Dave:

I've been looking for an outliner app for a handheld computer like a Palm or Handspring. As you were pretty much the creator of the outliner genre, I was wondering if you knew of such software anywhere -- or given thought to creating it?

I'm imagining something much simpler than Radio or Frontier; probbaly even simpler than ThinkTank, Ready or MORE.

Mainly I just want something I can drag text around in a hierarchical tree, but ideally I would also like the ability to work with the outlines on some host machine, a Mac or PC. So if it synch'd to the host in some format that Radio or Frontier could edit, you might have a cool add-on for those products.

Unfortunately, I doubt there's commercial potential for such a thing; it might only be worth doing if you or someone else thought it would be cool or fun to write.

Any ideas?

There is one. BrainForest by Aportis at www.aportis.com. It comes with a Mac app and a Palm based app. It works, but big outlines(~200k) are sloow on the Palm.

For Windows CE, try Pocket Outliner from Footprint Software (free beta) at http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=CE0000D4&b=zdce . A fine program, but apparently not being developed.

Take a look at Shadow from http://www.codejedi.com

It links items to other Palm apps and you can synchronize to the desktop. The developer uses his own XML format, but is very open with it, so it's possible to transform it to whatever your desktop app uses. OPML springs to mind.

Hmmm, one problem I had with several of the Palm outliners mentioned above is their use of a separate window to enter actual text - I find that the constant jumping between editing the text of an item in it's own window, and then viewing the representation of the outline to manipulate the hierarchy is intrusive.

So I've been using Bonsai from Natara: http://www.natara.com/Bonsai/

I use Palm's foldup keyboard as well, and Bonsai is the only Palm outliner I've found that let's me just keep typing away without interruption. It behaves just as I've grown to expect an outliner to - Return creates a new item, tab indents one level, shift-tab outdents, and importantly no modal dialogs.

Their support of keyboard shortcuts could still use a little polish, but so far this is the only outliner I've found which allows me to hammer an outline out with no pauses to pick up the stylus.

Worth trying the demo, especially if you use the Palm Keyboard. (They have a PC desktop app, but no plans for a Mac version - pity, but I don't miss it)

Also worth trying is Arranger from Olive Branch...

http://www.olivebr.com

And here's why...

http://www.jeffkirvin.com/writingonyourpalm/column000522.htm

We make an outliner for the Palm called ThoughtManager. It offers in place editing, and no limit on the size of a particular item in the outline. You can attach notes and drawings as well.

I would love to get your feedback on it. We are working on options for synchronization with desktop outliners, including writing our own. I would like to hear what the most important feature are from the experts here.

Thanks,

Shannon
shannon@handshigh.com