Braindump in Calligra suite

[woodsmoke]

Braindump is a "brainstorming" app that is not, as yet, all "that" complete in terms of full bore commercial apps.

However, it does the basic job and pretty well.

However, one cannot, at this point, import an actual "document", although the site says that it can work with any of the ""odf" able" "

applications, those are not well defined.

However, one can type text directly into it, and one can import items like jpg, bmp, png, etc. and SUPPOSEDLY html items but I have had no luck with html.

When one tries to insert an image, clicking on the whiteboard does not produce a "box" into which one then places an image, one is taken directly to "documents" and one can click it and it appears.

NOTE: if you place an image in documents while you have Braindump open the requestor will not update automagically, one has to reload while the requestor is open.

A "document" can be loaded by making a .pdf of it and then opening that in a graphics program and saving as a .png or whatever.

However, I would greatly recommend that one put a margin box around it or when one actually has it on the whiteboard in a useable size one just sees some squiggly stuff,

Of course one does not actually "need" to import a document per-se one can just type the title into a text box and use that to represent the document.

I did not find a way to directly link to something, so that one could have a representation on the whiteboard and then "call" the image etc to view "floating elsewhere".

And I did not find a way to have "live links".

Basically, one "could" do what is done in Braindump on a plain Calligra document with about the same amount of ease/difficulty.

All in all, not a bad beginning.

If anyone has experience with it I would be interesting in seeing the comments.

woodsmoke

[dequire]

The sad news is that AFAIK Braindump is unmaintained. I tried using it but it was too quirky for me to see any obvious benefits from. Also, as of right now, none of the Calligra apps let you embed an HTML link yet. The functionality just has not been put in place yet.

[woodsmoke]

aahhhh dequire, thanks for that on the embedding the html link.

But, if as you say, it is unmaintained, why would they even think of including it?

Possibly to throw it up on the wall, and if it sticks maybe somebody will take it over? :?

I mean, I, personally, can see the utility of it and when I did see it, then I thought, well, maybe this would work for noodling about how a new textbook should go together.... don't know.

I'll fiddle with it some on the basis of merely working with chapter arrangement, etc. and see if it fills a ...... heartfelt need!

thanks again


woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Keeping this short.

Many decades ago I had a close personal friend who worked in the advertising section of a local arm of a multinational company that processed paper.

The company decided to "vertically integrate from the tree to the paper".

The idea was sound but the practicality was poor in that the "cycle time" of paper was on the order of days, while the "cycle time" of a tree is on the order of a decade or more.

The computer systems that were installed had the hardware to attempt the change, but the software failed in that there was no way to "sync" the two cycle times.

I am quite sure that there are wonderful pieces of proprietary software out there that can do such a thing today.

However, upon fiddling with Braindump, becaue I also have several different "cycle times" in working at the college I have found that, in a very primitive way, Braindump provides a kind of capability to draw out the relationships between the different things which cycle at different times.

We normally default to having the phone or Kontact give us reminders, and I have "attempted" to make "drawings" to represent this kind of information but the drawings always failed.

So... it seems to me that to be able to use something like Braindump to give someone the capability to do this, three capabilities could be developed.

a) the ability to place an image OR document thumbnail on the screen very easily.
b) the ability to place a "line" between the two items that will automatically "snap" beteen the lines.
c) the ability to place a third "line" between two other items which will then provide an option to "cross over" the first line or "avoid" the first line, but still "snap in place" when placed.

I have absolutely NO CLUE about how hard this kind of programming would be, it might be impractical in the extreme sense.

But.....

Because of the comments about it being un-maintained, and looking at the site for Braindump the above capability might:

i) provide a fresh impetus for development
ii) Could the "use" of Braindump be refocused to have a more "useable" perception. Kind of like "workflow analysis".

Workflow analysis seems to "mostly" be in the form of "timelines" and "completion amount", which are good an wonderful but, if one has ever looked at a complex one in a "real" industry, they can extend for several meters when taped onto a wall, which can be helpful in visualization but is...well cumbersome.

This is all just "blue sky" thinking and probably would be a distraction from other, more pressing needs, I'm just commenting.

woodsmoke

[SecretCode]

The idea was sound but the practicality was poor in that the "cycle time" of paper was on the order of days, while the "cycle time" of a tree is on the order of a decade or more.

And yet I'll bet someone in that company at some point paid some management consultants to come up with ideas on just-in-time inventory.

[woodsmoke]

lol
Your mention of jit brings to mind that it did seem to get into the public consciousness about that time!

woodsmoke