Your System - Functions and Apps That Fulfill Them

Posted by JakeBernsteinWA
Feb 14, 2019 at 08:49 PM

You probably already know this, but the Notebooks 2 for Mac beta is now public: https://www.notebooksapp.com/NBMac2-public-beta/

MadaboutDana wrote:
I found this very amusing, since I’m engaged in much the same process.
>I’ve been evaluating all the lovely apps I use for stuff, and have
>concluded that the ones I really need are limited to:
> >- Numbers (increasingly important to me as a general note-taker,
>calculation engine and whiteboard)
>- Notebooks (although I’m impatiently looking forward to version 2 for
>macOS at the moment, due to the significant shortcomings of V1)
>- DEVONthink Pro Office (invaluable for storing large quantities of
>information, especially bitexts in PDF format, random research stuff
>etc.)
>- Notability for dealing with dictated input (doesn’t [yet] require a
>subscription - hooray!)
>- Soulver (as a quickie calculator when I can’t be bothered to set up a
>spreadsheet-style calculation in Numbers)
> >Otherwise I’m still using MacJournal, because I’ve used it to store lots
>of encrypted info and don’t have an immediate alternative (until the
>advent of Notebooks 2 above). I also still use Curiota, but will be
>replacing it with Notebooks 2 once the latter arrives. I occasionally
>use Scrivener, but don’t write enough long-form novels/books enough to
>make it a heavy-use app.
> >Apps I have, to my surprise, decided are redundant include: Bear,
>Ulysses, Outlinely, Keep It. I’m in the process of exporting the content
>at the moment (quite tedious, but not as bad as I thought it might be).
>The savings should be considerable!
> >I use Scapple occasionally, too.
> >As you will see, I am expecting Notebooks 2 for macOS to take over most
>of the functionality of multiple apps (Notebooks on iOS is already more
>sophisticated). As for outliners qua outliners – I love the
>folding thing, but am increasingly convinced that folding should be part
>of a larger structure (Pagico does it quite neatly, as it happens,
>although I’ve replaced my Pagico setup with a Numbers setup; so does
>Scrivener), hence my abandonment of Workflowy, OmniOutliner and similar
>apps.
> >Saying that, I’ve worked out a way to make Numbers fold individual
>entries (tables, text notes etc.), which saves space and is actually
>quite elegantly managed by Numbers (which, when you unfold an item,
>pushes everything below it vertically downward - and then elegantly
>raises it up again when you close the item, so no disruption to the
>positioning of items even on a very extensive whiteboard-style
>worksheet. Nice. Actually, more than nice - everyone should do it!). The
>one major disadvantage to Numbers - and indeed all Apple iWorks apps -
>is the amount of space taken up by individual files. They really should
>opt for the compressed XML used by MS Office or, for that matter,
>LibreOffice etc. It’s a bit ridiculous that a fairly basic spreadsheet
>should take up around a quarter of a megabyte!
> >I like HyperPlan, but it’s not cross-platform at the moment, and to be
>honest, the Numbers setup allows me to create much the same kind of
>views (albeit manually, so without the neat automation - I love the x/y
>axis swap feature, incidentally). I’d love to see more variation in the
>HyperPlan card layout (“Appearance”), with e.g. the option to change
>font sizes for different parts of the display, use rich text, etc. But
>I’m sure that’s all on the roadmap. HyperPlan is definitely something I
>could get into if it was just a little bit more sophisticated and - aha
>- cross-platform. It’s already a very impressive product, however!
> >Cheers,
>Bill
> >Dellu wrote:
>>I am removing every productivity app except DEVONthink & Scapple.
>>I will see if I will be less productive.