[Vimoutliner] graphs/trees

[Scott Scriven]

* Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> One could make an argument that a DBMS (mysql?) based VO
> backend would be every bit as efficient as the current one, if:
>
> 1) All keystrokes were the same (I personally think the
> keystrokes are what make VO so darned quick)

That's a very difficult part.  There just aren't any other
editors quite like vim.  Vim could be called as an external
editor, but that loses most of the tight integration VO has.

> 3) All features are included (body text, interoutline linking,
> executable lines, checkboxes, hoisting)

What I had in mind to build, at least for an outliner, was
filesystem-based instead of SQL.  Each outline would essentially
be a directory tree with specially-named files.  Any directory
could be loaded as a tree, so each node would also be usable (or
hoistable) as a standalone tree.  Each node could have its own
unique set of attributes, including body text, executable
commands, checkboxes, dates, calculated fields, etc.  Linking
between nodes (or outlines, makes no difference) could be done
with symlinks, though there are a lot of "fiddly bits" to
complicate things when symlinks are used.  Real bidirectional
links would be necessary for any large trees.

For a larger system, the only solution I've been able to find is
to store the tree structure in a database and put file data
(pictures, music, etc) in a specially-constructed part of the
host filesystem.  Hopefully I'll be able to map the semantics
well enough to make it FUSE-mountable.

> Of course, someone would need to write a front end that
> implements VO keystrokes and look and feel...

Yes, not at all an easy task.  VO's feature set may be fairly
basic, but it builds on top of vim, and reimplementing vim would
be silly.


-- Scott