msteffens
Site Admin
Posts: 32
Joined: 17-May-2017, 14:28

Focussed navigation: selection, filter & navigation features in Keypoints

@lerone encouraged me to create more screencasts which show Keypoints in action. This short (~1 min) screencast linked here:

Keypoints-01-FocussedNavigation

shows several selection, filter & navigation features of Keypoints.

I'll describe these features below, ordered by their occurrence (seconds) into the video:
  • [00:00]:
    Initially, multiple notes are selected and displayed together in the note editor view, the notes list is hidden, and the current search term ("seeding") is highlighted
  • [00:02]:
    The notes list gets displayed and a single note gets selected which causes its corresponding PDF annotation to get highlighted briefly (this helps to better distinguish it from other PDF annotations of the same color)
  • [00:10]:
    The graph gets displayed instead of the PDF preview. In Keypoints, the graph always only displays nodes for the currently displayed notes, plus any incoming & outgoing nodes (with a dashed appearance). Publication nodes (with a dotted appearance) group the other nodes by their source.
  • [00:14]:
    Option-clicking an element (in this case, the keyword "ice algae") will perform a search for that element in the search field above the main notes list.
  • [00:19]:
    The filter column. gets displayed, and a regular click on an element (in this case, the keyword "fast ice") will select it in the element's filter column. Together with the search term in the main notes search field, this will perform an AND search (i.e., display all notes which contain both, the filter element(s) as well as the search term).

    Instead of a regular click, I did a command-click on the keyword "fast ice" here. This also performs a notes search for that element in the filter column and shows all co-occurring elements (i.e., show all the keywords from my notes whose text contents contain "fast ice"). This allows to explore related topics.
  • [00:33]:
    Multiple filter elements: A second filter element gets selected (in this case, the keyword "Baltic Sea"). This will broaden the scope (i.e., display notes containing either the keywords "fast ice" OR "Baltic Sea").
  • [00:37]:
    The dynamically generated graph is a regular PDF, i.e. you can zoom and pan as usual (and it can be exported).
  • [00:40]:
    Using the graph for navigation: The nodes (and link labels) in the graph are clickable, and clicking them will select the corresponding (note or filter) element in the Keypoints interface.

    In this case, I did a command-click on a node in the graph. Opposed to a regular click (which would select the corresponding note in the main notes list), this caused the note to get selected in the "Note" filter column. Also, similar to above, the command-click performs a notes search for the note's ID in the filter column. This will display all notes that link to the clicked note. I.e., the filter column now shows all of its "backlinks" (aka "citing notes").

    With some note(s) selected in the "Note" filter column, the main notes list shows the selected note(s), plus all of their outgoing links (aka "cited notes"). This way, one can "filter notes by other notes" and easily gather and work with all the linked notes.
  • [00:46]:
    By including all backlinks in the "Note" filter column's selection, the main notes list (and thus the graph) is expanded to show all related notes together.
  • [00:51]:
    A click on a publication node in the graph will select the corresponding publication in the "Publication" filter column. As a result, the main notes list (and thus the graph) will show only notes from that publication.

    Similar to above, I really did a command-click on the publication node, so the "Publication" filter column now displays only publications whose notes mention the clicked publication. In other words, the other displayed publications are the "publication backlinks" for the clicked publication.
  • [00:55]:
    Navigation history: For the remainder of the screencast, I'm clicking the "Go back" button repeatedly to re-establish all of my previous selections & search terms until I'm back where I started.
All of these features play together to achieve a "focussed" navigation so that you can move thru your library of notes while keeping focus on related elements.
lerone
Posts: 9
Joined: 20-Oct-2022, 13:22

Re: Focussed navigation: selection, filter & navigation features in Keypoints

hey Matthias,

thx for that additional teaser. It works :-)

Also, I think it´s good to give that kind of particular browsing magic that Keypoint seems to offer a name. And 'focussed navigation' is a good one.
When I am seeing this, I think of versatile, densely interconnected and multimodal navigation. Though that is not a name, or label of use, I thought I drop this as a quick take / reaction after seeing the screencast – leaving me longing once again :-D

Good energies for your work!
oliver
msteffens
Site Admin
Posts: 32
Joined: 17-May-2017, 14:28

Re: Focussed navigation: selection, filter & navigation features in Keypoints

Hi Oliver,

thanks, it’s great to hear that you like it! Your feedback is reassuring me that I‘m on the right track with this.

Best, Matthias

Return to “General”