On new possibilities in OG 2.0 ß v4...

[RH Sprinkle MD PhD]

Greetings --

    New possibilities abound in OmniGraffle 2.0 ß v4, which I have just
been exploring this morning.  What I find particularly interesting is
OG's potential as a non-PowerPoint-oid presentation engine.

    We can make a graph from an OO outline and then, in OG, link from
objects, lines, and even free-standing text directly to other documents --
tables, reports, movies, statistical and modeling apps -- and to URLs, all
more smoothly than before.  Most of this may have been possible before
2.0 ß v4 but now OG's presentation functionality is approaching
criticality.  Even a real bone-head like me can see it.  Exempli gratia,
we can now link from a master OG screen to a subsidiary OG screen and
back again -- and upon that can be built some very serious real-time
noodling.  We can even put pictures (PDFs, anyway) right on a graph, so
we can make any number of OG-based illustrations to augment a talk
without having to present them serially (and without having to "look one
up" during a talk to return to it at a colleague's request.)

    I guess I'll finally have to buy this thing...

    Maybe now it wouldn't be too hard to add, say, the following options:

    ·  A explicit "presentation view," matching the aperture of LCD
projectors, and containing any file to which a link has been established,
with or without a menu bar showing.

    ·  Little blue lightning bolts for OmniOutliner columns.  (Well, why not?)

    ·  An elegant way to get back from a linked file not created by OG or
OO, rather than having to close it.  (This one sounds hard to me, but it
might not be, for all I know.)

    Anyway, pardon the uncharacteristic enthusiasm and flakey
suggestions.  And congratulations to the OmniGroup!

        -- Rob Sprinkle


________________________________________________________________
RH Sprinkle MD PhD
Associate Professor and
Editor-in-Chief, Politics and the Life Sciences
School of Public Affairs
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
301-405-0184
301-314-9346 (fax)
rs236 at umail.umd.edu
www.politicsandthelifesciences.org