Re: Text & diagram outliners

< 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: 2287

Posted by zeoli
2004-10-20 22:33:42

I have owned Inspiration for several years, but don’t use it a lot. As a program that can switch instantly from an outline to a diagram and back again, it is great. Taken individually, however, the outliner and the mapping functions are not as strong as other options. The outliner does not have the features of NoteMap. Also, I find it less than simple to use. The keystrokes to create topics and subtopics are not intuitive, so I have to use the mouse and click the appropriate buttons. Obviously, if I used it more often, I would probably get more facile with the keystrokes, but it is kind of a catch-22.

The mapping/diagramming function is okay, but not real nimble. Every time you add a new branch, you need to re-arrange the diagram. Often, the lines connecting boxes, especially if they are stacked, run on top of each other and it is difficult to see all the connections properly. It doesn’t use space real well, either, so you can’t cram as much information onto a page as you can with a mind-mapper program like Freemind or the others.

So, I guess what I am saying is that if you have need of one or the other functions, you would do better to look elsewhere. If you need a program that does both, it will get the job done for you.

Steve Z.

Back to archived message list