OSX outliners

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 1563

Posted by zigzag
2003-02-14 12:12:06

There appears to be a resurrection on the OS X platform in the category of outlining apps. Two super outlining apps from the 1980s, which still run under Classic, are freeware: Acta and MORE. I’ve used Acta since the mid 1980s.

Acta
http://www.a-sharp.com/acta/

MORE has a few quirks under Classic, but it offers a spellchecker, bullet and tree/organization chart creation from outlines, slideshow creation, and also pioneered ‘cloning’ of outline items—essentially outline item aliases that dynamically change the content of all clones when you change one. I’ve dabbled with it, and see why it still has many adherents:

MORE
http://www.outliners.com/more31

For many years, Microsoft has included basic outlining in Word, most recently available through an Outlining toolbar is the OS X version. It does a serviceable, basic job:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/wordx/wordx_main.asp?embfpath=howtox&embfname=wd_writeresearch.asp

Inspiration, which has been out for several years, is now marketed primarily to educational institutions as a tool for students:

http://www.inspiration.com

Userland’s web-app Frontier, which was written by MORE’s original programmer, Dave Winer, has built-in outlining capabilities, but at $899 is not aimed at people interested in basic outlining.

Userland Frontier
http://frontier.userland.com/

There are now a host of new, OS X-only outlining apps as well.

Outliner 4X
http://outliner4x.macosguru.de/

Liner
http://www.imediasw.com/?p=products&s=liner

OmniOutliner
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/

NoteTaker (duplicating the look/feel of the old ‘Notebook’ NeXT app)
http://www.aquaminds.com/index.jsp

Idea Knot (“Brainstorming tool”)
http://www.stayatplay.com/ideaknot/

IdeaSpiral
http://www.midnite-liteman.com/ideaSpiral/index.shtml

Has anyone used any of these new apps under OSX? Can anyone compare them?

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