Outline with rows and columns?

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Posted by Hugo
Aug 5, 2009 at 03:48 PM

I am looking for an outliner for thesis writing, that works in two dimensions:

first dimension, the classical document structure:

1. chapter
about cats
1.1 section
about black cats
1.1.1 subsection
folk tales, history,

second dimension, different revisions or anotations

For writing a rather long thesis, I tried this method.
It worked really well, but was a pain to manage, since I used normal tables in word

Is there a program that can do this better?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 5, 2009 at 05:21 PM

Hugo,

If I correctly understand your request, I believe there are at least two options for you to take a look at:

1. The recently discussed InfoQube allows you to have columns as part of your outline. (Don’t remember the URL, but the other active topic includes the link.)
2. MyInfo does a wonderful job with columns. (http://www.milenix.com)

Steve Z.

Posted by Hugo
Aug 5, 2009 at 08:25 PM

Thanks!

MyInfo is not exactlyy what I am looking for, at least on a first look: It appears that the table is not part of the outline, instead each outline entry can have its own table

InfoQube looks closer, apparently the name for what I want is a “single-pane rich text outliner with columns”

Still somewhat problematic, the columns in the single-page view do not seem suitable for entering several paragraphs of text per cell. I could not find a way to enter a line-break for example.

I have made a mock-up of what I am imagining, hope that clears things up a bit
[IMG]http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7875/vollbildaufzeichnung050.jpg[/IMG]

For now it seems word is still the best option. Not a very good best option though.

Posted by quant
Aug 5, 2009 at 10:10 PM

Excel?
————————————————————
I have made a mock-up of what I am imagining, hope that clears things up a bit
[IMG]http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7875/vollbildaufzeichnung050.jpg[/IMG]

Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Aug 5, 2009 at 10:56 PM

Hugo wrote:
>InfoQube looks closer, apparently the name for what I want is a ?single-pane rich text outliner with columns?

Still somewhat problematic, the columns in the single-page view do not seem suitable for entering several paragraphs of text per cell. I could not find a way to enter a line-break for example.
>————————————-

You could use IQ to create a grid as in your mock-up. Shift-enter adds a line-break. You can also bold text, etc, but no bullets. I do not think it is a very good application for what you want however.

To use IQ for this kind of work, I would add sub-items under each item, and either (1) enter the content there or (2) use the HTML pane. Use a column to qualify what revision it is (first draft, second, ... final). Filtering will allow you to view / print / export each version separately.

Editing in Excel is tedious, so Word is probably the way to go. Printing each version is however not possible with Word

One question… when the content of cells are large (i.e. many paragraphs), this system still works for you?

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