Submitted by Magnus Brogie on 2009/11/09 13:53
Currently the grids are structured (as far as I know) in a strictly hiearchal, mindmap-like manner. I think it would make IQ even more powerful if it allowed for labeled &/or non hiearchal &/or sequential item-item relationships. That would take IQ beyond outlining and into text-based conceptmapping and flowcharting. Labeled relationships would result in every itembranch becoming a kind of sentence. Sequential relationships would allow for advanced and intuitive dependencies and  process description. I also think itemanchored grids would allow for  more inuitive and powerful IQ-browsing capabilities. This would demand reversible relationships, i.e. the labels are changed (inverted) depending on which item is hiearchally closest to the grid "anchor". 
 
Cheers from Sweden
Magnus 

Comments

Hi Magnus,
 
Non-hyperlink,  non-parent-child links are planned, specifically, 2-way relational links such as:
  • If you create a link "Item1 is employed by Item2", it  would also show up as "Item2 employs Item1"
These would show up in a separate "Links" pane. Is this what you had in mind?
 

Magnus Brogie

2009/11/09 16:49

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It's definitively in line with my thinking. Though I would appreciate even more if you took it even further and allowed labels for parent-child links too. These labels would preferebly be visible in normal grid view. Think of something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conceptmap.gif as compared to something like this: http://mymindmap.net/images/Mind_Map_Template_Mulit_Rnd_small.jpg And as I said  item-anchored browsing would mean that you, preferebly from the right-click menu, could create a grid from item A, which had A as first item and displayed all of As relationships.
 
I am yet to operationalize my sequencing thought, but I suppose it would allow for creating processes of items that's directly visible in the grid, similar to a flowchart. It could probably be integrated with some kind of language for describing conditions for modifying fields. For me it would be good for producing task-sequence structures similar to this: http://www.breezetree.com/flow-charts/8D-process-flowchart.png A language for automated field manipulation already exists in IQ, but my idea is to make such processes more visible and more item-based, basicly allowing items to represent field manipulation operations.
 
Cheers
Magnus

Armando

2009/11/10 00:08

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It's really weird... I thought I answered here... And my post has vanished !
 
Anyway, I wanted to add that to what Pierre said, even you might have noticed it already:
 
IQ is not strictly hierarchical, and it's certainly not "mind map" like. Mind maps have a center, IQ doesn't by default -- although it could if you wanted to... IQ doesn't restrict you to mind maps structures.
 
IQ's got a strong heterarchical component. It does wiki like linking, hyperlink, multiple parent, etc. And so a grid is much more like a concept map than a mind map. I myself am a strong proponent of tagging, and I use that capability in IQ a lot. I use parent linking and hyperlinks a lot too. Wiki less so as it's not fully implemented yet.