InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by ThomR on 2010/08/19 15:31

Hi all. I've been wanting to do something with infoqube for a while, but can't seem to get my head around how to proceed, so I thought I may as well throw it out there and see if anyone's got more imagination than I. I use infoqube to take notes for my dissertation. I have a main grid with all my primary sources, and then I hoist each source as I work on it. My problem is that I have two different types of entries that I don't know how to combine: structural entries and note entries. In terms of structure, I like to expand each source into its main chapters as subitems, and then expand each of these subitems into their sections or arguments. But then I have a parallel interest in wanting to expand each item into notes on that very section. Sometimes this proceeds smoothly, namely when notes are on a given section which has no sub-sections. But when a section/argument has subsections, but I want to record notes on the section itself and not on its subsections, then I'm screwed, because I end up with a structural item which expands into subitems mixed in with notes. This is complicated by the fact that sometimes I like to have hierachical notes (ie, themselves outlined into expandable headings), but at the very least would like to have multiple notes connected to a single item in a way that is as easily browsable as the main outline. Creating a field for each separate note doesn't make sense to me. What I need is expandability in two dimensions, if you know what I mean. Any suggestions?

Comments

Would you mind furnishing a screenshot or two of your present setup?

Here's an example:

The two green items are structural... a heading and subheading which make up part of the outline of Book IV. The yellow items inbetween are notes to the first green item. My problem is that sometimes I want merely to browse a source's outline alone to reach notes on a certain section (in which ideal case it would be green all the way through until I would expand a particular structural item into its yellow notes). As it is, even were I to colour-code the whole thing, I would always be expanding into greens and yellows. I wish I could expand downwards, into lower-level outline components, as well as 'inwards?', into lower-level notes. Weird?

Have you used filtering - I hardly do so can only give a rough idea:

If you were able to show everything except the notes, and then use 'Show all subitems' from an item's context menu to show the notes which are children of that item - would that suit?

You could give the 'Show all subitems' a shortcut key to make it easier to use.

If that does suit hopefully Armando or someone who's a real filter-user could chip in and explain the details

I don't know InfoQube well enough to know if this will work, or can be made to work, but - could you use a double pane approach where one contains the outline and the other the notes. I'm thinking about a parallel to Explorer etc where folders show in one pane - and when you select one you can see the files within it in the other pane.

In effect one pane is an outline view of the structure, the other pane contains the content within the various levels of the outline.

this may require a fancy formula somewhere and maybe a flag field to click on alongside the outline item to activate showing that item's notes in the second pane.

I'm assuming putting notes in the html pane is not satisfactory for some reason.

Thanks so much for the responses. It's great to have at least a starting point, and both of these sound promising... I'll do some fiddling. I have thought of some kind of two-pane approach, but couldn't begin to think about how to link them. Worth some work, for sure, along with filtering. And yeah, the I have a bunch of data in html currently, and it's just not what I want.

[quote=ThomR]

.. I'll do some fiddling.

[/quote]

I fiddled a little, maybe it will give you some ideas--I made a Y/N "note" field, and then by adding "AND Note" to the source,as shown, and turning on "Context Parents" it gives this.

My idea was something along those lines

But how about if everything structural had a field ticked (e.g. "Primary") and then the notes had a different field ticked

1) and then if you made source Primary, just structural will show (as you have Keith) - then you have the option to show all sub-items

2) and if you make source Primary OR Notes then everything will show (not necessarily better - just a different option)

[edit] one advantage of this is that you would keep the whole structure, a disadvantage would be if that structure got in the way... [/edit]

You may have to experiment with hierarchy settings to get items to show in proper hierarchy - I think Full Hierarchy will be fine:-

Menu: Grid >Hierarchy >Full Hierarchy - but I'm not 100% sure there...

Using dual pane with different source or filters is a good idea (or you could even have different grids - one only structural, one either as Keith did it above or as suggested here

I'll look at what others proposed and see if I can come up with some ideas too for you.

[I was very busy yesterday and today. And I had to get rid of my current paid for firewall (Online Armor) to replace it by a free alternative (Comodo) as I was having stability problem like freezes and weird behaviors when resuming from standby... Hopefully this will be the end of the story ... crossing fingers).]

An easy way is to set up 2 grids, each one filtering (one for structural entries, one for notes). You can have the grid side by side if you want to see both types of information at the same time.

If you need help in setting up the filters, do not hesitate to ask

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

An easy way is to set up 2 grids, each one filtering (one for structural entries, one for notes). You can have the grid side by side if you want to see both types of information at the same time.

If you need help in setting up the filters, do not hesitate to ask

[/quote]

I'd like to understand how this might be done - to be honest I dont use filters for something like this cause I dont know how to (apart from my suggestion above which I havent actually tried myself).

I get stumped at the post with filters - I mean I never got beyond the fact that: when I filter for items that are showing in the grid, they disappear because they also have to meet the source - which is normally only applied to TLI's.

I like Armando's idea of having two sources for a grid (one for TLI's, the other for all items IIRC) but I've never gotten my act together to try it out yet.

The filter box supports 2 parts:

Main filter: items must meet the source and this filter to be displayed
Sub-item filter: applies to sub-items only

Format is: Main filter | Sub-item filter

I would love to see exactly how this would be done (Source / Filter).

It's a very good practical example (which could possibly then be used in the manual)

Me, I can filter fine where everything meets the source (e.g. Contacts, or a list of files I'm working on) but I get a bit lost when hierarchy is involved and I want to filter and keep the hierarchical structure*. I understand there could be various approaches here. I can see Keith's example above is a good approach. I'm not sure if my idea above is good but I think it would also be good, as long as the hierarchy works.

So it would be great to see how you Pierre or Armando would approach it

Of course I tend to forget about the column filter - probably cause it doesn't work well with text - but I think it works well with a yes/no field.

* maybe that's just not the best approach - trying to filter and keep the hierarchical structure?

[quote=Tom]

Yes this is exactly the challenging part at first. The new UI will allow an easier subitems filtering.

In the mean time, you can use that syntax (which overide

Query 1  | Query 2

Let's say you want to see all the "todos" you put below your contacts in your contact grid : you'd leave the first part empty (as they correspond to the grid's source, main filter : contact), and put "todos" in the second part ("todo" is an example) :

| Todos

Let's say you want to see all the contacts starting with letter A + that have todos as subitems

item like "A*" | Todos

Caveat : you'll see those "todos" only if they are directly under the TLI OR, If they can only be found at the 3rd, 4th (etc.) level, the filter will show them only there's alao subitem directly under the TLI that meets the filter. If they're under a "layer" of items not meeting anything, the filter won't show them.

Item 1

Subitem 1 (not todos) won't show up

SubSubitemA (todos) won't show up because the one before is not a "todos"

Subitem 2 (todos) will show up

SubSubitemB (todos) will show up

I've learned to work around this, but it's annoying.

One way is to create filters that will let through one parameter OR another one and make sure that my hierarchy respects certain rules (i.e. : Never hide a todo under a pile of items, always put them on certain items, etc.)

| Todos OR notes

Item 1

Subitem 1 (not todos but is "notes") --> will show up (it meets the sub items filter criteria : it's a "notes")

SubSubitemA (todos) --> will show up

I've asked that behaviour to be changed a long time ago : that IQ keeps searching down the hiearchy and doesn't stop at the first level if nothing meets the criteria.

HTH

Quote from the manual also :

[quote]

In addition, filters can contain 2 parts separated by a " | "
The first part will be applied to main items and the second part to sub-items. An example of this, you can have main items showing contacts and filter sub-items to only show phone calls to those contacts, all other (non phone call related) sub-items will not be shown (notes, correspondence, projects, etc).

Format: MainFilter | SubItemsFilter

[/quote]

Note that either part can be empty.

MainFilter |

| SubItemsFilter

Note also that as soon as you insert the "|" symbol, it overrides the "apply filter to subitems" option/button and will apply whatever you wrote in the filter text box.

[quote=Tom]

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

An easy way is to set up 2 grids, each one filtering (one for structural entries, one for notes). You can have the grid side by side if you want to see both types of information at the same time.

If you need help in setting up the filters, do not hesitate to ask

[/quote]

I'd like to understand how this might be done - to be honest I dont use filters for something like this cause I dont know how to (apart from my suggestion above which I havent actually tried myself).

I like Armando's idea of having two sources for a grid (one for TLI's, the other for all items IIRC) but I've never gotten my act together to try it out yet.

[/quote]

Hi Tom.

I believe that the next IQ UI / under the hood filter changes blend will make all that much more easy as items won't need to meet the source to be seen when using a filter.

Pierre can expand on that if he wishes too, but my feeling is that if you're willing to wait ( I haven't seen the deadlines, but maybe a few months or so), you won't have to set grids with complex sources ("FirstField OR SecondField").

That said, I don't know if the new filtering system will allow what I can do now : see all items that has been shown in a grid, regardless of the filters.

Yes, my method works very well, but does add some overhead to the process of creating/deleting items.

(So here you go again : Filtering is very high priority.)

> I believe that the next IQ UI / under the hood filter changes blend will make all that much more easy as items won't need to meet the source to be seen when using a filter.

well that sounds great - & I'm happy to wait

I think the main problem is where someone creates a grid with a hierarchy & then they discover that filtering currently approaches things from a very different angle - you have to think in a different way.

It has limited my use of IQ a lot as I'm just not that comfortable getting into the mechanics of things...

Hey all. I really appreciate the feedback... what a great community there is here.

What I've done is take 'Primary' as my source (still predicative only of TLIs, like a normal grid), and filtered for items checked for a 'Structure' field. Then when I'm working on notes to a particular item, I use "Show all sub-items". I think this will pretty much do it (thanks, Tom!).

A side-by-side two-grid setup would be even better, IF they could be linked somehow... what I have in mind is something like the option to "Show all sub-items [in a new window]". That way I could preserve the structure grid as is and work on a notes grid. Pierre's suggestion to have two grids filtered for structure and notes (as I understand it) doesn't quite work, because, as I mentioned, the notes are in reference to a structure item (ie, a section of a work), so they'd show at most a single context parent, so I wouldn't have the ability to browse (my notes), which is what I'm trying to get at. What I would rather have is something like my foobar2000 setup for music... browsing to an item (album) in one pane and then double-clicking to give a result list (tracks/show all sub-items) in the other pane. But that's just me being idiosyncratic. A single pane should work fine, I think.

I can't say I even understand Armando's 2-source thing, but don't let me interrupt that conversation.

Actually, there is one more immediate issue... when I hoist a particular primary source to work on, the filtering no longer works (I can no longer apply it). Is this foreordained? This would make hoisting out of the question for me.

[quote=ThomR]

[/quote]

Hi ThomR

1) You can either hoist + use column filters to filter out certain subitems

See :

Hoist Filter

and

-- link to nonexistent node ID 855 --

OR use hoist and and use the column filters

2) or "hoist" manually and use the filter text box in the source bar (alt+s) :

IDItem = your IDitem | SubItemFilter (any criteria you want here to filter your sub items)

[quote=ThomR]

I can't say I even understand Armando's 2-source thing, but don't let me interrupt that conversation.

[/quote]

Don't worry about the 2 source thing.

As grids are basically display devices that can also affect items that are inserted inside them (through Grid auto assign rules), grids are basically all linked...

You could still use Pierre's idea by using

Grid A to show the whole structure

Grid B (Same source as A, but maybe a different set of columns depending on what you're after...) to either :

1- hoist items to just see certain notes when needed.

2- show only notes items and display context parents.

I must say that once you're familiar with filters etc., all this becomes very easy. Having 2 similar grids instead of only one in which you constantly change filters etc. is probably better in your case.

Pierre : A hoisting feature that would be handy : "hoist item in other/next grid", and the user could choose which grid in which to hoist the item.

Upon closer inspection, a single-grid/filtering solution doesn't work, for the very reason I think Tom suspected. 'Show all sub-items' only shows immediate children... any further subitems that don't match the filter criterion remain inaccessible. I think you're right, Armando, in that having one grid with the source filtered for structure, and another in which I enter a particular structure item as an iditem-source for the second grid, which i can filter however which way, suits best. It would definitely be quicker if I could browse to an item in grid A and then type a shortcut that would automatically use that item as source for grid B, stripped of filters (your 'manual hoisting', i guess). I second your feature request.

[quote=ThomR]

It would definitely be quicker if I could browse to an item in grid A and then type a shortcut that would automatically use that item as source for grid B, stripped of filters (your 'manual hoisting', i guess). I second your feature request.

[/quote]

Yup...

First suggestion would be

"hoist selected item(s) in xyz grid" (in the hoist context menu)

I know Pierre wants to expand the hoisting feature to make it more versatile and powerful, but I don't remember if that was one the things he had in mind. It would definitely be useful for many tasks : project management, tasks management , writing, etc.

So you're in a grid but want to see your item in another context : 1- select 2- right click + select "hoist item in xyz grid" OR press a specific shortcut key....

Second option (maybe complementary)

Or what about... When you ctrl+drag&drop an item to another grid a dialog pops up and offers these options

- Display the selected item in this grid (same item will be seen in this grid too)

- Hoist the selected item in this grid (item is temporarily showed in that grid)

What do other users/Pierre think ?

First suggestion, great !!

[quote=Armando]

Second option (maybe complementary)

Or what about... When you ctrl+drag&drop an item to another grid a dialog pops up and offers these options

- Display the selected item in this grid (same item will be seen in this grid too)

- Hoist the selected item in this grid (item is temporarily showed in that grid)

What do other users/Pierre think ?

[/quote]

I use Ctrl+drag-drop a lot to give items new parents and wouldnt want to have to deal with a dialogue every time. So if something like this were implemented, preferably with an option to default to particular behaviour and not show dialogue box.

Could a different qualifier key be used ?

I use ctrl drag drop too a lot. So yes, not sure about it either. But if there was an option to default to one or the other option, why not. I think that's a good idea.

( Other modifier keys could be used, but alt key is traditionally used for creating shortcuts (that's why I suggested this in another thread : alt-drag-drop to create an HTML shortcut/link to another item, without having to fill the hyperlink dialog etc. I think this is in Mantis... But not sure... That's another one I'd use several times a day...))

Could that be a candidate for Mantis ?

[quote=Armando]

Could that be a candidate for Mantis ?

[/quote]

IMO yes (also yes to the Alt+drag-drop idea)

[quote=ThomR]

I think your best bet currently is using the grid as it is (showing all items, structural & notes) and also creating a grid that just shows the structural items. I believe the latter grid has to be created seperately, not just filtered but dont think anyone has yet said explicitly how to do this (?)

Show these in dual pane and navigate manually to where you want to read the notes. (love the idea of hoisting in a new pane btw)

I posted a file of what I came up with on manual page: -- link to nonexistent node ID 2093 --