Opinions on Treepad, ShadowPlan? New user.

< Next Message | Back to archived message list | Previous Message >

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 1710

Posted by rpkellig
2003-10-30 17:54:14

Hello everyone,

I’m new to outliners, but I have tons of data to outline and I want to make sure the software I pick will be durable and flexible enough to handle whatever I can throw at it. My greatest fear is the software publisher going belly up and leaving me high and dry with my life entered into a defunct program.

Reading over the comments here, it seems like some people have plenty of time to experiment with the various outliners. I plan on really, really putting my outliner through its paces (I’m a professional researcher), and I’d like to know what the consensus is on the most robust package.

From my searching so far, TreePad looks like the best all-around outliner. Anyone have experience with it? I’m impressed with the volume of information on their website. The latest versions can export to a variety of file formats, which should calm my fears about the company going out of business (??). My thinking is, if it can export to OPML, I can always upgrade to the next best thing without having to retype everything in.

Secondly (bear with me!), the setup of ShadowPlan seems like the perfect design. With the filter concept, you are not restricted to any one single tree hierarchy, and you can switch between views. The problem with TreePad and the other outliners I’ve looked at is every note can fit in one category and one category only. Am I the only one bothered by this? Is there an outliner that allows for multiple arrangements of the same elements that can be toggled back and forth?

Finally, has anyone looked at Microsoft’s OneNote? Though generally I am not very enthusiastic about Microsoft products, they have the resources to research and implement elaborate bells and whistles. Looking at the OneNote website, it looks a bit chaotic. But then again I don’t expect Microsoft to close shop anytime soon.

I’ll look forward to any comments. RPKellig{at symbole}yahoo.com

Back to archived message list