This is an interesting take on some of these issues, notably how to provide the baseline capability that most people use most often, while also providing a smooth path to more complex use cases. The "transforming" of content into data and structure. This is probably a result of how I interpret what you wrote, but your description here seems to leave out the idea of multiple representation and transformation of data in view but not structure (that you've written about previously, and which attracted me most to Formable in the first place). I wrote some ideas of my own on that previously here: https://garden.oshyan.com/t/a-continuum-of-functionality-and-data-representation/145
But I'm most interested in how those ideas (and the nifty animations you've scattered throughout the website that illustrate them) connect with the spatial free-form-to-table ideas here.
Yeah, I haven’t really touched on data being represented in multiple ways in this article. You’re right, might be a good idea to think about how these topics are connected if I understand you correctly.
> data in view but not structure
Speaking about what I’ve written previously, data can be in different views and structures actually. Interesting way to think about it. A block can live at two places in Formable, so you could have multiple structures to present the same data, as well as different views to look at it.
So taking this to for example the canvas, you could have an item sit at multiple places on a canvas. Might also be interesting to explore how related data that hasn’t been put on a canvas can be shown. So e.g. if you pull in two items of the same type, but haven’t manually drawn a connection between them, should the canvas somehow visualise that they’re of the same type? Such stuff only becomes possible since items don’t only live on the canvas but can have relations outside of it.
This is an interesting take on some of these issues, notably how to provide the baseline capability that most people use most often, while also providing a smooth path to more complex use cases. The "transforming" of content into data and structure. This is probably a result of how I interpret what you wrote, but your description here seems to leave out the idea of multiple representation and transformation of data in view but not structure (that you've written about previously, and which attracted me most to Formable in the first place). I wrote some ideas of my own on that previously here: https://garden.oshyan.com/t/a-continuum-of-functionality-and-data-representation/145
But I'm most interested in how those ideas (and the nifty animations you've scattered throughout the website that illustrate them) connect with the spatial free-form-to-table ideas here.
Interesting topics in your article!
Yeah, I haven’t really touched on data being represented in multiple ways in this article. You’re right, might be a good idea to think about how these topics are connected if I understand you correctly.
> data in view but not structure
Speaking about what I’ve written previously, data can be in different views and structures actually. Interesting way to think about it. A block can live at two places in Formable, so you could have multiple structures to present the same data, as well as different views to look at it.
So taking this to for example the canvas, you could have an item sit at multiple places on a canvas. Might also be interesting to explore how related data that hasn’t been put on a canvas can be shown. So e.g. if you pull in two items of the same type, but haven’t manually drawn a connection between them, should the canvas somehow visualise that they’re of the same type? Such stuff only becomes possible since items don’t only live on the canvas but can have relations outside of it.