[ba-unrev-talk] Reply from ADM to Peter's Big Review of ADM WWO Client
HI Peter,
Thanks for the friendly and thorough review of ADM below. For anyone whose interest is piqued by your review, I'd like to repeat the suggestoin that the ADM client be downloaded from www.worldwideoutline.net , and not from www.adm21.net , as only the version at the former site includes ability to surf the worldwideoutline demo.
Regarding your review:
We'll happily take the `7 out of 10' that you assign on your scorecard (we agree that their are currently various shortcomings), and we'll strive to raise that score in our forthcoming releases, due to be coded very shortly, which will be fully re-engineered around the world wide outline.
As you note below, it is not currently possible to attach links to the textcards/pages but only to the *topics* to which textcards/pages are attached. However, full linking capabilities in the pages themselves will be added - hopefully within a few weeks - for *all* file types and for adm topics as well, so the power of hypertext will be conjoined with the power of outlining.
Other forthcoming features included in the version 2.0 spec.:
*Ability to create aestheticaly pleasing webpage *style* interneal textcards or pages for a more polished `professional' look when publishing to the O.
*Additional windows and additional user-customizable textcard `types'
*User customizable Data-base style forms'
*Network enabling features (like file locking and utlimately a WWO server product);
*Easy *save-to-O' publishing commands,
*Ability to link an individual topic in one datastructure/outline/file to an *individual* topic in another file, whereas currently such inter-outline links can only be created from a topic to another file or outline as a whole. (very important for wwo connectivity between outlines over the net)
* A classic collapsable outliner view of the data, in addition to the present `speed screens'.
And much more.
Cordially, Eric
Peter Jones wrote:
The Big Review --
Good Stuff:
If you like outlining, you might quite like this tool and where it's going.
There are a few little niggles that I suspect will disappear in v2 and ADM seem
to relish feedback so feel free to add to their to-do list.
Fast download, fast install (on Windows at least) - just unzip and go, and
there's much about the interface that is pretty intuitive, or at least fun to
explore. Other things are harder to find and you will actually have to RTFM but
the Help is context sensitive so you just push F1 and up it comes.
Not-so-cool stuff:
I have managed to make it hang once by switching across many applications to do
various things and then coming back to it.
The arrangement of the window panes nags - I would like to be able to move them
around like in a visual IDE - layering or drag and dock as necessary. More
options on that front would be good.
Links are attached to admtopics (outline topics) but when embedded in a topic's
textcard they don't appear active. So you don't appear to be able to insert
links at certain points in the text (unless it's hidden in the manual somewhere
I haven't been yet). I can see that becoming problematic.
You can't just paste links into a linkcard off the clipboard and have them
recognised as links, you have to right-click for a context menu. This irritated
me a little.
Personal attitude stuff:
I'm not really the sort of person who approaches the task of organisation in an
outlining way from the outset. I.e. outlining is the thing I do last once I've
gathered my materials, and then only do with a subset of those materials. ADM
might support this method of working, but I haven't really tested it to that
extent yet because I haven't done anything that needs outlining lately.
ADM does let you dump resources and so forth into a collector and you can then
sort them out later but for me organisation of that material comes as a gradual
accretion of links and notes in multiple structures that slowly come together. I
have yet to ascertain whether ADM supports my personal approach.
7/10 for the app at this stage, but ADM Staff seem to be working hard on raising
that. 8+/10 for effort.
It's late. Time for bed.
Cheers,
--
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Armstrong"
To:
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: Peter's ADM features wishlistWas: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] From ADM:
Another thought on your inquiry
> Peter:
>
> I'm looking forward to your review of this.
>
>
>
Advanced Data Management Systems
Email: staff@adm21.net
website: http://www.adm21.net
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