Xref: utzoo rec.arts.sf-lovers:58323 rec.arts.fine:277 comp.editors:3022 comp.text:8283 rec.arts.books:20971 rec.arts.poems:11548 bit.listserv.literary:575 alt.prose:990 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.fine,comp.editors,comp.text,rec.arts.books,rec.arts.poems,bit.listserv.literary,alt.prose Subject: Re: What do writers want from a word processor? Message-ID: <1991Apr18.183110.29423@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 18 Apr 91 18:31:10 GMT References: <1991Apr17.175001.8402@sjuphil.uucp> <1991Apr18.003213.11557@nntp-server.caltech.edu> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 36 palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: > For writers, a word processor should include [...] > 6) Annotation mode. Go into this when you want to write (or speak, > digitizers are cheap, at least for the Mac) a note to yourself. > (usually I just change to an outline font to make my notes stand out) > Then have the ability to jump from note to note (maybe as part of the > search command) I ran into an interesting product on the Amiga that does this, called Thinker. It is a true hypertext product, and you can casually turn any set of words into an index to a note just by enclosing them in "<>", then make a note indexed by that set of words, and have it pop forward whenever you mouse click on the index phrase. I think a person could get very enamored with creating large works in a hypertext environment, especially the kind that require lots of research notes to make them work. The Thinker package has a second, single word index style that lets you attach the same note to _all_ occurances of the word, just by attaching it one place. This especially would be useful for being able to pop to the research annotation from anywhere in the document it might become useful. I've only played with this a little; I promised to put up a review in the Amiga newsgroups, but time keeps slipping by, so I'm not quite sure if this particular implementation is more than a toy, but it seemed to follow your (unquoted) robustness criteria at least somewhat, and of course, if you can change material to a nearly invisible indexed item, there's not much reason to ever actually delete anything anyway, so a change of style of work might change your vulnerability to lost text. Kent, the man from xanth.