Mac Oultiners

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Aug 31, 2009 at 04:34 AM

The reviews provided by Steve and others of Mac outliners and information programs was very helpful.

I am much taken by Scrivener, and it appears inexpensive enough that it is no real risk, if it is even half as good as Hugh, Steve, and others say.

Just spent some time checking out OmniOutline. It appears to me as perhaps the most general of the outline tools - the Swiss army knife, say, allowing for information linking and management, but with the main focus being on outline capabilities and variety, largely supported by the columnar structure.

If that is a correct assessment I am thinking it might be a good choice as well - perhaps leaving other programs such as DEVONthink, Curio, Yojimbo, etc. until I am more familiar with the Mac environment, it having changed much in the seven years I have been away from it.

I still remember Attain’s INControl, which was my first real experience with an outliner that offered columns; my first Mac outliner was MORE, but it was the approach of INControl that won me.

In the PC world I never really found something comparable, with the exception of ADM. My experience with INControl influenced many of the suggestions I made to Eric, and in fact I photocopied and sent him documentation on INControl.

MyInfo has done a good job of developing columns, but to mind still falls short and, though I may be a little unfair to the developer, who is a truly nice and responsive guy, I find the overall vision somewhat lacking.

UltraRecall has a really convoluted - to my way of thinking - of getting to the same place, though Kinook has done a good job nonetheless. My gut feel - realizing I know next to nothing about programming - is that K may have relied too heavily on off-the-rack sub-programs to put UR together. I never had that feel with ADM, which seemed to me to be a built from the ground up, built from scratch creation.

Having said all that when I review OmniOutline’s web site, my sense is that what turned me on to INControl in the first place, and caused me to appreciate ADM, has been allowed to evolve and grow so that it becomes a workable, yet elegant, program.

I’m not sure if this line of thought makes sense.

AND, with OmniOutline and Scrivener would I still need a program for capturing information from the web and elsewhere the way that Evernote and Surfulater do?

If so, would that be more the role of DEVONthink or Curio?

And then there’s the hardware: Desktop or laptop?

I prefer the protability of a laptop, and have recently realized that a 13 inch screening isn’t all the limiting, and that the advantage is greater protability.

Vanilla plastic MacBook or MacBook Pro?

Is 2 G of ram sufficient?

Is 2.26 GH sufficiently fast for most of the surfing, researching, writing things I want to do?

For work at home, how practical is it to have a MacBook power a 24 inch monitor (now selling for about $250 Canadian?

Lots of questions that go beyond the forum’s central outliner focus - yet all related to allowing me to do the stuff that is my main focus now: research and writing.

And one last question, how well does Windows operate on a MacBook? I have heard conflicting reports.

Thanks for your patience with all my questions and rambling opinions.

Daly