On a trial basis, I downloaded and quickly tried Inspiration 6 at Inspiration.com. To a novice like me, it appeared to be a rather elegant outliner. I would appreciate any thoughts on that program.

I did the same two days ago. Although I was a bit put off by the fact that the product seems aimed primarily at people in educational establishments, I think it's really very good; elegant, as you say, very quick to use (have you tried the 'RapidFire' feature?) and it provides very presentable printed output. The way you can flip between outline and diagram is also very clever and can be quite illuminating if you're an 'ideas' person.

I'll certainly be buying a copy. It's been a long time since I looked forward to using a new piece of software - I even find myself trying to think of new things to use it for!

Hi there,

I'm a long-time Maxthink afficionado. I've outlined and then drafted two books, many articles, and essays, as well as managing several businesses and many projects, all with the help of Neil Larson's great product. However, two days ago I downloaded the trial version of Inspiration, and so far I like what I see, although the familiar ease, and by now lightning like and automatic arrow-key-based navigation of Maxthink is missing (though there are various other features in Insp. which are missing from Max). So my query is, are there any other experienced Max users who have experience with Insp and can provide comparative data in terms of ease of use. This info would be very useful to me, and I suspect others, in terms of determining whether to invest time and energy in mastering inspiration. (Can you also email me any responses to:
eric@worldstewards.com)

Thanks for your help,
Eric

There's been quite a lot of discussion of Inspiration in this forum, though often buried in threads on other topics. General consensus seems to be: outliner alone good, but not as good as MORE; diagram mode absolutely wonderful, but some people just don't see themselves ever using it. Other people had more interesting postings than the following, but I've failed to keep a note of who and when; my own longer posts on Inspiration are at:

http://discuss.outliners.com/msgReader$230 (links to reviews),

http://discuss.outliners.com/msgReader$263 (Inspiration/MORE feature comparison), and

http://discuss.outliners.com/msgReader$588 (Inspiration 6 upgrade review).

Robert,

I was spoiled by the blazing speed and functionality of DOS outliners (MaxThink in particular). The interface of GrandView, PC Outline, MaxThink, and ThinkTank were so much quicker than the Windows breed of outliners, I cannot imagine using them for brainstorming. Thus, I end up exiting all of my programs and move to DOS. I tried Inspiration and a few other Windows outliners, but have yet to find one that focuses more on ideas and thinking rather than formatting (colors, fonts, graphics, etc.). If you find one, let me know!