InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by gregory on 2015/08/17 10:38

I have been pleasantly surprised and delighted by a discovery in InfoQube. I have been agonising for a very long time about the best way in which to show many-to-many relationships in this product. Thus at the present time I need to be able to take items in my bibliography and associate them with multiple tags. In order to record this data, I have a two-pane arrangement in InfoQube in which in the bottom pane I have the bibliography grid and in the upper pane I have the tag grid. In order to associate a bibliography entry with a tag, I hover the mouse over the top left-hand corner of the item number # and control left click and drag the item up into the upper pane and underneath the keyword with which I wish to associate the bibliography entry.It is displayed there together with any other items which I have already copied. I can then repeat this exercise to associate the same bibliography item with a second or third (etc…) keyword. The linked item is visible as a sub item of all three keywords in the upper tag pane. Meanwhile, back in the bibliography pane, properties window, the bibliography entry appears under a principal parent – this parent showing in blue in the main pane as is normal when showing context parents. Nb parents shows as three and conditional formatting shows the item in yellow. All this is excellent.

I would like to make a couple of suggestions further to improve this:

1. Rather than nominating a principal parent, would it be possible to display all the context parents, so that the single item can be shown to have multiple parents directly?

The physical act of control left-click and drag is slow and a little error-prone. Would it be possible to provide keyboard support such that in the bibliography pane, you could copy an item, option 4 (or 5):
4- Selected items
(in XML format, to make an exact copy of the items
and paste it in an IQBase). (This to be provided with keyboard support.)
Then in the upper pane, to provide an option to paste with linking? (This to be provided with keyboard support.)

Comments

This is great news,

There are certainly a couple ways to do this, but the first that comes to mind is to tag items and then add tagged items as sub items.

There are commands for both steps so you should be able to add a keyboard shortcut for each.

HTH

Pierre_Admin

Good suggestion which I will now be able to try... I apologise for my long silence. I was trying to meet a very tight deadline. I now have an extension on the principal project on which I'm working. I shall report how I get on with this suggestion on this thread in the next day or so.

Concerning the use of the word tagging in InfoQube: what do forum members think of using the term gather instead of tag? Then reuse as the verb or noun which describes their subsequent use?

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

[quote=gregory]

Concerning the use of the word tagging in InfoQube: what do forum members think of using the term gather instead of tag? Then reuse as the verb or noun which describes their subsequent use?

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

[/quote]

Other suggestions have been made in the past. there's probably even a thread on the subject.

I think I suggested "collect" as it's frequently used for that type of usage (e.g. Directory Opus, programming languages, etc.). So you can "collect" items an then display the "collection". You can add or remove items to the collection, and put/link collected items under a parent, etc. Collect seems straightforward to me.

(Some software -- don't remember which one; acdsee maybe -- use the term basket instead of collection; but that's a pretty insignificant nuance)

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Windows 8.1

Sony Vaio S Series 13 (SVS131E21L)

Ram:8gb, CPU: Intel i5-3230M, 2.6ghz

You didn't know items could have multiple parents? This one of IQ's feature I couldn't live with...

Multiple parents for tagging usage : the only problems with this method (I've analysed that option) is that
1- it's not really possible to tag items "on the fly" (through the add item dialog for instance, or from a single grid).
2- It's also difficult (impossible?) to search for items sharing various parents but not others, etc. (i.e. various set relations). unless they're the main parent and not more than 2 levels deep.

>1. Rather than nominating a principal parent, would it be possible to display all the context parents, so that the single item can be shown to have multiple parents directly?

You means using the grid ? I really wonder how could that be done in a single grid without some other viewing technology...

Viewing all parents can presently be done through
1- The properties pane (parents section),
2-in the/a grid one item at a time with the hoist command to show/hoist all parents of the currently selected item. (that's one level up, but you can reselect hoisted items, repeat the operation, etc.)

>The physical act of control left-click and drag is slow and a little error-prone. Would it be possible to provide keyboard support such that in the bibliography pane, you could copy an item, option 4 (or 5):

Ctrl+Click drag/drop has always worked for me.

Alternatively (and I use that a lot) you can "tag" (i.e. collect, the IQ way...) groups of items and place them under as many parents as you want. This is quick and efficient.

I've assigned Ctrl+T for "tagging". Ctrl+Shift+T to put the "tagged" (confusing word, as I already said numerous times, but this is how it is...) items under whatever parents you want.

>Then in the upper pane, to provide an option to paste with linking? (This to be provided with keyboard support.)

What does that mean?

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Windows 8.1

Sony Vaio S Series 13 (SVS131E21L)

Ram:8gb, CPU: Intel i5-3230M, 2.6ghz

-- Thanks once again for these detailed responses.

You didn't know items could have multiple parents? This one of IQ's feature I couldn't live with...

-- Yes, I did know that items could have multiple parents. I did not know that it was relatively easy actually to use in practice. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that an item which is multiply classified appears under at least its principal tag.

-- This is true, at least not without a product development. It has to be done in a subsequent process.

2- It's also difficult (impossible?) to search for items sharing various parents but not others, etc. (i.e. various set relations). unless they're the main parent and not more than 2 levels deep.

-- There may be a way round this. See my subsequent comment and tell me whether it would help with this use case.

>1. Rather than nominating a principal parent, would it be possible to display all the context parents, so that the single item can be shown to have multiple parents directly?

You means using the grid ? I really wonder how could that be done in a single grid without some other viewing technology...

-- This could be done in a second pane. If it were possible in some way to nominate that a field in the first pane was the source in a second pane, and if InfoQube refreshed the second pane as item focus changed in the first, it would be possible to "flip the hierarchy". I have many use cases for this. One is multiple classification: it is all of blue and it is yellow and it flies and it is not a man (and might for example be some kind of exotic bird). So as you tag the bird in the first pane, its various tags are displayed in the second pane. It is far from perfect, but I think it could be made to work.

-- I do not know what is planned by Pierre in the area of improved classification and categorisation nor when it might appear. But the underlying data structures already exist and work well.

Viewing all parents can presently be done through
1- The properties pane (parents section),

-- I find this to be the best option at present.

2-in the/a grid one item at a time with the hoist command to show/hoist all parents of the currently selected item. (that's one level up, but you can reselect hoisted items, repeat the operation, etc.)

Ctrl+Click drag/drop has always worked for me.

-- I find it to be somewhat errorprone in that if you do not hold the control key down, the cursor skates across the screen and the potential to make a messy error arises if you do not spot this quickly. Yes, I have been caught out by this. In this and in many other contexts there is no easy way to undo the changes.

Alternatively (and I use that a lot) you can "tag" (i.e. collect, the IQ way...) groups of items and place them under as many parents as you want. This is quick and efficient.

I've assigned Ctrl+T for "tagging". Ctrl+Shift+T to put the "tagged" (confusing word, as I already said numerous times, but this is how it is...) items under whatever parents you want.

-- I shall try this and get back to you.

>Then in the upper pane, to provide an option to paste with linking? (This to be provided with keyboard support.)

What does that mean?

-- I am distinguishing here between moving something from one parent to another and creating an additional link to a second parent. It is of course the second that is wanted.

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

[quote=gregory]The physical act of control left-click and drag is slow and a little error-prone. Would it be possible to provide keyboard support such that in the bibliography pane, you could copy an item, option 4 (or 5):

4- Selected items
(in XML format, to make an exact copy of the items
and paste it in an IQBase). (This to be provided with keyboard support.)
Then in the upper pane, to provide an option to paste with linking? (This to be provided with keyboard support.)[/quote]

is this not covered by current copy/paste dialogues?

Ctrl+C

=> 4

Ctrl+V

=> arrow down to select "Paste as... LINKS" - and Enter to confirm (this not consistent with other dialogue in terms of keys used - IIRC you requested that elsewhere)

[edit] had some bugs listed but they appear to be fixed in per-rel #54 - which of course I should have updated first :-) [/edit]

I am replying here both to Tom and to Armando.

Since I started this thread, there have been a number of changes and improvements. One is that Pierre has taken note of Armando's concerns about the use of the word "tagging" and has started using the word "marking" instead. Then there has been the recent (pre-release 59) introduction of multiple selection of wikitags with the promise that this will in future be generalised to other fields. These are great developments.

Meanwhile, in my own use of the product, I have followed up on a suggestion from Armando and assigned keyboard shortcuts for operations associated with marking:

Operation	Menu	Keyboard shortcut that I have assigned
marking an item; this adds it to the set of currently marked items	Item / Mark items (Replace) / Mark items (Add)	Ctrl+T
linking all currently marked items to an additional parent	Item / Add marked items as children	Ctrl+Shift+T
unmarking all currently marked items (recall that marking an item adds it to the set of currently marked items and that therefore it is necessary from time to time to clear the list)	Item / Mark items (Replace) / Clear list of marked items	Ctrl+Alt+T

By this means, I have been able to follow the advice given by both Tom and Armando and have found working with multiple parents much easier.

However, I would like to bump my suggestion for a mechanism to display multiple parents more effectively in a second grid. To remind you of what I suggested - slightly reworded:

"Rather than nominating a principal parent, would it be possible to display all the context parents, so that the single item can be shown to have multiple parents directly? This could be done in a second pane. If it were possible in some way to nominate that a field in the first pane was the source in a second pane, and if InfoQube refreshed the second pane as item focus changed in the first, it would be possible to "flip the hierarchy". I have many use cases for this. One is multiple classification: it is all of blue and it is yellow and it flies and it is not a man (and might for example be some kind of exotic bird). So as you mark the bird in the first pane, its various marks are displayed in the second pane. It is far from perfect, but I think it could be made to work."

No one has commented on this suggestion; do other InfoQube users consider it a good or bad idea?

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

[quote] if InfoQube refreshed the second pane as item focus changed in the first[/quote]

Doesn't the Properties pane do that already ?

I don't want to make big changes right now, but how about if we had an ItemParents field which would show the list of parents. Would that help ?

Yes, the properties pane does do that but is restricted in width, and shows no context.

The suggestion of an ItemParents field is quite nice in the sense that, for example, you could adjust the width fairly straightforwardly. However, it is not as comprehensive a "solution" as the one that I am suggesting.

Please see also my comments in reply to Armando.

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

Hi Mark,

I understand what you say about classification, but I'm not sure I perfectly understand your implementation.

Flipping the hierarchy for an item would be interesting and powerful (which is possible with the properties pane, albeit slowly) : allowing one to see all the contexts (span and depth) in which an item is used. I guess this could only be done one item at a time, in a grid. It would be nice.

But IMO, the greatest thing would be to be able to search for common parents, as I' ve suggested elsewhere.

E.g. 2 items share some "parents" (but not necessarily at the next level - could be grandparents or great grandparents, etc.); Instead of trying to visually see what the 2 items have in common, you search for the parents using filters.

E.g. : (item like "*superman*" or item like "*bird*") and allParents like "*blue*" and (allParents not like "man*" or (allParents like "" or allParents is null))

allparents being a text field containing a list of all parents (meaning : the whole hierarchy) an item has. As Pierre seems to suggest.

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Windows 8.1

Sony Vaio S Series 13 (SVS131E21L)

Ram:8gb, CPU: Intel i5-3230M, 2.6ghz

"I guess this could only be done one item at a time, in a grid. It would be nice."

Yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting. However, I am also suggesting that the item displayed in the second pane would track the item displayed in the first.

But IMO, the greatest thing would be to be able to search for common parents, as I' ve suggested elsewhere.

E.g. : (item like "*superman*" or item like "*bird*") and allParents like "*blue*" and (allParents not like "man*" or (allParents like "" or allParents is null))

allparents being a text field containing a list of all parents (meaning : the whole hierarchy) an item has. As Pierre seems to suggest.

This sounds very interesting and very powerful but is I think complementary to what I am suggesting. Your emphasis is on subsequent retrieval. Mine is on organising the information in the first place. Both are very important.

Pierre has suggested that he does not wish to make major changes at the present time, and given our shared concern that we get to a stable release one as soon as possible, I suppose that we had better set the ideal aside in favour of the quickly and pragmatically realisable.

So, Pierre, if your suggestion of ItemParents is low-cost, let us settle for that for now. Then prioritise Armando's suggestion (after release one?) and keep mine on the backburner!

Mark GREGORY, Redon, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

How about if the Properties pane showed a section called Common Parents (if more than 1 item is selected) containing a flat list of the common parents (regardless of hierarchy) ?

Another option is to use the fast search for this. There are already buttons to show the marked items, could add one to show the common parents of marked items. Performance wise, this would be the least impacting solution...

The problem is that it's more practical to directly search for "common" OR "Not common" parents (for items sharing parents or not), than to select items and see if they happen to have common parents. Not that this search possibility would never occur, but it seems less likely to me.

that was explained here : Searching for items sharing specific parent(s)

... with a good example by Pierre himself!

As for the display example Mark describes, yes, that'd be good. I get it now.

- It could be difficult to control (as hierarchical depth and span can be enormous), unless it could be possible to limit the depth, like for context parents.

The Map view, or something like that would be another way to display multiple parents at once -- something that the grid cannot do easily, unless one uses some strategy like the one mark described, ans it does have potential. The mapview would also have its limits: it wouldn't allow showing other fields info simultaneously (i.e. you'd see the item parents, but not all their characteristics in columns, like what a grid allows.)

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Windows 8.1

Sony Vaio S Series 13 (SVS131E21L)

Ram:8gb, CPU: Intel i5-3230M, 2.6ghz

How about a Common children section in the Properties pane ? Would that help too ?

If you select 2 or more items, that section would give all items which are sub-items of all selected items

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

How about a Common children section in the Properties pane ? Would that help too ?

If you select 2 or more items, that section would give all items which are sub-items of all selected items

[/quote]

I guess it could. It would be complementary.

Of course, it doesn't replace what I (or Mark) was mentioning - namely the ability to search for items sharing (or not) specific parents.

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Windows 8.1

Sony Vaio S Series 13 (SVS131E21L)

Ram:8gb, CPU: Intel i5-3230M, 2.6ghz

Is anyone else as lost as I am? I'm in the process of figuring out how to organize and categorize a large amount of historical research, so this topic is very relevant to me right now. But I have no idea what's being said here and I'm trying to figure out if it's worth my time to try to work through all this step by step to figure it out. Maybe some concrete examples would help, if anyone has the time.

I think I'm trying to accomplish similar things in my project, but I'm planning to go about it in a different way. I'll have all more information in one grid using the source document as the "item" for each nugget of information. Then I plan to create an array of multi-pick categories (ie tags) grouped by columns. There will be a column for time categories, one for tribe categories, one for age categories, etc. There will also be an array of topic categories similarly organized by columns.

Once this is all set up, I can use filters to turn on or off the display of each nugget of information. That makes the process of research infinitely easier because I can instantly see what everyone has to say about any particular topic without having to go back and scan read the original sources.

I also have additional text columns set up for adding my own comments on each passage, and the thoughts of other authors.

Does this sound like a reasonable approach? Does the multi-parent approach discussed above have some advantage over my approach?

Thanks, Wayne

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