From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Eric Abrahamsen Subject: Re: [OT] Does anyone use Tinderbox? Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:19:41 -0700 Message-ID: <87ipbty202.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:35382) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T8zbM-0004yo-IH for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:20:01 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T8zbL-0000LB-4Z for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:20:00 -0400 Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:54578) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T8zbK-0000Kn-Tp for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:19:59 -0400 Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1T8zbI-0005GI-W3 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:19:56 +0200 Received: from c-76-28-192-116.hsd1.wa.comcast.net ([76.28.192.116]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:19:56 +0200 Received: from eric by c-76-28-192-116.hsd1.wa.comcast.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:19:56 +0200 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org On Tue, Sep 04 2012, Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote: > Hi list, > > I've recently found out about Tinderbox (http://www.eastgate.com/ > Tinderbox/), a personal information management application/framework > for the Mac. It looks very interesting in its visualization > capabilities. > > Does anyone in the list use it, and if so, care to share a bit about > the experience? > > Perhaps it could serve as inspiration for orgmode extensions/ > integration ideas. > > Cheers, > > - Marcelo. I used to use it, when I still used a Mac. Despite the price tag, it was the only piece of software I paid for, *without* later discovering some free open source software that did the same thing better. Tinderbox has some feature overlap with Org, but not a lot. It's much more a generalized note-taking/data collection program -- it can and often is configured as a TODO machine, but you'd have to build in much of the stuff that comes with Org by default. On the other hand, it's much more powerful and flexible when it comes to (re)organizing chunks of plain data. Tinderbox notes are comparable to a single Org headline-plus-text-and-metadata, but they can be arranged and related much more flexibly. Tinderbox doesn't have spreadsheets, tho -- not as far as I remember. Multiple views on the same data is something that Tinderbox also does very well. One interesting distinction is Tinderbox agents. Agents are notes that are mini-programs: they collect other notes according to various search criteria, and the act on them according to various rules. They make Tinderbox powerful, but they also make it confusing: the search and action rules are written in a mini-programming language that is a bit perplexing. But there are interesting implications for Org. Org agenda views are the equivalent of agents, in the *collection* sense: you give it search criteria, and it gives you what is essentially a set of symlinks to other headlines. Action is done by the user, of course, with Agenda commands. I've daydreamed about this before: what if, instead of agenda views, we took a page from the Tinderbox method and made "agendas" simple headlines, with some cookie saying "I'm an agenda", and a property containing the search string. Instead of having an ephemeral *Org Agenda* buffer, your "agenda views" are simply another in-file headline, whose children are TODOs/headlines that match the query. Multiple and persistent agendas are suddenly a matter of course. It wouldn't work well for date-based Agendas, of course. In fact, it would probably turn out to be a bad idea for reasons I haven't fully thought through, yet, but it was an interesting daydream. E -- GNU Emacs 24.2.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.11) of 2012-09-04 on pellet 7.9.1