Just a half a year ago, every hierarchical organizer was pretty much the same. Between TreeNote, Jot, Keynote and the like there were no strikig features on which to base a choice. In the last few months, this has changed.

The new features included in some of the newer pims include:

The ability to select multiple discontiguous items;

The ability to open multiple windows in a tabbed interface;

The ability to insert tables in a note;

And the ability to insert a Microsoft Office object within a note, so as to incorporate documents directly and to use many advanced formatting features on such OLE objects.

Some programs now provide all of this functionality for about $35: TexNotes (www.gemx.com); InfoRecall (www.phantech.com); and I think InfoSelect, which I haven't tried (www.micrologic.com)

ADM 3, still not fully born---a few months ago so advanced-seeming that it seemed to deserve a category to itself (and still does when it comes to outlining as such)has not kept up as will in its database aspects. Of the advanced features I mentioned, it lacks tables; displays a multiple document interface only part way; and incorporates OLE objects only externally, through its browser, which itself has a single page interface.

srdiamond

Interesting post thanks Stephen.

One area of development that seems very slow to me is the importing of e-mails, attachments and files into the outliner database. Many programs are still expecting users to cut and paste info or use a simplified drap and drop routine.

Considering the huge number of people like me stuck with corporate MS programs like Outlook, I'm surprised that more isn't being done to manage the flood of e-mails that is a daily fact of life for so many of us.

The most powerful e-mail import function that I have seen so far is in Sycon's Idea! which has been mentioned previously here. Idea! may be one of the best kept secrets in PIM Land.

Are there other programs that I should look at? Idea! is very pricey.

Best wishes

Jack