirements you set out; and like I said, it's horribly crude. However, it is simple to implement and can easily be combined with any web server software to form an easily accessible knowledge base.
Being a student, this is the system I use to categorise my notes and papers. It is simply not the best system, but it rarely gets any simpler than this.
Hope this was at least slightly interesting.
The DENIM Project might be something you could look into. It is a tool for web page and UI design but it should be easily adaptable for your needs (especially with its export to HTML). You could also try Visual Thought though it is no longer developing nor supported (but is more tailored to what you're describing than DENIM).
I sure it has what you want somewhere in it.
I have a small notebook (between 3x5 and 8.5x11) that I keep in my briefcase to and from work and jot everything down in it. It never crashes, it takes only seconds to include complex graphs or equations (no equation editor or LaTeX tags needed!), and can even be backed up via xerox (which I have done with ripped pages--just staple the copied page back in!).
If you're running Windows, it's at least worth checking out. http://www.thebrain.com
there's an app for osx called notebook, or somthing similar. i'll let you look for it on versiontracker. sorry i can't be of more help. good luck to you.
moox. for a new generation.
I use Memo Plus on the Palm, which is merely a hierarchical notepad.
I have things sorted into a hierarchy that works for me.
But oh, how I would love a cross-platform product that offered deep integration with email, address book, bookmarks, calendar, and random notes, with multiple hierarchical and/or directed graph maps, and good search capabilities. In my fantasy world, it'd run on my PC and on my Kyocera smart phone, and would be compatible with stuff on both ends: Firefox, Thunderbird, the Palm address book, etc. If I didn't have a job, that's what I'd be building right now...
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Try some Visual Brainstorming Tools
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Have a look at Mind Manager by Mindjet.
I use it regularly and I'm still finding new uses for it. It's *very* easy to use yet powerful.
Intelligence shared is intelligence squared.
I have set up a cms (content management system) to do just what you mention and it is working great.
Contrary to most other cms'es of the PHP-Nuke series, xaraya has the flexibility to manage all publication types (FAQ, articles, reviews) into one single module, which avoids lots of clutter. You can add fields to each type. Myself, I have created a "research blog" publication type (where I describe what I do each day in a blog format), and then "reviews" (for the books I read), "articles" (the articles I read), "todo", "docs" (for things I keep forgetting). Each of these publication types have one or more category trees associated with them (with some trees overlapping) so that I can search/display my blogs by category and/or by pubtype. Finally, I have set it up so that only I can access it. The permission system allows for you to set up different kind of access to the different pages depending on various criteria.
Using a full blown cms may be overkill but the flexibility and extendability is great. To mention your needs, you can use the autolink module to generate automatic links in your modules, and so on..., search works great, for BibTeX you'd probably need to create your own hooks, which I believe vouldn't be terribly difficult.
A wiki might work, but your pages would look identical across tasks and categories, and I like the ability to visualize different pubtypes and/or categories differently. The tendency to generate a mess is enormous in wikis, but with a single user less so. Good luck.
Open source offerings in this area are slim to none, and I've tried everything I can get my hands on. The best I've found is KeyNote, a Windows-only tabbed notebook/hierarchical outliner. I recently converted all my text-file notes over to KeyNote, and found it to be a sweet little package. Highly recommended, although it doesn't really meet any of your other specifications (no hyperlinking, etc., outline-view only).
If you don't mind a web environment, Wikis provide easy editing and hyperlinking, but visualization is not their strong suit. If you like the idea of wikis, but don't want the web, and don't mind paying $12 for closed-source, WikidPad is an excellent, flexible, Windows-only option (and mildly extendable with an embedded Python interpreter). Combines a tree/outline view and Wiki-like syntax & automatic hyperlinking.
If you don't mind closed source, The Literary Machine provides a lot of power in a Windows environment. The basic version was free last I checked, though he's ceased development on it in favor of the Pro version ($20), which is being actively developed and integrates a number of new features (but I haven't tried it yet). It organizes everything based on a non-hierarchical keyword association system, and while it takes some getting used to (and can be downright messy sometimes), it does allow for the discovery of connections between notes that you might not have put together otherwise.
If you don't mind closed source, paying through the nose ($145), and OS X, then there is one app which fits all of your other qualifications: Eastgate's Tinderbox has powerful hyperlinking, programmable agents, RSS and web integration, powerful search, graphical visualization, and plenty more. To tell you the truth, my next computer will probably be a Mac because of this one, though a Windows version is on the horizon (was slated for an early 2004 release, but looks like it's slipped back to Real Soon Now). This has been the sleeper hit of the past couple years--everyone who uses it raves about it, but it's relatively unknown.
life hacks notes by cory doctorow (more at bottom)
"It's the 10-second rule: if you can't file something in 10 seconds, you won't do it. Todo.txt involves cut-and-paste, the simplest interface we can imagine."
"Power-users don't trust complicated apps. Every time power-geeks has had a crash, s/he moves away from it. You can't trust software unless you've written it -- and then you're just more forgiiving.
Text files are portable (except for CRLF issues) between mac and win and *nix.
Geeks will try the Brain, etc, but they want to stay in text."
.
. hmmm
of sketchbooks and Idea Knot although I am going to try
MAK as a group project.
It's awfully dangerous to be honest around here. You get modded as a troll. Actually, I have three sketchbooks going right now.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
SOmeone once said to me "I don't want to change over until someone shows me something that beats Lotus Notes and a scanner."
I know it's probably not very helpful, but honestly I'm pretty cynical about high-tech solutions for these things.
On the other hand, emacs with Wiki mode isn't bad....
There's a great program called ThoughtTracker which seems designed for this sort of thing. I don't have a link (it's in Debian; one of the reasons I use Debian is so that I don't need to remember links) but ti should be easy to find.
Basically you have text nodes with arbitrary names which can be "linked" with any other nodes. You can thus follow a train of thought by at a later date going to a node, and then following its links for as long as the related thoughts go.
I want my Cowboyneal
look at thebrain.com It is commercialware, but seems like it might be what you may be looking for.
If you have not seen this program, Check it out. It is a mature product, not open source however http://web.singnet.com.sg/~axon2000/index.htm
Inspiration... available on PC and Mac... its good for flowcharting things, making ideamaps, brainstorming, or just note taking...
Treepad is a tree-based PIM, organizer, word processor with too many features to list here, that I've been using for about a year.
The combination of organizing your notes in a tree, with hyperlinks between nodes, and a good search feature makes it a great way to keep track of things.
It isn't open source, but there is a free 'lite' version, plus a couple inexpensive full-featured versions (including versions for Linux).
i've been looking for a similar tool myself. have you checked out a tool called infoSelect by a company called microLogic (www.miclog.com)?
Some people think The One True Way is to use outliners. (shrug) It depends on your work style.
... lists a bunch of Windows outliners, along with personal opinion on usage and features.
This really useful page...
http://john.redmood.com/organizers.html
I have been in your exact shoes and have installed Twiki and have the following generalization...
Wiki's aren't as easy to use as they seem. When using a wiki, there's actually a very distinct (but non-obvious) obstacle course between the urge to write and the actual start of writing and it negatively impacts your productivity more than you realize.
... but that's just a generalization from my own experience. I'm still a believer, but not a user.
"Someday, I'll fix it."
Extra comments: Jot + serves me well as a catch-all sort of scratchpad... I'm only an Alt-Tab away from writing, and I also like its indentation model.
The folks behind The Brain are patent fuckwads... they actually patented the idea of using lines to connect thoughts. Avoid them.
With a basic setup, it might help with what you need.
With a little tweaking (perl knowledge, html knowledge, a little patience...) it can do most anything "data" and quite a lot more.
-swinters
One of the reasons Mac OS X is so exciting is all the new apps being developed for just what you describe. Tinderbox, BTW, being the least interesting, oldest and clunkiest of the bunch. I kinda resent that guy's riding the tails of new-paradigm apps like DEVONThink - clipping live web pages, in the built-in browser! - when Tinderbox has been around forever. It works if your brain works exactly like his. What I really respect are the apps that respect me, The Smart Braindumps, with intelligent retrieval. That's where the future is. For a text person, it's a wild feast, and changing every few weeks.
Kaspaliste is a literature database. It handles all kinds of books, articles, journals, webpages etc. The database goes beyond storing bibliographical information. There is the possibility to create annotated links between pieces of information (like the content of a book chapter) and to group links into categories.
The user interface works just like a web browser: You may follow the links to open records. You may walk back and forward through previously edited records, change fields, and create or delete links, publication, authors etc. on the fly with just one mouseclick.
Kaspaliste does not only store pieces of information about publications. It stores files as well. Kaspaliste handels various formats like html, pdf, ps, dvi and pictures (depends on your KDE-installation since the kpart-technology is used). You can for example store ocr'ed parts of interesting publications. The fulltext search covers these files.
Thanks to everyone for all your suggestions. A lot of you are recommending MS-Windows programs, which I can't use (since as I mentioned, I'm running GNU/Linux). Perhaps they'll help other Slashdotters who are Windows users and are wondering the same thing. However, there were several suggestions for some GNU/Linux programs which I am now checking out. I don't think I ever would have found them without being referred to them here. :)
Again, not open source but what I've foun dvery handy for colating information is MyInfo. I've used for everything website design to D&D campaing planning. Also exports to HTML and pretty cheap too...
Morale seems good, considering, although high spirits are just no substitute for eight hundred rounds a minute
But, maybe you should take a look at Everything
Its pretty nifty, but its a memory hog. And I will say unless you are running Debian, its a bitch to install.
So, this is a problem i've been faced with for quite some time, and i'm in the same situation as you. I have settled on the "triple threat" - Blosxom for quick or hierarchical notes, TWiki for more detailed information, and Emacs as a general text editing environment. Emacs is the most recent addition to my plan for keeping track of information. I used to think of it as a very bloated system, but if you consider it as something you load up in the morning and do a large portion of your work on, you'll find it is an incredible tool for "text integration" - planning, Wiki, diary, Email/news (gnus), etc all in one tool. Blosxom is a great blogging engine and I use primarily TWiki for my outlining. If you're using Mac OS X, there is no better tool than OmniOutliner/VoodooPad/MacJournal. I looked hard at solutions like PersonalBrain, Mindjet's stuff, etc, but it never fit the bill and I find that with emacs+blosxom+twiki+cvs|subversion, I can have a quickly accessible, easy-to-use system for storing all my information, anywhere. Please also check out Remembrance Agent and remember.el for Emacs, which you will find increases your productivity immensely.