Re: Help obtaining GrandView

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 2001

Posted by ureadit
2004-07-04 13:58:55

1. GV’s document view is similar to hoisting. When you enter a “return” in an outline item, say to start a new paragraph, everything after that first return is considered part of a “document.” In document view, all you see is that document. In other words, it’s exactly like hoisting an outline item, except that you don’t see the part of the outline item before the first return and can’t add suboutline items.

2. I use ECCO, mainly for its calendar functions which I consider better than GV’s.

3. GV is a FAR better outliner than Ecco.

4. Ecco’s column and folder functions are rather analogous to GV’s category and assignment functions. I prefer GV’s, but that probably is because I used them for a great many years and so became very adept with them. I’ve been unwilling to spend any real time working with Ecco’s folder functions. (Thinking about it, Ecco may be better if its folders can filter and yet retain the outline structure. GV’s category/assignment view lost “parent” outline items and therefore the context of an assignment item.)

5. No “ticklers” in GV, but you could always create an outline or outline item with them and create a keyboard macro to access them, say by assigning ALT-T to the macro.

6. GV is not WYSIWYG. Colors take the place of actually showing bold, italics, etc.

7. As MS introduces newer versions of Windows, DOS programs, such as GV, become more difficult to use. I find GV much more of a pain to use in Win 2000 than in Win 98. Considering how much time I spent becoming GV-proficient, I can’t really recommend it to anyone today. It’s sort of like my experience with Agenda. I went to great lengths to get from Lotus a license and manuals for Agenda, and had to get the program itself from someone who owned it. Then I never used it. I also bought Zoot, but never have used it because it’s plain text—no RTF.

8. Ecco has “mark and gather”? I never found that. Also, I make little use of the filtering capabilities of Ecco. But then, I’m in a different office environment than I was 10-15 years ago when that capability would have been very useful.

9. I repeat that anyone wanting to learn GV needs to have the manuals, including the “Reference Guide.” How else would you know that Alt-F will not open the file menu? Alt-F1 followed by Alt-F may do it, but I remapped the keyboard functions so many years ago that I no longer remember the originals.

10. NOW IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A UTILITY THAT MAKES IT EASIER TO USE DOS PROGRAMS UNDER WINDOWS, THEN I MIGHT REEVALUATE MY OPINIONS.

-sc

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