Re: My current set

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 3902

Posted by fgrieser
2005-08-25 09:16:39

Hi Alex.

Interesting list. Here is my setup:

Non-fiction writing (on a Windows XP machine):

* Writing: OpenOffice.org Writer 2 (I try to avoid Microsoft Word as much as I can but have a copy of the software in case one of my customers sends me a file Writer has problems with)

* Outlining: Notemap for long projects, e.g. books; for articles the outline feature of Writer is enough

* Brainstorming: Mind Manager

* Technical illustrations: Visio, Mind Manager, Corel Draw

* Notes and ideas database: Infoselect (I getting more and more dissatisfied with it but have a really huge collection of articles, notes, etc. as I have been using IS for years so switching is not an easy decision)
I am contemplating Zoot as an alternative but wait for the next release that supports RTF editing ñ most of the articles I have in IS use formatting. Ideal would be a information manager that is available on Windows and Mac OS (see below).
And I am waiting for Eastgate to finish the Windows version of Tinderbox (Mark Bernstein from Eastgate replied to my question when the Windows version would be available a few days ago: ÑWe hope to have good news for you shortly.ì)

* Project planning: OpenOffice.org Calc and Ganttproject

* Presentations: OpenOffice.org Impress or Microsoft Powerpoint

Fiction writing (on a Mac Powerbook ñ I wanted a machine that is completely Microsoft-free)

* Writing: Ulysses (NeoOffice J and Abiword for swapping files with my Windows word processors)

* Brainstorming: Mind Manager on the Windows PC

* Outlining: Storylines on the Mac or on my Windows machine (the Mac version has a few quirks the Windows version does not have), Notemap on the Windows machine

* Notes and ideas database: Devonthink Pro on the Mac and Infoselect (I often collect useful snippets while sitting on my workhorse Windows PC, having to export them to RTF files and importing them in Devonthink)

* Planning: Tinderbox (I like it but have not had the time to really get into it ñ I am waiting for the Windows version)

It¥s not really a satisfactory setup. But last year I was so sick of Microsoft Word and Excel that I decided to give a Mac iBook a try (I swapped it for a 15 inch Powerbook because the 12 inch display of the iBook is too small for my needs). And I tried out virtually all the nice writer¥s tools and word processors available for the Mac (except for Microsoft Word). But disliked most of the writers¥ word processors ñ the best choice in my eyes is Ulysses, a good alternative would be Mellel, which features a reasonable outliner.

Franz

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