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Mar 18, 2021

I don't think anything really nails this. Arranging as a primitive is generally overlooked. You need to be able to move up/down hierarchy and "see"/edit across levels easily. Most tools' primitives create barriers to this. Somehow (sorry) org-mode gets this most right.

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Mar 18, 2021

Like, it's telling that in many situations like the one you're describing, I'll print out the documents and cut them up and rearrange them in physical space and write on them and then retranscribe them. If *that's* my best-alternative, we're in a rough place!!

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Mar 18, 2021

Scrivener tries. Their "documents" are too heavy a primitive, but you can soften the edges with the "Scrivenings" view which creates a concatenated surface. The problem is that that's *too* zoomed in. You really need "focus+context"—variable levels of detail.

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and

org-mode gets there through folds, which aren't terribly graceful but are at least flexible. There's a long HCI lit on the focus+context problem, and some interesting work along these lines. e.g. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.sci-hub.se/26356886/ Closest real-world I've seen is gingkoapp.com

6:26 PM · Mar 18, 2021Twitter Web App

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and

Really interesting. I have experience with this through

@NSFSBIR

grants and it becomes about arranging vs producing fast. I also think tools using GPT3 etc to suggest copy that arranging workflows will become more important than creation

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Michael Russo

@mjrusso

Mar 19, 2021

Ages ago, I made a really simple tool for assembling larger documents out of smaller files. It runs on the command line, and it works with plain text, so you don't need to change your authoring software:

github.com

GitHub - mjrusso/mountain: A tool for working with files in the Fountain screenplay format.

A tool for working with files in the Fountain screenplay format. - GitHub - mjrusso/mountain: A tool for working with files in the Fountain screenplay format.

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