Has anybody else had any experience using both Twine & Backpack yet? If so what do you think of its merits/pitfalls over Backpack?

I have been using Backpack as a ‘Personal Information Manager’/GTD app/Project support tool for a while now and have found it very useful for structuring large quantities of information. The big limitation for me has been that Tags are assigned at the page level, rather than the item level (such as an individual note, file, etc) make this too course for pages with large quantities of information. For me pages have always just been another type of categorisation (all be it one with the ability to give content an order) and the ability to filter both within and across pages would be a major boon.

I have just started using Twine and they have attacked things from the other end, where everything is very heavily (and primarily auto) tagged, and there is very limited ability to formulate your own structure. They do have a concept similar to pages (Twines) where items (notes, files, etc) are grouped, but unlike pages in Backpack, the items themselves cannot be ordered. The Twines are only a very loose conceptual container and as soon as you start filtering/searching they are largely abandoned, which can be a double end sword, particularly with common terms.

I suppose the bottom line is that I really like Backpack, but I don’t want to scatter my information across what are two, largely similar-on-the-face-of-it, apps. To me Twine is clearly the direction things are heading, but I see no reason why apps like Backpack cannot be infused with ‘semantic technology’, rather than superseded by it.

Anybody else have any thoughts?

Since I don’t use contexts in my GTD system, Basecamp works pretty well. The home page has been renamed “Inbox” and there are lists in there for “to be processed” and “next actions.” I originally had the next actions on their own page, but found it was more convenient to keep both on the same page. That way they are right in my face every time I fire up backpack. For projects, you could make your own page or keep them as their own lists on your inbox page. Then I made a “Someday Maybe” page and a reference page (mostly bookmarks.) I find the reminder function works really well as a “tickler file” and the calendar is, well, the calendar.

I’ve tried more complex programs like iGTD, but I found that the dizzying amount of features, preferences, and myriad ways of arranging your data added too many levels of complexity to what is, ideally, a simple system. GTD should get out of your way so that you can, um, get things done. I find that Backpack does this well.

I haven’t used Twine but from what you describe, I don’t think it would be worth losing the ability to structure your own data.

On the other hand, per-item tags in BP would be a huge help.