Dang, the people behind Brainio have just released a brand-new, all-rewritten version – currently free of charge! It does look extremely attractive (nice mixture of text, mindmapping and hybrid). More details on their website: https://brainio.com

Interesting to see how many notetakers are going down this route. Octarine is evolving in a similar direction, and of course it's built into Obsidian. Although Brainio's mindmapping is somewhat closer to the original concept (as embodied in Xmind, SimpleMind, etc.)

This has a simple, clean look. Access the web version (app.brainio.com) for a more robust view of the capabilities than the screenshots on the landing page.

Yes, I find myself instantly attracted to this app. Thanks for referring to it.

Great looking app.
One comment... As a mobile user I'd like to mention the lack of Indent/Outdent buttons.

Good point!

Mike Sautkulis wrote:

Great looking app.
One comment... As a mobile user I'd like to mention the lack of Indent/Outdent buttons.

Maybe it's just me, but I really struggle to adopt any new outliner or notetaking program that doesn't provide for bulk importing from other apps. Is that a difficult thing for programmers to do? I've seen a number of very interesting programs, such as (if I remember correctly) Capacities, Walling and xTiles, that say bulk importing is planned but have been saying that for a long time.

You are not wrong, but yes, bulk importing from e.g. proprietary formats is (very) hard. Which is why so many of the best notetaking apps use folders + markdown files as their basic content – because that approach is totally open and easy to import/export to just about anything.

exatty95 wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I really struggle to adopt any new outliner or notetaking program that doesn't provide for bulk importing from other apps. Is that a difficult thing for programmers to do? I've seen a number of very interesting programs, such as (if I remember correctly) Capacities, Walling and xTiles, that say bulk importing is planned but have been saying that for a long time.

A phenomenon occurs every time I switch tools: a large part of the content accumulated over months in the old tool ends up being left behind and is almost never revisited.

Even today, I still have a few hundred open tasks in OmniFocus despite not having used it for a few years. The same goes for hundreds of other notes in Evernote that I also haven't accessed in a long time, and the list goes on; OneNote, WorkFlowy, Obsidian, AmpleNote, Nirvana, etc...

During the first month after switching, I still resort to the old app to look for the most relevant info, but soon my visits become increasingly rare.

So maybe these service switches actually serve as a good way to clean up digital clutter—the perfect excuse I needed to justify them :-)



exatty95 wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I really struggle to adopt any new outliner or notetaking program that doesn't provide for bulk importing from other apps. Is that a difficult thing for programmers to do? I've seen a number of very interesting programs, such as (if I remember correctly) Capacities, Walling and xTiles, that say bulk importing is planned but have been saying that for a long time.