about outlining ...

Posted by jimspoon
Sep 10, 2011 at 11:04 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

>I agree with this list,
>but would add to it the following:
> >VIEW META-TEXT INLINE. The “tree” part of the
>outline usually consists of the headings/topics, not the content associated with
>each. When you write two paragraphs about sub-sub-head X, where do you want to view
>that meta-text? If my outline is of an article or a report, I want to view that meta-text
>inline, as part of the tree, not in a separate window. Why? Because reports or articles
>(any written communication), the information is not read as a collection of
>individual index cards, but as a whole and the writing should flow properly. If you
>have to view the notes you’ve associated with each topic as individual blocks (as a
>two-pane outliner forces you to), you can’t as easily make your writing readable as a
>whole.
> >My blog post about Grandview shows how that application did this better than
>any outliner I’ve ever used since:
> >—-
>http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/grandview/
> >Steve Z.

That’s a really nice post about Grandview, and the comments are very interesting too. I’m going to have to reinstall Grandview just to refresh my memory about some of its features. I think the last time I tried, I got it running under DOSBox.

As I understand it, in Grandview you could attach a “document” to an outline item, and you could view that “document text” inline with your outline, or you could edit it in its own document editor window. So, there is a distinction between “outline text” and “document text”.

I used the MS Word outlines in between Grandview and Ecco Pro (in fact, I went from PC Outline to Grandview to MS Word to Ecco Pro), and MS Word made a similar distinction, I think. In Word you had 9 outline levels, and you could put in “body text” under any outline item.

Usually, instead of entering text as “document text” or “body text” (distinct from outline text), I would just make that text into an outline item at the next lower outline level. That way I could do everything with that text that I could do with any other outline item.

I also think that when I’m brainstorming, I would often find that text I initially entered as “document text” would better be made into an “outline item”. So long as I can easily split and move “document text” into outline items, then I’m ok with that feature.

jim