Suggestions for List View

[aechallu]

I have four suggestions for list view:

1) As one changes focus from reference to reference in the list view, highlight in the sidebar the groups that the reference belongs to.

2) Index card mode. A la Scrivener's corkboard. Instead of showing references as a table, have the option to show them as index cards (or like the post-its in the notes stream. The index card would be based on a bibliography format to simplify stuff.

3) Some sort of dynamic labels. Say: Use red label for all entries that match "Global warming" in the keywords.

4) Save different list view setups. In one database I need some fields in the list view, and other fields in other database.

Thanks!

[Jon]

Hi,

1. Hold down Shift-Option to see what groups the selected reference belongs to, at any time.

2. That's what the Concise view (on the right) does. You can completely configure it to show what you want, in what order, in preferences.

3. Mm, maybe. That would interfere with the current labeling technique, of course.

4. I'm not keen on that. Bookends is not a general purpose database, and for the vast majority of users references is references (to coin a phrase). As you know, we encourage the use of one database, in any case.

Jon
Sonny Software

[aechallu]

Thanks for your replies, Jon. A couple follow-ups.

1. Hold down Shift-Option to see what groups the selected reference belongs to, at any time.

Awesome. Is it possible to have a setting in Preferences:List to make this a default behavior?

2. That's what the Concise view (on the right) does. You can completely configure it to show what you want, in what order, in preferences.

Concise view let's you see the references one by one. You need to move to another reference to get the added information. In an index card, corkboard-like view, you get more information per reference at the expense of seeing fewer references at once. With the use of the tag cloud, live search and groups, navigating the index card stack would be a snap. See attached mockup (copy-pasted screenshot of scrivener's corkboard into BE's list view).

be-mockup.jpg (77.74 KiB) Viewed 4040 times

The contents are defined by a regular citation format; the tint depends on the label.

4. I'm not keen on that. Bookends is not a general purpose database, and for the vast majority of users references is references (to coin a phrase). As you know, we encourage the use of one database, in any case.

I agree that BE is for references and the advantages of keeping one database for bibliographic references. Archival sources are references, but have different needs than regular bibliography in terms of keywords, citation and relevant information. It makes more sense to have them in a different database.

Because needs are slightly different, it makes sense to have a separate setting for the list view. I was thinking that it may be possible to implement a sort of Templates submenu under the Views icon in the toolbar, and being able to set columns and other minor settings there. (However, an index card view would make this irrelevant for my particular use.)

[Jon]

We've had the discussion about showing groups in another thread. I prefer to keep it an option "on demand" (for performance reasons, if nothing else).

As for an index card view, that would be very difficult to implement. It's something to consider, but it would be a major feature implementation.

Jon
Sonny Software

[aechallu]

I meant the index card suggestion as a major new feature for a future release. One way to simplify the representation is to allow more than one lines per entry in the list view. I see that the link inspector works that way.

About being able to set preferences for different list views, I think the simpler suggestion is to allow the user to right-click on the column headers and choose the columns to display, like in iTunes.

Thanks!