Notemap 2.0
Posted by ureadit
on 2/13/2006
ureadit
2/13/2006 2:50 pm
Have any of you encountered the following occurrences with Notemap 2.0?
1.
Conversion to MS WORD does not always yield the identical outline formatting (indentation, etc.), requiring one to "clean up" the WORD version.
2.
When editing an item one must click on another outline item before pressing ESC or the edits will disappear.
Thanks.
-sc
1.
Conversion to MS WORD does not always yield the identical outline formatting (indentation, etc.), requiring one to "clean up" the WORD version.
2.
When editing an item one must click on another outline item before pressing ESC or the edits will disappear.
Thanks.
-sc
srdiamond15
2/13/2006 3:53 pm
Steve,
I have experienced neither of those glitches in NoteMap 2.
Stephen Diamond
I have experienced neither of those glitches in NoteMap 2.
Stephen Diamond
100341.2151
2/13/2006 4:37 pm
Steve -
When I used NoteMap (I have now gone back to Grandview) I had the same problems as you with the export to Word. I had to do a lot of fiddly pre-export work, and more cleaning up post-export.
I can't recall the "ESC edits" problem, but I had problems with unexpected deletions of text. This accidental deletion problem is caused by the automatic selection (i.e., highlighting) of a whole note under certain circumstances. If one then types a character, the whole note
is erased. This is part of the standard windows feature that when you mark (i.e. select) a sentence, word, or whatever, but do not immediately copy or cut it, but instead type something, what was selected is replaced by what you typed. Not what one wants in an outliner, IMO.
Other problems I had - and which I reported to CaseSoft were:
1. I found that the "Comments" feature - while very useful - has a
snag. When you merge continguous headlines, each with comments, using the merge feature, you lose one set of comments - that of the "mergor" not the "mergee". This is quite unacceptable.
2. Another problem (or is it a feature?) with NoteMap which caused me to lose data was the ease with which it is possible accidentally to merge headlines. In GV, you have actively to choose to join headlines (aka item/notes) using Alt-J, or unjoin them using Alt-K. Headlines are not subject to accidental damage through over-enthusiastic use of the Backspace or Delete key. In Notemap, pressing Backspace at the beginning of the headline causes it to merge with the previous one. Pressing Delete at the end of a headline causes it to merge with the subsequent one. This, of course, makes it all to easy for accidental merges to occur (with lost Comments into the bargain). I think this is a design flaw, but others might disagree.
I can't understand the enthusiasm for NoteMap. It is an interesting program, but needs a lot more development. In the same vein, Brainstorm provides a useful subset of Grandview features but needs a fully editable aerial view before I will find a great deal of use for it. Having said that, I think it is one of the few genuinely original and innovating Windows outlining programs available - which is why I bought it.
Derek
When I used NoteMap (I have now gone back to Grandview) I had the same problems as you with the export to Word. I had to do a lot of fiddly pre-export work, and more cleaning up post-export.
I can't recall the "ESC edits" problem, but I had problems with unexpected deletions of text. This accidental deletion problem is caused by the automatic selection (i.e., highlighting) of a whole note under certain circumstances. If one then types a character, the whole note
is erased. This is part of the standard windows feature that when you mark (i.e. select) a sentence, word, or whatever, but do not immediately copy or cut it, but instead type something, what was selected is replaced by what you typed. Not what one wants in an outliner, IMO.
Other problems I had - and which I reported to CaseSoft were:
1. I found that the "Comments" feature - while very useful - has a
snag. When you merge continguous headlines, each with comments, using the merge feature, you lose one set of comments - that of the "mergor" not the "mergee". This is quite unacceptable.
2. Another problem (or is it a feature?) with NoteMap which caused me to lose data was the ease with which it is possible accidentally to merge headlines. In GV, you have actively to choose to join headlines (aka item/notes) using Alt-J, or unjoin them using Alt-K. Headlines are not subject to accidental damage through over-enthusiastic use of the Backspace or Delete key. In Notemap, pressing Backspace at the beginning of the headline causes it to merge with the previous one. Pressing Delete at the end of a headline causes it to merge with the subsequent one. This, of course, makes it all to easy for accidental merges to occur (with lost Comments into the bargain). I think this is a design flaw, but others might disagree.
I can't understand the enthusiasm for NoteMap. It is an interesting program, but needs a lot more development. In the same vein, Brainstorm provides a useful subset of Grandview features but needs a fully editable aerial view before I will find a great deal of use for it. Having said that, I think it is one of the few genuinely original and innovating Windows outlining programs available - which is why I bought it.
Derek
srdiamond15
2/14/2006 1:13 am
<1. Conversion to MS WORD does not always yield the identical outline formatting (indentation, etc.), requiring one to "clean up" the WORD version.>
One thing that comes to mind on this--do you have "Use heading styles for conversion" checked or unchecked. I always check it. I'm not sure what happens if it's unchecked. I guess it uses the formatting you supplied in NoteMap, but what about what NoteMap does NOT specify? It seems like the unchecked option is ambiguous and potentially contains a lot of problems.
Stephen Diamond
One thing that comes to mind on this--do you have "Use heading styles for conversion" checked or unchecked. I always check it. I'm not sure what happens if it's unchecked. I guess it uses the formatting you supplied in NoteMap, but what about what NoteMap does NOT specify? It seems like the unchecked option is ambiguous and potentially contains a lot of problems.
Stephen Diamond