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Would you like to see cloning/aliasing in OO4? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
The way I read many comments on this thread about cloning/alias, it looks alot like a database where information is kept in one or many different files and then accessed and viewed in different ways depending on the needs expressed.

I too would like cloning, but maybe having some kind of database feature would more flexible and powerful.
 
My idea of cloning is what someone earlier posted in reference to the old outliners MORE and ThinkTank - eg. a copy of a row which can be moved anywhere else in the structure (or even (if this is possible) into another document) in which updates to the original or any of it's clones are reflected in all the clones and the orginal. Subtree's below the clone row are considered part of the clone.

The visual trigger to let the user know this is a clone is just a slightly different icon or row tag at the front of the row. Only the top row would have this indicator, despite the fact that subrows are also technically clones. There could be a command that would show all clones of any row - the outline would expand and all clones of the row that is selected would be highlighted.

Some folks reference smart folders - although I understand the desirability of that feature, smart folders can help with re-organization and visualization, but they don't help with what I need.

As an example, a cloned item may be a single task that is actually part of many projects (assume all projects are represented in the tree on an outline). The task only has to get done once for all the projects yet I want it to be displayed as a sub-task for each of the projects.

Currently, I create a new item for each project but there is no way to link them - mark one completed and the others - which are really the same task - do not show completed. If clones were implemented, that row/task would be shown as completed for any project it appeared in.
 
I still hope that cloning/smart-folders will be implemented, and I am ready to pay for this feature (unless I become jobless, you know).
Now does anybody have any idea: how could one make cloning/aliasing/smart folders unobtrusive? I guess this is the very part of the concept we are missing now.
 
Cloning was wonderfully (and unobtrusively) implemented in MORE 20 years ago and was requested for OO way back at version 1. Just follow in every regard the old MORE model for cloning that I would hope all your engineers are familiar with. Note that "Smart Folders" are a different feature request.

Some of the things that I used MORE cloning for included:

Individualizing Construction Specifications.

On every project I wrote individualized versions of boilerplate language for hundreds of topics. One topic might be "Contractor Parking" that consisted of 2-10 paragraphs (out of 30 total paragraphs) indiviualized to the job. The paras desired for a given job would be marked for cloning to a new document. Then after all topics have been similarly reviewed (including adding new paras with every job) all the marked clones were created into a new document with a single click.

After creation the new spec was reviewed for small individual details and insertion of things like global find/replace for things like job name, address, etc. Very cool, very productive. Note that as totally new paras are written they become part of the boilerplate for future jobs as well.

Survey Reports

Again individual boilerplate paragraphs are written. For example there may be 30 different paras on "piping." The appropriate few paras for any given project are simply marked for cloning and then collected into a document with a single click.

Project Planning


An individual project (a business plan for instance) will have different parts that get shared with different people at various points in time. However each individual gets shown different parts of the whole (with lots of overlap). The landlord, for instance, gets shown different parts than does a venture capitalist or a prospective floor manager. Cloning allows the originator to have one place with all thoughts and ideas yet still easily collect portions of the project for presentation to different individuals.

Resumés

One can build a huge multipart resumé and then use cloning to quickly individualize for each individual submission.

MORE facilitated other uses of cloning in addition to the few I listed above. Please, please after all these years give us the cloning we have been asking for.

Thanks!

Last edited by Allen Wicks; 2009-04-17 at 05:14 PM..
 
My Post #34 examples all described a simple gathering functionality and using clones to do so. However in many instances often after the mark/gather has been performed small updates are continually made to the gathered text that do need to be reflected in the original as well.
 
Aliases would be really useful to me if the aliases were allowed to work across different files (i.e. not only within the same file).

I have 7 different legal contracts that I have typed up in OmniOutliner for my consulting business. Each contract is a different OO file. These 7 contracts all share about 90% of the same legal paragraphs as one another. Only about 10% of the legal paragraphs in each contract is actually different.

So whenever we need to make a change to the 90% of "shared legal paragraphs", we have to open all 7 contracts and make the change in all 7 places.

It would be so incredibly awesome if we could make the change to one legal paragraph in one file, and then the other 6 files would reflect that change immediately.

Thanks,
Scott
 
When OO is a LinkBack server this should be possible. Cast your vote!
 
Cloning would allow creation of powerful Smart Task Lists.

Right now I am working on a business plan. I have a dozen main headings with many subtopics listing all kinds of issues and things to do. Everything is being revised on a daily basis as new ideas and feedback from discussions come into play.

Tasks are variously defined throughout the document and are constantly changing. What is needed is a task list that compiles all the tasks referenced throughout the (long) document into a separate new location.

What MORE allowed 20 years ago was to create a major heading called "Tasks" and clone task subheadings from throughout the outline into the Task heading as appropriate. Then as changes to tasks anywhere in the outline were made they were immediately reflected in the cloned language.

Frankly the lack of ability to create a cloned task list makes my OO outline far less useful to me than it would be if cloning was still available.

Last edited by Allen Wicks; 2009-04-28 at 07:42 AM..
 
Like some others in this thread, I used More 3.1 decades ago. I wasn't a heavy user of cloning, but it is very, very handy. I would like to see it in OO.

For those not familiar with More, cloning was simply a dynamic copy of a row (and it's children). The clone could be moved anywhere in the outline, and an edit to either the original or the clone would update all instances.

Clones are most useful when you need the same info to appear in several places within your outline. As a simple example, let's say you are outlining the steps in a complex woodworking project. You may be cutting mortise and tenon joints in a number of sub-assemblies, so you would clone your "make mortise" step, along with the specifications for the mortises.

After cutting the first mortise, you decide the method you used didn't work well, so you change the method. With a clone system, you could change all your "make mortise" rows at once, by editing only one clone.

If you decide one mortise needs special treatment, you can un-clone that outline row only, so changes to it don't affect the other clones.


I think clones are essential to an outline program, and OmniOutliner is less useful because it doesn't have them. However, it may be a Pro feature.

--Liz

Last edited by LizPf; 2009-06-10 at 05:03 AM.. Reason: typos
 
I don't think there's any dispute that they'd be useful; the main thing I think we struggle with are how they'd interact with the other features we have.

A couple of the questions I've seen folks discuss:
How would cloned rows interact with the level-based styles?
How would cloned rows affect summary cells they descend from?
What happens if a cloned row contains a summary cell? Or can you only clone leaf rows, and not branches?

This is one of those cases where a feature appears to be simple - arguably, you'd want the app to react to a row you cloned in the same way it does to a row you pasted into several places. (With edits propagating, of course.)

The code that goes into presenting a simple appearance is often not simple to write, though...

Note: I'm not arguing against this feature. I've just been thinking about how to respond to the argument I sometimes see in other feature request posts/emails, which is along the lines of "this is simple; you haven't done this because you're crazy/lazy/stupid!" This is not one of those threads; just a good opportunity to practice. :-)
 
 


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