Partitioned Thoughts
Hi Guys,
The main thing about this is that the 'ordered structure' of the parts that make up the thought is kept intact. With the current parent/child system, creating multiple children loses that extra piece of information - which is sometimes quite important. I guess that you can name the children '#1', '#2' etc., but this is not as inituative as having a 'structure' that is clearly laid out. I hope this explanation helps a bit.
So, where would I use it, for example?
Lets say I have decoded part of an Oracle (database) trace file, in particular, a series of 16 hex values. If each group of 4 values represents codes that Oracle is using to identify an error in the database, I could define the information in this way :
(parent thought)
--------------------------------
| Oracle Deadlock Error Format | <-------- This would be the 'name tab' for this parent.
| XXXX | XXXX | XXXX | XXXX |
-----|---------|-------|--------|-----
| | | | <-------- Child links to child thoughts - could be associated too!
Various Child Thoughts Under Here
I hope this makes the idea clear. The parent thought itself is a composite tag for child
thoughts, which have a very definite sequence / structure.
Searching / indexing would be supported across both parent name tab and child sub-parts.
Having something like this would be very useful indeed. This is only one small example.
In much of the work I do (Tuning work, load tests, deciphering errors, etc), information very
often has a format like this. It's very possible that you could even improve on this concept.

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stan887 commented
anakon: my only point was that the functionality of having ordered list in the thought itself is similar to having ordered child thoughts. The separate issue is the display of that ordered info. Here is where the outline view becomes an essential addition to PersonalBrain. You can see the order either within the thought or as an ordered list of children in outline view. Really a display issue.
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twospoons commented
@anakon, are you asking for a way to dynamically build a parent based on the combination of different thoughts? I'm still not getting it. Can you model an example in a brain file and post a screen shot with some explanation of how this should work?
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anakon commented
The way i'm looking at this, it's more than a parent than with ordered child links.
There *are no links* between the parent and the children - they are one in the same, if that makes sense. If I understand ordered child thoughts correctly, this is not the case. Thats why I describe a parent 'label' made up of child subparts in my original post. Having links makes the relationship hard to see, -
stan887 commented
it looks to be the same, in concept, as simply allowing user specified ordering of child nodes already requested in "Please bring back user defined sort order in Plex" and "User ordered thoughts for report outlining". The common element of all is permitting user defined ordering of (child) thoughts
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anakon commented
Hi Guys,
This idea is all about how The Brain describes the relationship between Parents and children. Currently, I feel it is a de-coupled relationship - decoupled by the use of links from parent to child. This idea goes further. It recognizes that the parent exists as a coupled component of children, with those children having relationships (ie ordering) amongst themselves.
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twospoons commented
I'm not sure I understand what is being requested. If this isn't just about ordering child thoughts, but also preserving the path to the child thought; would the comma trick accomplish this?
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Is this different than custom/user specified ordering of child thoughts? If so, how?