[om-list] organising and creating textual information

[luke call]

On 04/23/16 19:28, OneModel general list [hendrik] wrote:
> The versions in the monotone repository are the only definitive copies.
> And they are replicated onto different machines automatically.
>
....
> I started this for my writing, because I had several machines to work
> on, and often did not know which one would be available.  The contents
> would sometimes diverge, and then all changes would be merged whe I got
> the chance.

I replied to a comment today on the soylentnews discussion that might be 
relevant:

https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=13242&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=336805#337019

In other words, there's a conceptual shift to putting data in OM vs. in 
documents.  I think, if you read at that link, that to use OM well you'd 
have to practice approaching it differently.  There are 3 main options I 
see for that:
   1) think of it as an outline, everything is a point in the outline, 
but focusing on entities.  And only for exceptions do we create 
paragraphs (all of which which are exported when needed). But make 
sentences and rearrange them freely/easily using the OM ui.  (This or #3 
is about what I do the most, currently.)  Perhaps like a mind map.  Then 
it can be exported when needed to txt or html.
   2) Instead of writing sentences or paragraphs, think about what 
really *is*, in an OO sense.  This really goes back to that above link, 
but moreso, and may or may not be practical for your usage now.  Like, 
if writing about a formula, the entity name is the formula name, a 
TextAttribute  could be its latex representation (ie, go to the entity 
by pressing its dynamically assigned letter, then press 47 to create a 
text attribute, hitting Enter or ESC to breeze thru any irrelevant 
questions, and enter the text).  Creating "has" relations to other 
entities (just press 1 there) could be its other parts, or more 
deteailed relations, essentially converting what would be prose to an OO 
model (like the old Booch methodology of nouns being objects, verbs 
being code, not there yet in OM, other nouns being objects at the 
receiving end of a RelationToEntity, etc).  Like my example on soylent 
of my wife's craft component dimensions.  This would be easier if all 
the conveniences were done, eg if there were more features to make the 
entities' relationships' use more apparent, shareable, showing some 
examples, this would make more sense, but is possible now.
   3) Similar to #1, but just write. They are lines. Rearrange them. 
Maybe it's really the same as #1.  I should mention that a 
theoretically-crude but very practical (I'm doing it, and might do it 
more, as for the web site) use of OM is to have full paragraphs as 
TextAttrs in OM and process them as exported. It will have glitches as 
is currently coded narrowly to my use cases, but might be well adaptable 
to yours also.

Things can be imported from text with some persistence, including those 
TAs, though it still creates groups instead of direct entity links, and 
I am moving my own usage more to the direct entity links.

If you do those, I've found OM to be efficient for brainstorming stuff 
and linking it around.  If something goes where it doesn't belong, it 
can be moved with the '2' menu, or going to the destination and putting 
it there with the 42 menu opts, etc.  Especially if one can touch-type 
with the numbers.

Also, I hope one of my replies to you on the soylentnews.org discussion 
gives more likelihood that you'll try OM enough to see that the 
keystrokes aren't much of a new set to learn, and worth trying (always 
on the screen, and most of them are dynamically assigned to your data as 
you enter it, so can easily rearrange things as you like, then you just 
hit a letter).

Then for multiple machines, I have used postgres backup/restore, which I 
scripted for my convenience, to move the info between machines so I 
always had my "brain" with me.  Now I'm thinking to just use the same 
laptop all the time and not switch so much.  But I'm offering hosted 
storage, so you could just have "java -jar onemodel..." on whatever 
machine, and type a password, so if you want to be a test case that 
might work.  Future (hopefully within several months?) distributed data 
features should provide yet more options.

>> For the mathematics, at what point in your workflow do you need to
>> view it as symbols?
>
> Ideally, while I'm editing it.
>
> In practice, I get to see it so when I convert it to html and look at
> my local files with a browser.  There is a Latex editor somewhere.  I
> believe it's a two-panel editor -- you edit Latex in one panel and it
> simultaneously shows you what it looks like in the other.

Export could be made scriptable, and possibly to call external code or 
some library to transform things.

>> Currently one enters data into OM by typing text
>> from the keyboard, which could include some latex, but then it will
>> also display it as text when viewed. The html export could be
>> modified, maybe, to convert the latex to something else to view as
>> html, but I'm not sure if that helps your use case, since I don't
>> know enough about your use case.

Are you thinking of trying any of that?  Interested in your further 
thoughts.  I plan to consider further your prior comments here and in 
the soylentnews.org discussion.  Thanks much, for your inputs.

> It's traditional in internet mailing lists to reveal emal address, so
> people can be contacted off-list when appropriate.
....

I switched that setting back to expose senders' addresses for that, and 
so we can keep track of with whom we communicate. Thanks!

-Luke

-- 
Luke A. Call
--------------------------------------
- Knowledge management consulting: inquire.  (Also for Free software & 
software dev. process.)
- A Free, fast personal organizer for touch typists:  if you ever liked 
to-do list programs, mind maps, collapsible outlines, or emacs org-mode, 
you might love this: http://www.onemodel.org (no mobile support yet).
- Things I'd like to say to more people: 
http://www.onemodel.org/1/e-9223372036854618449.html .