[JerrodM]

My partner and I find it difficult to keep track of the latest version of our ever-changing system. I have no experience with Google Docs, but think it might work. I envision a structure something like this:

Current Agreements Folder. Overview plus individual files/folders for each opening bid (etc), each flagged with the latest date. Includes a master file tracking changes.

Proposals folder. Discussions of ideas not yet dismissed or accepted.

Rejected ideas folder. Ideas considered and rejected.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[hrothgar]

I recall that folks used to say good things about the following


http://www.hcs-usa.com/sysnotes.htm

[helene_t]

I think I would prefer to have suggestions and the actual agreements in the same document. You can use "suggest edits" which you or your partner can accept or reject.

For vague thoughts which you don't yet have a suggested wording for, you can use comments.

[shyams]

At the risk of suggesting a useless software, there is an app called Obsidian notes which a close family member uses (for an entirely different thing). I was told that it has a good indexing and cross-referencing feature.

You may want to check it, if you wish to do so.

Note: I have never used the software. My recommendation is based on what I heard from my kin.

[mycroft]

This is the kind of thing that I've always thought mind-map software would be useful for, if you're the type to visualize that way. I haven't got down to it myself after several tries, but I'm investigating Obsidian these days to see if it works for "throw a bunch of ideas at the wall, link them together as they will, then pull it all out sequentially."

Like any development project, revision control (and versioning, if you are comfortable with that) is critical. Branches can be made for "suggestions", and they don't have to be pruned if they are rejected, so you can see it. But being able to point to "it used to be <this>, but we agreed in december that it's now <that>" is very helpful, as is "well, we looked at this idea, but it didn't fit for <reason>, so it was shelved."

[edit: heh, snap]

[mw64ahw]

You could see if this has developed further. It was a touch buggy last time I reviewed.

BridgeNotes.io

[pescetom]

I would really like my various documents to be more effectively interlinked (so that opps as well as a new partner can find things), I'm not so bugged about a history of how they evolved (I remember anyway and most partners couldn't care less, occasionally I'm grateful they won't know).

But by far my biggest problem is managing multiple partnerships each sharing much but not all of the system. I work around this partially by having a specific "Partnership Agreement" master document for each partner: when a partnership becomes worth documenting I clone the existing PA that will require least changes and then make them. Of course occasionally I have to make the same modification in multiple PAs, making awkward (but useful) decisions about which partnerhships are moribund. To my credit, I can at least remember exactly where everyone is or was, so the document is more for them and opps.

[0 carbon]

pescetom, on 2025-April-07, 11:23, said:

I would really like my various documents to be more effectively interlinked (so that opps as well as a new partner can find things), I'm not so bugged about a history of how they evolved (I remember anyway and most partners couldn't care less, occasionally I'm grateful they won't know).

But by far my biggest problem is managing multiple partnerships each sharing much but not all of the system. I work around this partially by having a specific "Partnership Agreement" master document for each partner: when a partnership becomes worth documenting I clone the existing PA that will require least changes and then make them. Of course occasionally I have to make the same modification in multiple PAs, making awkward (but useful) decisions about which partnerhships are moribund. To my credit, I can at least remember exactly where everyone is or was, so the document is more for them and opps.

Maybe something like Word master documents with particular chapters(conventions) included or excluded?
Can Google Docs work like this?

[blackshoe]

hrothgar, on 2025-April-07, 08:34, said:

I recall that folks used to say good things about the following


http://www.hcs-usa.com/sysnotes.htm

It's decent, but it suffers from three problems, as I recall: it's very clunky, it's Windows only, and it hasn't been updated in years.

[blackshoe]

mw64ahw, on 2025-April-07, 11:14, said:

You could see if this has developed further. It was a touch buggy last time I reviewed.

BridgeNotes.io

There's also Bridgodex, which is a bit ACBL-centric (it starts by asking you a series of questions which are based on the ACBL system card).