Desperate for data management

June 29, 2009 5:48 AM

I'm looking for a piece of creative database software but am not sure how to search for it or if it even exists. Any suggestions welcomed.

What I'm looking for is some kind of database that automatically makes links and connections between the text. Each project would exist as a series of text boxes that could be moved about the desktop at will, or scattered and grouped automatically. Each project could hold as many individual 'texts' as you liked, and they could be added to or deleted at will, like a virtual cardfile. You could search manually, but also chose to highlight a word or phrase in one box of text so the programme could automatically bring up all other boxes containing the same word/phrase. It would an ideal way of organising information for a book, for example. Something like this must exist, but I have no idea what it would be called or how to go about searching for it. I'm using windows XP and Vista. Any pointers welcome.

posted by jonathanbell to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I'm not really sure I follow, but do you mean something like Mind Mapping Software, something like MindJet?
posted by jeb at 5:57 AM on June 29 [1 favorite]

Mind mapping software is a good suggestion (ugh, though, I hate that name, it sounds so marketing-speak) and also a wiki works somewhat like this, though less Post-It-Note-like with the "text box" in your description being replaced by an article / web page.
posted by XMLicious at 6:05 AM on June 29

I guess it is some sort of Mind Mapping application, but ultra-light - i.e. purely text and no images or presentations, etc. A paper card index that makes associations by itself. The Post-it note like nature would be ideal, rather than individual pages, because you could bring up a whole bunch of them simultaneously. But I'll go through the list and check out the options.
posted by jonathanbell at 6:21 AM on June 29

The only things I can think of that are remotely like what you want are Scrivener, Notational Velocity, and Evernote. Only the latter is available for Windows as the other two are exclusively for OSX.
posted by majick at 6:42 AM on June 29

Another category of software you might look at is a wiki. There are a number of wikis that run on the desktop.

You would need to manually tag linkable text—not every word would automatically hotlink—and you might want the wiki to run a script that linkifies all instances of a keyword once you've tagged it once. But I suspect rhis is doable. I know that on the mac that voodoo wiki is well regarded.
posted by adamrice at 6:43 AM on June 29

Also maybe Tomboy? That's a note-taking application that integrates some wiki functionality, for Linux, Windows, and OSX.
posted by XMLicious at 6:52 AM on June 29

Scrivener looks great, especially the 'corkboard' function. Shame it's Mac only. Getting closer to the ideal though...
posted by jonathanbell at 7:02 AM on June 29

Another update, based on looking at writing and screenwriting software: supernotecard appears promising, as does PageFour - I shall investigate the trial versions. Thanks again everyone.
posted by jonathanbell at 8:51 AM on June 29