[Design] Check out Leo Outliner

[Seth Johnson]

> http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html
> http://personalpages.tds.net/~edream/front.html
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/leo/


Leo is an outliner with "clones" -- duplicate nodes in multiple
places in the same outline, which all update when you modify any
single one.

Leo is a very useful tool -- software developers become quite
zealous about it once they start using it.  But it's not just for
coding.

Coders can clone chunks of code and put them under different
headers, just to manage a code base.  Then Leo manages the export
to a single, linear codebase.

One of the advantages of it is it's like automatic
documentation.  Coders can load a Leo outline of a codebase and
see outline headers that show, for instance, all the bugs that
have been fixed -- including direct clones of the code relevant
to each bug!

You can go in and find different selections and organizations of
code chunks, all in whatever outline structure has been useful to
past developers.  So a developer might collect clones of code
relevant to the graphical interface, or to keyboard I/O, or
whatever; and it's readily available and useful for later
debugging.

I think it's worth considering the fact that in this context,
"clones" are actively used and appreciated.

I don't know what lessons you can take from it for interface
design, but it struck me as a useful thing to look at.


Seth


-- 

RIAA is the RISK!  Our NET is P2P!
http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/ftc

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/cc

I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or
distribution of this incidentally recorded communication. 
Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but only so
far as such an expectation might hold for usual practice in
ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of
exclusive rights.