
TreeSheets: Free-Form Data Organizer - vmorgulis
http://strlen.com/treesheets/
======
Zikes
I really like these sorts of tools, but the file format[1] is a bit of a con
for me. Being binary/proprietary, it makes it difficult to integrate other
tools or feed the data into other systems.

[1]
[https://github.com/aardappel/treesheets/tree/master/TS/examp...](https://github.com/aardappel/treesheets/tree/master/TS/examples)

~~~
Aardappel
(disclaimer: I wrote the program).

The binary format is open source and documented, that doesn't fit the term
"proprietary" to me.

It exports to text, html, xml, csv and more.

The reason it doesn't use any of that as its main storage format is that it
tracks a lot of attributes that do not fit those formats naturally (I suppose
you can store it all in xml, but I went for speed of loading/saving and
smaller storage sizes).

~~~
Zikes
I strongly suspected it was a performance and necessity thing. Not many text-
based formats would have easily supported e.g. embedding images, as this tool
does.

I do think it looks pretty great, though, and congratulations on the open
source launch!

~~~
Aardappel
Thanks! It was open sourced.. 2.5 years ago? I'm not sure what motivated this
HN post, but it is all good to me :)

~~~
vmorgulis
I rediscovered TreeSheets from another thread about visual programming:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11244558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11244558)

[http://blog.interfacevision.com/design/design-visual-
progarm...](http://blog.interfacevision.com/design/design-visual-progarmming-
languages-snapshots/)

[http://strlen.com/aardappel-language](http://strlen.com/aardappel-language)

~~~
Aardappel
Thanks, hadn't spotted that thread yet :)

~~~
vmorgulis
Thanks to you!

Your languages are great (aardappel, Amiga E...).

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jeffbarr
I have been using this for the last 6 months or so. It is clean, efficient,
and flexible. The UI is spartan, but it is also orthogonal.

~~~
AstroJetson
Can I ask a few questions?

* Do you share the data with others?

* Can you give an example how you use this as a "go to" tool?

* Do you keep separate files for the data you are using or most things in one file?

The tool looks pretty interesting, but I'm look at the friction to move from
other tools.

Thanks for your time

~~~
Aardappel
(disclaimer: I wrote the program).

* It's a traditional desktop app, so to share you'd save your files in dropbox or similar. It detects when the file has changed outside the app.

* Not sure what you mean by "go to" tool.

* Whichever you prefer. It can certainly handle large amounts of data in a single file efficiently.

* Importing from other tools: if the other tool (mindmapper/outliner) can save as indented text, this can then import that same structure. It can also read .csv files from excel etc.

~~~
AstroJetson
I was hoping from a response from the poster that said he worked with the
program for the last 6 months.

* The question about sharing wasn't really directed at how to share, but if he used this program to share with other users. So rather than it being a group of one, there were others passing data around.

* "Go to Tool" is along the line of my tool chest has all of these tools, and I pull out what the best one is. Since this is a multi purpose tool it get's pulled out more often, it becomes your "go to tool". Like people's leathermen tools become their "go to tool" for everything but fine dining.

The first may answer the need to be able to import in and out. If the group is
using it, then less data transformations are needed.

The go to answers how useful it really is. In it all day doing things is a
bonus, only using it for mind mapping not as helpful.

Thanks!

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dzhiurgis
Startup idea: make same app controlled by voice and sell to tech & consulting
businesses as a whiteboard that you talk to.

Over time it learns not about your business and it's processes so can correct
itself & so on.

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rlease
This is really cool, and very similar to a hierarchical note taking app idea
I've been kicking around. Kudos to Aardappel.

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noir-york
Great work! I've been looking for something like this for ages.

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skimmas
the idea is interesting, but I guess it need to be better designed. the ui
does not look that good

~~~
Aardappel
(disclaimer: I wrote the program).

This has been a hobby open source project for a long time. It is built on the
aging wxWidgets UI toolkit. I don't make money with it (this is not a startup,
like everything else on HN ;), so, yeah, contributions to make it prettier
welcome :)

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tunesmith
Can a child node have multiple parents?

~~~
Aardappel
(disclaimer: I wrote the program).

No, it is strictly a tree, it derives its compact representation, automatic
layout and quick manipulation from that limitation. There's a few ways around
that, by tagging cells you can easily hop around cross-links.

~~~
iheartmemcache
Cell tags is exactly what I did to solve the lack of 'multiple inheritance'
issue. Thanks for this product, I've been using it for almost a decade and
it's all kinds of brilliant.

~~~
Aardappel
Thanks!

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johnnyg
Why build this as a desktop app instead of a SaaS? Not a snark, seriously why
this design decision?

~~~
Aardappel
(disclaimer: I wrote the program). I started this in 2008 initially simply to
scratch an itch I had myself. I guess back then desktop apps still ruled? I
also wanted it be very fast on large documents, which back then didn't seem
possible with web-apps yet. Today that's maybe different, but a SaaS version
is almost starting from scratch given the tech it is built on (C++ and
wxWidgets with only local file storage).

~~~
walking
This is just my personal opinion, but I really appreciate it when things like
this are desktop apps.

I like having my data stored locally and having full control over what's going
on and who has what. I don't want to have to worry about whether or not
someone's service will be there a few years down the line, or what their
uptime is.

I also like that older desktop apps feel really snappy on modern hardware.
Usually, depending on the file format, it's not too hard to work out my own
sync'ing setup. If I'm the only one using it, dropbox or something like that
normally works.

Of course there are also online apps I really like, such as trello etc. I
realize I'm giving those short shrift, with my quick list, and that there are
really established apps out there with great guarantees that sure don't look
like they're going anywhere, but I think you can get a vague idea as to my
preference from it.

I'll definitely check out TreeSheets tonight. Appreciate the work you've done
on it.

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flarg
This really is a great app IMHO, a compact mind map.

