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[ C u r r e n t   V e r s i o n :   1 . 0 4 ]

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NodeMap is an OPL application for the EPOC32 family of computers. It runs fine on the Psion Series 5, Series 5MX and Series 7. It *runs* on the Revo, although there may still be problems - work is ongoing!

NodeMap is released as shareware. However, the restrictions in place on the unregistered version are nominal, and it will work fine without you having to pay anything :-)

Click here for screenshots and a tutorial showing some of the features of NodeMap, or here to download the program.

[ D e s c r i p t i o n ]

Nodes can also be contexts, links, or search nodes.

Context and search nodes provide dynamic focus points in your data. While they do not have children of their own, they are used to display "flat" views of selected nodes regardless of their hierarchical position. Contexts are predefined categories, to which each node can be assigned, while search nodes are ad-hoc views based on a 9 character search string which are rendered on the fly.

A link allows you to link to, and launch, most standard files on your EPOC machine.

Each normal node is represented as an icon which changes to visually represent the relative age of the node and the length of time since it was last used. All nodes can sort their children in a variety of ways.

NodeMap can also have extra functionality added through the use of Node Map eXtensions (NMXs).

[ D e s i g n   P h i l o s o p h y ]

A little while after I had started writing it, I came across an article on the web (forgot to bookmark it and haven't been able to find it again) about User Interface issues, which suggested that the standard hierarchical interface to most data structures was approaching obsolescence due to the increased quantity of information - basically it's just not practical to maintain any more. The article went on to suggest that future interface paradigms would treat data objects as a "soup" from which views would be constructed on the basis of a far wider range of attributes, primarily time-based, i.e. "which files have I used most recently?". It also suggested visually representing age and recent use of a file through changing icons.

I thought that these were such interesting ideas that they warranted inclusion! Thus while the main structure of a node map is hierarchical, custom, "flat" views of that data can be included as nodes within that hierarchy too.

The implementation is quite simplistic at this stage, particularly from the point of view of the icons representing the age of the node, etc., but I feel that it lays a bedrock for further development, and may be worked on further in future versions.

In including the NMX format to extend the functionality of NodeMap, I hope to be able to keep the code base static for the time being and simply add any further functionality via NMXs.

[ R e g i s t r a t i o n ]

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