Traditional Outliners and Tree "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: 663

Posted by aaces
2000-07-14 18:24:21

Some thoughts. Comments will be avidly read.

I have come to the realization that these really are two different kinds of animals.

The traditional outliners, More, GrandView, etc., allow you to organize your thoughts, put text to them, and then view the results so you can revise, move text, etc. You can see more than one heading and the text that accompanies it at the same time. (At least I can in GrandView & Inspiration.)

Tree outliners are more like a book with a table of contents. The table of contents, that is the tree, gives you immediate access to the “chapter” or “subchapter” corresponding to the chapter or subchapter title you highlight in the tree. But you only can see the contents of one chapter at a time.

Thus, it appears that traditional outliners are best for writing and tree outliners are best for information storage…for creating electronic personal reference “books.”

-Steve C

Back to archived message list