The new version of Inspiration was released yesterday. It's available for Mac and Windows. Evidently high schools remain the major customer base, so the software continues to be geared in that direction, but there are some intriguing new features (especially the incorporation of visual connections into the outline view):

http://www.inspiration.com/Inspiration/Whats-New

Season's greetings to everyone,

Lucas

Correction: Actually the most significant new feature is the new map view. You can now create true mind maps (instead of just diagrams) and switch back and forth between the map and the outline. I may have been wrong about the connections in outline view, however. Still looking into it...

@Lucas

This is very tempting, especially as they appear to be offering upgrades at $29.95, not only to version 8 licence-holders, but also to those with earlier versions of Inspiration. http://store.inspiration.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=IS90-US-PDU

I found Inspiration to be a rather clunky (as compared to NoteMap, for example; or PocketThinker), but many-featured Windows outliner. For those who don't already have a version of Inspiration, it also has the added advantage that it can be used as one way of exporting Grandview outlines, via Inspiration, to MS-Word.

Derek

Not "the outline," as there are two: the diagram view and the map view have separate outline views. Particularly disappointing, the outline view associated with the map view does not have the "focus in" and "focus out" functions (equivalent to hoist). This function is also missing from the map view itself.

Lucas wrote:

Correction: Actually the most significant new feature is the new map view. You can now
create true mind maps (instead of just diagrams) and switch back and forth between the
map and the outline. I may have been wrong about the connections in outline view,
however. Still looking into it...

Notemap might be less clunky, but Inspiration has never erased any of my work, Notemap has. I just wrote a 10-page document in Inspiration 8 with little trouble. When converted to rtf or Word it became 14 pages. Anyway, I bought ver. 9 and it arrived 3 days ago. Be sure to read the install instructions: Installing ver 9 does not do anything to ver 8, so you can move any special templates from 8 yo 9, etc. and afterward uninstall 8.

Apropos of HP printers, Inspiration and MS Word 2000: I bought and returned two HP printers because:

1. The HP 8500 printer driver would not let Inspiration 8.0b open.
2. The second HP printer driver took 2 min. 20 sec. to open the print window in Word 2000. It took an additional 3 min. to open the print properties window in all applications.

I am now using a Lexmark Platinum Pro 905, so far (1-1/2 weeks) with no trouble (except the updates download site is having problems). The black ink is cheap.

Notemap might be less clunky, but Inspiration has never erased any of my work, Notemap has.

Agreed, Cassius. For example I found that joining two Notemap subheadings together, each with its own attached comment, deleted the comment from one of them - i.e, the program seemed to have no way of automatically merging them. I think your problem of disappearing text was another bug, too.

I don't know quite why Inspiration (including v9, to which I couldn't resist upgrading from v7.5) gives an impression of "clunkiness". I think it's two-fold: (i) it's hard on my 1024x768 LCD screen to get a display that doesn't appear rough and somehow amateurish, despite my various tinkerings with font type, size, etc.; and (ii) some of the keyboard shortcuts are needlessly arcane, making it somewhat awkward to use - but nowhere near as awkward as Maxthink for Windows. Notemap, OTOH, displays excellently on my setup.

If one can resist the shallow preoccupation with how it looks, however, Inspiration is a good outliner.

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

I don't know quite why Inspiration (including v9, to which I couldn't resist upgrading from v7.5) >gives an impression of "clunkiness". I think it's two-fold: (i) it's hard on my 1024x768 LCD
screen to get a display that doesn't appear rough and somehow amateurish, despite my
various tinkerings with font type, size, etc.; and (ii) some of the keyboard
shortcuts are needlessly arcane, making it somewhat awkward to use - but nowhere near
as awkward as Maxthink for Windows. Notemap, OTOH, displays excellently on my
setup.
Derek

--------------------------
Derek, have you tried using the "mountain views" in the lower left corner of the screen to enlarge or reduce (zoom in or out) the font size?