When we want to enrich the interaction around items, assists the user, be more directive in what has/can be filled we resort to all theses gimmicks. Where do they fit ? Slot or attributes are recognizable piece of data attached in a 1-1 relation to an item. Name, Surname, Cell Phone number, email for a person, web site for an organization, IBAN for a book. It can be entered as attribute name: attribute value at the beginning of the body, or aside the body in the XML data, or even as a microformat anywhere in the body (hrecipe). So slots are really about data, persistence. There is a default display for some attributes that make them appear as fields before the body. This is very convenient because it allows the novice user to add attributes to a type and the GUI will follow. In some cases such a default GUI is not desirable. It could be because we want to apply some checks to input, or the input methods are inadapted, or attributes are computed. In all theses cases a new template can be added either to tyhe item type, or create a new slot type and a new template for it. It is similar for sub items and links. Some links are required so they will appear directly at item creation time. The item can’t be defined without those links. The place to add such links will be below the body. Attributes before, links after. If such links and items are inline, unnamed items they will appear directly with their bodies, attributes and links. Eventually an item creation form can become large and confuse so we should use compulsory links and slots with moderation. Now what you could do ? Since it is not compulsory it can be added any time, not just at creation time. It can be added, filled when you browse your knowledge, when you review it or even when you learn from it. Gardening Knwoledge is an all time activity. It maintains it vivid, stimulate your memory, exercise your attention, enhance retention. Optional items, advices, suggestions can come from many parts and don’t necessarily follow the type hierarchy. They may call for templates but can be very straight forward. For all theses reasons inductors are separate from types and from templates. they can leverage both but also processes, web searches, whatever. Everything you can do on your computer an inductor can do it as well. Inductors are a special case of metaprocesses triggered by item creation. They are more than workflow since they can interact during changes. They have a dedicated GUI zone, very limited. Because metaprocesses and inductors are parallel in nature a combo allows you to choose which steps will be displayed and active. Without this selection all steps would be active at once and would invade the screen. The most simple inductor step is a question and checkbox. Checkbox disactivate the question either because you responded or because you definitely don’t want to see the question.