I understand each solution will arise its specific problems, and I don't know your code, especially how you fill the tree pane, then especially for (current) filtering, since whilst filling the tree pane (Data Explorer) with "regular" tree data will fetch something like "next 80 or so items by recursive find-children code", filtering will need to fetch the next 80 or so from the WHOLE tree, wherever those non-hidden items to be displayed may "hide", and that currently works sufficiently fast... it's just that non-to-be-hidden items are left out if their respective parenting structing is (correctly) left out.
Thus, I suppose that an optional flat list filter instead (but which will not hide not-to-hide items anymore), with just slightly changed code, will not represent a real speed problem, and that the code change implied will not be enormous? As said, the core difficulty that those filter items will have to be fetched from everywhere within the WHOLE tree, has already been worked out and resolved.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to also index the flag column (which thankfully is just one column since no two concurrent filters for the same item are allowed anyway).
Finding some solution would be more than great indeed, the sooner the better, since not only I need that thing, but as we have seen, UR here has been lacking what would be called standard functionality (since no tree-construct preserving filter / search, just export), and that should not last forever.
(For the time being, I use flat list (sic!) export plus some minimal scripting for import / display in a (plain text) editor window, with the (never more than 2, 3 concurrent) different flags being differentiated by (different) indentation levels (by tabs, so these indentation levels obviously don't correspond to the original tree's ones), or for a better formatted visualization (preservation of bold, italics, colors), I would have to look up some html code, then import the data set into some (free) html viewer instead of viewing it within an editor; respective print-outs would also be possible if needed.)
In fact, it would be one of those big steps ahead we would expect in major updates (v.7?), and let's face it, not only the competitor is lurking (market-wise that is, I'm not ready to switch, I repeat), AI is, and there's this plethora of little subscription "apps", which come and go, most of which have one or some good ideas implemented, the rest being so-so, but all of them do their respective denting into the (seemingly quite restrained) market, and it's obvious that these are demotivation factors for developers of "traditional" (but powerful) "outlining" applications. Thus:
The (above-mentioned) competitor (technically)
The competitor rewrote the code, with modern DevExpress component, but ironically, his tool installs not in Programs, but in Programs (x86), and, frankly, those very "modern" visual frameworks all look the same now, like skeletons, there's no "meat" - very different from UR where, with "Office 2010 blue" theme, I feel "at home", and that's important (and the reason why I would prefer to not even switch to the competitor for those, rather tiny, UR DBs where I absolute need "natural order preservation" or whatever we call it, and "just for flags" would be fine with me).
( After posting above, I discovered that over there, formatting within tree is possible, by "rules" which you put into some precedence order, e.g. "if comment contains b and u, then display it bold-blue", etc., for any attribute; I mention the comment one since that seems to be the only one which is accessible by shortcut, so that assigning the format is rather easy, not as cumbersome as for rules depending on other attributes, but all that is, or course, much more cumbersome than UR's direct (sic! and up to 20 now) format assignment if we put those (often-used) formats on their own shortkeys; over there, we could use an external macro to fill in the respective character or char combination indeed, but would have that dialog / char entry window popping up again and again; long word short, tree formatting isn't missing, so if I didn't like UR as much, whilst liking the competitor better - technically, there would be no obstacle to switch, the functionality being there. Btw, I invite fellow UR users to NOT mention the competitor's name here, since my ideas are aimed at UR, not directed toward the competition. ;-) )
AI
Then about AI, 2023 having been the year where this subject got into the awareness of the computer-affine masses, and speaking of the competition, TheBrain says they've got some AI implemented already, so that may be considered another "threat" to more traditional "outlining" software applications. I don't very much believe in AI re "outlining" since AI here would be about filing perhaps (from the inbox into which context(s)?) / grouping (multiple filing, permanent or on the spot), and finding (weighting the "hits", again for possible grouping).
Thus, it seems to me that AI in this software category will mainly serve to automate filing / grouping / search weighting rules, but allegedly to the cost of missing necessary connections, whilst establishing unneeded = unwanted ones (since those would just "clutter"), and as for search results' weighting, they would produce quite aleatoric results, since they would very much depend on your current search terms, and furthermore, in order for the AI to know HOW you would like it weight the results currently, i.e. in this very special situation
(in other words: AI might be really quite somewhat helpful in order to avoid manual processing in standards (sic!) proceedings, but what most of us do, is not "standard", but "from case to case", most of these situations being quite different from other (search situations) I suppose...),
you would probably need to enter lots of additional, "weight"-descriptive info... and you would never be sure anyway you got all the relevant results, at least among the more prominent ones ("prominence = relevance" just being AI's promise, but not what it really will be able to deliver, as far as it won't be able yet to look into your head, too... perhaps from 2050 on then? ;-) ).
(As for AI in TheBrain - which traditionally has the most expensive, in their case (I know what TB delivers, and what it does not) definitely overpriced, subscription / paid updates model -, the might apply some AI to some of the (real, big, deep!) problems of their graphical interface indeed, since their - quite spectacular - expanded view has been buried by themselves quite a long - both calendary and version - time ago, them informing their (over-?) loyal customer base (I don't make this up either, as I never make up anything) that the necessary code, to be rewritten in case together with all their codebase at the time, would be too complicated / time- or brain-consuming for their developers then, and since in those long years in-between, they have seen that (most of) their accepted this dire state of affairs, and accepted their "replacement" view, some (not-at-all equivalent) Mind map" view, this description has remained valid up to this day...
but then, it will have to be seen if AI can do some work for them (and their users) in this respect, and what I've said above will apply: while users had wanted (at the ancient time the "extended view" was there), more (and obviously manual, user-decisional) control over that "extended view" (and what it displayed thus, and also together with stored such views, which never were implemented either as far as I'm informed): AI will possibly bring back "extended view" (with a question mark here already), but the degree of user-sided malleability of these views will remain to be seen.
Anyway, TB's graphical concept (and just if it's implemented correctly, which had thus been the case up to version 7 or 8 if I remember well) lends to just some, special application cases, thus, except perhaps for another complete rehaul / recode (where it will again then lose core functionality? just asking...), with or without AI, will not easily become an earnest competitor too soon.
And, btw, filtering isn't so good over there either, just see "Tylast"'s "Sorry David, I becomes terribly burdensome to manually create a new thought as a surrogate filter. I have hundreds of thoughts with multiple tags. Manual just doesn't scale." in their forum thread "Plex Filters & Views" - admittedly, that was 3 years ago, and I don't follow their problems not as closely as that...)
Also, AI could help with those nasty homonyms, e.g. in German, sie (they) vs. Sie (you), and das (the) vs. dass (that) - for both pairs, you see, in almost every press article, multiple faults, and in other languages, there are certainly similar situations to be cleared by some, very simple, AI; also, I could imagine that easy AI components will soon become available for synonym search, especially for people who write in several languages and thus, later on, don't remember anymore in which language vocabulary they should search their search terms: that's AI which will become available for easy integration in almost any existing software, not something which will make some "new", "superior" applications some "winner" of some luring "war": as said, that, potentially fierce, AI will not enter this software field, since the connection user's "wishes / intentions - AI servicing those" will not be possible to be established on a really work-easying basis, for a quite long time to go, so the "big players" will not overtake (also) this market so soon, and we'll use their (much better-than-today) dictating instead of typing for input in the applications WE'll choose according to our needs, just as we do today.
Thus, from my point of view, that (almost mythical) AI threat (or more precisely and erroneously: AI as (sic!) threat) should not be taken as that perilous for, and thus by, "outliner" developers who focus and capitalize on their traditional applications' strengths.
The competitor again (licence-wise)
He has discarded the traditional "paid major updates" policy, but every (first or update) buy includes 12 months of updates, while he continuously produces updates indeed, so in the long run, he gets quite substantial sums (while he continues updates which are "worth it").
UR's update policy, in contrast, has been (quite rare) paid major updates, with traditionally not very much of "big steps ahead" in-between, but the latter aspect has changed recently (well, the developer got some good ideas out of the user base ;-) ), so there definitely might be some room for a slight (? more robust?) tightening of the major updates' frequence it seems. ;-) - It's obvious that the "major paid updates" policy, at first sight at least, implies - and that's the bad aspect for the user some (sic!) withholding strategy in-between, in order to motivate most of regular users to buy the update, BUT that problem loses much of its initial hazard whenever the users know, from experience - and this experience is clearly, fantastically established with UR now -, that even if the paid update in itself is a little bit sparse, they will get lots of "paid update items" in-between then and again, which, logically, they will not get if they don't buy the update, be it even a little bit "underwhelming" in itself, in case.
Hence, it might be "time", even if your little "withheld for next paid update" feature bouquet isn't currently that "overwhelming". ;-)
P.S. My AI passage above has become a little bit "uncoordinated", I admit, should have been better structured, but it's 1 o'clock in the morning, and my AI point is: There will be NO big AI revolution for "outliners" which would blast all current non-AI applications, but AI impact upon "outliners" will be selective, punctual and beneficial: it will just mean components to add, to enhance existent outlining applications; for a "big blast" which would annihilate existent software in THIS field, the necessary code-brain interface isn't there, and will not come soon, so resignation in face of what MS-Google-Amazon-etc might create would be premature by a whole generation here.
|