Outliner for Windows? (w/ WS commands?!?)

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 1351

Posted by clueless
2002-04-23 07:59:39

I’ve been using Word 97 in Outline view to keep a daily agenda, a things-to-do list, and a projects list. Each list is in a separate file, and I run a macro that displays them side by side in the Word 97 window. The agenda outline is in the left-hand third of the window, the things-do-do outline in the middle, and the projects outline on the right side.

And as I’m a senior citizen I still prefer the WordStar command set for text editing I learned a couple of decades ago, so I’ve installed a template in Word 97 that allows me to use WS commands for cursor movement.

This set-up works fine, and I only have three complaints:

1. Word’s outline view indents each subsection of the outline by the equivalent of 10 characters.

2. Outline view inserts the equivalent of two character spaces between the plus and minus sign characters that begin each line and the text which follows.

3. Outline view has a default left indent of about three or four spaces, so that with my three windows on the screen at once, I’m losing about 12 columns of precious screen real estate from these indents.

Here’s what Word97 outline view looks like:

+ Heading
+ Sub-Heading
- Sub-Sub-Heading

But I’d like to see it look like this:

+Heading
+Sub-Heading
-Sub-Sub-Heading

If you are viewing this message in a fixed width font, you can see that the Word 97 “Outline View” wastes a lot of my precious desktop real estate.

So, I’m wondering if there is a Windows outliner, that has a more compact screen display, would permit me to work with three different outlines side-by-side, and which would also permit me to use my beloved but antiquated WordStar command set.

I know; that’s a tall order isn’t it? And it’s probably a pipe dream, but, if I don’t ask, how will I ever find out?

Come to think of it, it wouldn’t have to be a Windows outliner. I could run a DOS outliner in a DOS box, couldn’t I?

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