Content Inventory Tools
Hey All:
Long-time lurker here. Long time designer/developer, newbie IDer.
Quick question regarding Content Inventories.
Reading through Dan Brown's book, I've apparently been handed one the
most loathsome tasks in the industry. Despite that, I'm happy about
it. :-)
I notice that Dan suggests to use Excel and this seems pretty
standard; however, I've been playing with OmniOutliner on my Mac and
it seems this might be a good tool too. I don't think there are
"tabs," though.
Does anyone have any experience using OmniOutliner for inventories
they wouldn't mind sharing on? Any other tools for Mac?
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks-
chris.pallé, interactive media designer
--------------------------------------------------------
chris.palle at blueflameinteractive.com
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For Mac, I like starting with Site Orbiter:
http://www.siteorbiter.cc/
It does a great job of spidering a site and give you a list that can
be exported to Excel. Haven't tried it with OmniOutliner. Will have to
see what advantages that offers, if any. I suspect it's good for
working on something that isn't yet built, whereas Site Orbiter is
great when starting with an existing site.
Hope that helps,
Maria
On 3/5/07, Chris Pallé <chris.palle at blueflameinteractive.com> wrote:
> Hey All:
> Long-time lurker here. Long time designer/developer, newbie IDer.
> Quick question regarding Content Inventories.
> Reading through Dan Brown's book, I've apparently been handed one the
> most loathsome tasks in the industry. Despite that, I'm happy about
> it. :-)
> I notice that Dan suggests to use Excel and this seems pretty
> standard; however, I've been playing with OmniOutliner on my Mac and
> it seems this might be a good tool too. I don't think there are
> "tabs," though.
>
> Does anyone have any experience using OmniOutliner for inventories
> they wouldn't mind sharing on? Any other tools for Mac?
>
> Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks-
>
> chris.pallé, interactive media designer
> --------------------------------------------------------
> chris.palle at blueflameinteractive.com
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
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I've found OmniOutliner to be a great tool, and should work fairly well for
simple content inventory. I use OmniOutliner and can't seem to find
something similar to Excel's multiple worksheets. Although, the
functionality might be available in OmniOutliner Pro.
You may not want to use OmniOutliner if your target audience doesn't have
access to it, because docs that have been exported to alternate formats tend
to get difficult to manage over time - entropy. I've found Excel to be a
great tool for the simple fact that I don't know many people who don't have
it installed.
--
Josh Viney
EastMedia Group
http://www.eastmedia.com
Maria,
Being on a Mac and in the middle of two content inventories right now, I
downloaded this and tried it... and got an unreadable mass of gray. It looks
like a spider with a serious nervous tic got into my computer screen. : )
Could you share with us how you use this tool effectively?
Thanks,
Fred
On 3/5/07, Maria Cordell <mcordell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For Mac, I like starting with Site Orbiter:
>
> http://www.siteorbiter.cc/
>
> It does a great job of spidering a site and give you a list that can
> be exported to Excel. Haven't tried it with OmniOutliner. Will have to
> see what advantages that offers, if any. I suspect it's good for
> working on something that isn't yet built, whereas Site Orbiter is
> great when starting with an existing site.
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> Maria
>
> I've found OmniOutliner to be a great tool, and should work fairly well for
> simple content inventory. I use OmniOutliner and can't seem to find
> something similar to Excel's multiple worksheets. Although, the
> functionality might be available in OmniOutliner Pro.
The Pro version features layers, which could be helpful.
-r-
Fred,
Sounds like for some reason you're looking at the map window only and
not at the Excel-like data table that appears above it. It's the data
table that I use more than anything else, as an export for
manipulation within Excel. If you're not seeing the table, look for a
dot-like handle above and just outside the map window. Click and drag
down to expose the table.
I'll separately send to you a screenshot of Site Orbiter so that you
can see what I'm talking about.
Maria
p.s. If you're indexing a large site, the default map view will be
somewhat unusable. You'd have to play with the settings (zoom, etc.)
until you get something that works well for you.
On 3/5/07, Fred Beecher <fbeecher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maria,
>
> Being on a Mac and in the middle of two content inventories right now, I
> downloaded this and tried it... and got an unreadable mass of gray. It looks
> like a spider with a serious nervous tic got into my computer screen. : )
>
> Could you share with us how you use this tool effectively?
>
> Thanks,
> Fred
>
> On 3/5/07, Maria Cordell <mcordell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > For Mac, I like starting with Site Orbiter:
> >
> > http://www.siteorbiter.cc/
> >
> > It does a great job of spidering a site and give you a list that can
> > be exported to Excel. Haven't tried it with OmniOutliner. Will have to
> > see what advantages that offers, if any. I suspect it's good for
> > working on something that isn't yet built, whereas Site Orbiter is
> > great when starting with an existing site.
> >
> > Hope that helps,
> >
> > Maria
> >
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
> List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
> (Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
> Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
> Questions .................. lists at ixda.org
> Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
> Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
>
On Mar 5, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Josh Viney wrote:
> I've found OmniOutliner to be a great tool, and should work fairly
> well for
> simple content inventory. I use OmniOutliner and can't seem to find
> something similar to Excel's multiple worksheets. Although, the
> functionality might be available in OmniOutliner Pro.
>
> You may not want to use OmniOutliner if your target audience
> doesn't have
> access to it, because docs that have been exported to alternate
> formats tend
> to get difficult to manage over time - entropy. I've found Excel to
> be a
> great tool for the simple fact that I don't know many people who
> don't have
> it installed.
I'd have to go along with Josh on this one. In a case like this, use
a default file format that is readily usable by all the audiences
that will actively use the data in the file. If everyone who's going
to read / write / modify the data has a copy of OmniOutliner, go for
it -- if not, find the lowest-common-denominator file format.
BTW, note that OmniOutliner does offer very strong scriptability via
AppleScript, and if you need something other than a tabular display,
it's relatively easy to create more complex graphic displays (trees,
nodelists, etc.) in OmniGraffle using OmniOutliner data.
- Will
Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com
206-228-3187 (cell-preferred)
206-783-1943 (home office)
"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who
already have it." - William Tozier
Thanks for the feedback, folks. Sorry I wasn't able to respond, I was
having issues with the server yesterday.
OmniOutliner seems like it could be a really nice solution as it
streamlines some of the processes that are needed of Excel... besides
as postmodern designers, we all know the pitfalls of putting too much
in an application, right?... do few things and do them well. Outliner
seems very well suited for content inventories w/o all the added
tools Excel has to offer. I do agree with the drawback with
transportability, though.
There is a plugin for exporting to excel, though. Anyone experienced
this?
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/extras/
SiteOrbiter- Thanks, Maria.
Yes. It was a little overwhelming at first. I agree that the
Concentric map is useless with large content sites. However, the
useful meat is in the spreadsheet (which you can export and import to
Excel) if you select "Hide Map" performance is increased.
Alternatively, you can change the "display mode" (found on the bottom
of the interface, and change it to "Subset" for an effective way to
look at files' relationships. Especially when tracking down errors
and orphaned files.
I have to say, Site Orbiter is not a perfect solution, BUT it handles
a lot of the dirty work; i.e., getting the links, file types, etc.
into a spreadsheet quite effectively.
chris.pallé, interactive media designer
--------------------------------------------------------
blueflameinteractive*
732.513.3570
chris.palle at blueflameinteractive.com
http://blueflameinteractive.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispalle
*water logic, meet functional form
On Mar 5, 2007, at 3:47 PM, Will Parker wrote:
>
> On Mar 5, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Josh Viney wrote:
>> I've found OmniOutliner to be a great tool, and should work fairly
>> well for
>> simple content inventory. I use OmniOutliner and can't seem to find
>> something similar to Excel's multiple worksheets. Although, the
>> functionality might be available in OmniOutliner Pro.
>>
>> You may not want to use OmniOutliner if your target audience
>> doesn't have
>> access to it, because docs that have been exported to alternate
>> formats tend
>> to get difficult to manage over time - entropy. I've found Excel to
>> be a
>> great tool for the simple fact that I don't know many people who
>> don't have
>> it installed.
>
> I'd have to go along with Josh on this one. In a case like this, use
> a default file format that is readily usable by all the audiences
> that will actively use the data in the file. If everyone who's going
> to read / write / modify the data has a copy of OmniOutliner, go for
> it -- if not, find the lowest-common-denominator file format.
>
> BTW, note that OmniOutliner does offer very strong scriptability via
> AppleScript, and if you need something other than a tabular display,
> it's relatively easy to create more complex graphic displays (trees,
> nodelists, etc.) in OmniGraffle using OmniOutliner data.
>
> - Will
>
> Will Parker
> wparker at ChannelingDesign.com
> 206-228-3187 (cell-preferred)
> 206-783-1943 (home office)
>
>
> "The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who
> already have it." - William Tozier
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
> List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
> (Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
> Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
> Questions .................. lists at ixda.org
> Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
> Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
chris.pallé, interactive media designer
--------------------------------------------------------
blueflameinteractive*
732.513.3570
chris.palle at blueflameinteractive.com
http://blueflameinteractive.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispalle
*water logic, meet functional form
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