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Hierarchical outliner with the most complete writing tools?
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Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Jun 14, 2009 at 05:26 AM
Derek Cater wrote:
(...) >My question is, are there other hierarchical outliners that major on writing tools (fonts, formatting, bullets, etc.) that I should be considering?
IMO, the first thing to ask yourself is, what type of outliner are you looking for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner
- 1-pane outliner (i.e. notemap, OO)
- 2-pane outliner (there are many)
- Style-based outliner (i.e. MS Word), basically, not a real outliner, but an outline view of your document
Each of these have pluses and minuses for writing a large document (100 pages)
Posted by Graham Rhind
Jun 14, 2009 at 06:28 AM
You said that you had tried Whizfolders, but the table support was insufficient. That is indeed one of Whizfolders’ weak points. I use Whizfolders, and for my table-rich documents I simply copy and paste the table into MS Word, work on it, and then copy and paste it back to Whizfolders.
Graham
Posted by Cassius
Jun 14, 2009 at 06:52 AM
If one doesn’t need to work with numbers in a table, one can always copy it and paste it as an image. FastStone Capture is extremely versatile and easy to use for this and you can find the last free version, 5.3, on the Net.
Posted by Glen Coulthard
Jun 14, 2009 at 06:59 AM
I’m sure everyone has their favorites, and I’m no exception
. Personally, I have owned (or have contributed to) the following products over the past decade (which is scary when I look at the list):
- TreePad Business (http://www.treepad.com) - then upgraded to Enterprise
- NeoMem (http://www.neomem.org) - open source, but not developed anymore; great in its day
- My Notes Keeper (http://www.mynoteskeeper.com) - developed in China
- Milenix MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com) - developed in Bulgaria
- SQLNotes/InfoQube (http://sites.google.com/site/infoqube/Home) - waiting for it to mature
- WjjSoft’s myBase (http://www.wjjsoft.com/) - just purchased yesterday for half-price on BitsDuJour
I no longer use TreePad or NeoMem, but keep them on my system because of archived data. I use My Notes Keeper (MNK) for most of my writing—I’m a textbook author and a professor who writes the odd research article. I use MNK because it has paragraph formatting, bullet/number formatting, and an actual Ruler bar to set indents! (Now, these features don’t always work the way I’d like, but it’s better than other products I’ve used.) I also like MNK because of its strong exporting features (to CHM, RTF, etc). I purchased MyInfo last year, however, because I was concerned that the developer of MNK was not actively developing the software—not very responsive to customers. MyInfo is much prettier and Petko, the developer, seems willing to meet the needs of his customers. Although I prefer working with MyInfo on a daily basis and with general information, I still use MNK for my writing tasks.
Unfortunately, not one of these products offers the “complete” package in my opinion. Right now, I have high hopes for InfoQube and the next version of myBase. I’m not putting anything mission critical into these programs yet, but I am learning what they can do. Also, I want to mention ConnectedText (http://www.connectedtext.com). I have transferred a lot of my work into this personal wiki and have used it to write a couple of research articles. It is an fantastic product, especially for the more technically-inclined, and the developer is amazingly responsive. However, it is a desktop wiki, as opposed to an outliner—different animals, but may be of interest.
Hope that helps,
Glen
British Columbia, Canada
Posted by Derek Cater
Jun 14, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Thank you everyone. What a great response!
In respect of PP Landry’s question/advice, I’m pretty sure that it’s a two-pane outliner that I’m after. The kind of reports that I have to write have multiple sections and sub-sections and the same archaeological site will be discussed in many different sections, in respect of its description, value, how it might be impacted upon, and how those impacts might be mitigated, etc. I find it easiest to revist what I said in earlier sections by negotiating a separate tree, leaving the note pane free for writing. I’m sure something similar can be done in single-pane and style-based outliners, but the two-pane arrangement works for me.
Many thanks to Stephen Zeoli for drawing my attention to The Journal. From what I can see from its website, I could definitely imagine feeling at home there. I will download the trial and give it a go.
I must confess to being less enthusiastic about NoteMap. I used to use Franklin Covey’s PlanPlus for Windows (formerly TabletPlanner), until it lost my notes. I can remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realised the loss, as the gas pipeline construction meeting turmed to the topic of archaeology - and I don’t want to go there again.
I suppose I could create the tables in another programme and then import or copy them into my outliner. In practice, though, I think that would be unworkable. My tables tend to be text-heavy and their creation is almost always an iterative process. Their creation in a separate programme would necessitate frequent re-importations, which would soon get tedious.
Glen, many thanks for your very thoughtful post and excellent suggestions. Most of those programmes are on are have been on my radar. I too have high hopes for InfoQube, I just need to find some time to understand it ;-). I would be interested to hear why you have put TreePad on the back burner. You said you use MNK, in part because of its ruler and bulleting capabilities; TreePad Business has options for a horizontal and a vertical ruler and will number each line, if you should so wish. It also allows you to set indents and adjust line spacing, and offers numbered and lettered bullets (upper and lower case!), at least in the latest Business version, which is on my system.
From what has been said here and elsewhere, I definitely need to check out ConnectedText.
Anyway, the happy quest for outlining perfection goes on…
Many regards
Derek