I recently came across Sense, a "structured text editor" or "advanced document editor" from Silva Elm:

http://www.silvaelm.co.uk/

The software turns out to be a bit buggy, but it has a key feature that so far I have found elsewhere only in Scrivener. It behaves like a two-pane outliner, but it is possible to edit the text in the right-hand pane as a single combined document. For me this is a useful set-up for composing documents. I can work on the structure in the left-hand pane, and I can work on the text in the right-hand pane. When I click on a section in the left-hand pane, the corresponding text is selected in the right-hand pane. (In Sense, it is even possible to show or hide text in the right-hand pane by expanding and collapsing the hierarchy in the left-hand pane.) But in WhizFolders, for instance, while there is a combined view available, it is not possible to edit within the combined view. The same goes for Biblioscape, Ideamason, and others. For me, it's essential to be able to see what comes before and after a given section as I work on it, so I don't like working in editors in which only a single section is available in the right-hand pane.

If Silva Elm weren't so buggy, it would basically fit this particular need. Scrivener is only on Mac, of course, and there are other aspects of it that don't work for me anyway. Does anyone know of any other software that offers two-pane outlining with an editable combined view in the right-hand pane?

Thanks,
Lucas

The only thing close to this for Windows that I can think of is Writers Blocks. This is an application that has been around awhile, hasn't been updated in five or six years (maybe even longer), and is on the expensive side. I mention it because I think it is an interesting program that if updated and given a bit of a UI makeover would be a useful application.

Instead of a tree-structure for organizing your writing, Writer's Blocks uses multiple miniature word processing windows that you arrange in columns. You can then view these individual chunks as one document, which -- I'm pretty certain -- you can edit in place.

I'm not recommending Writer's Blocks, but I think you might find it interesting to look over and play with the trial version.

You can find it here:

http://www.writersblocks.com/index.htm

Steve

Thanks very much, Steve. I tried Writer's Blocks before, but I didn't remember that it's possible to edit the combined document. I guess the only downside with Writer's Blocks would be that the blocks cannot be organized hierarchically (from what I remember). But perhaps I should have another gander.

In the meantime, I've been continuing to experiment with Sense. Despite the annoying little bugs and slim feature set, I'm finding that it's unique capabilities make it quite useful. It also appears to be under active development.

Lucas

Hello,

We are using Scenari for audit missions authoring: The document structure implements the audit methodology.

http://scenari-platform.org/projects/scenari/en/pres/co/

Kind regards
Mathias

FYI, I sent an e-mail today to Ashley Software, makers of Writer's Blocks, asking about the status of the program. I got this pretty quick reply:

"The new version has taken longer than we anticipated but we are happy to report that we are about to start beta testing!"

I hope they've put a lot of work into upgrading the user interface and editor engine, because this is an interesting and unique application.

Steve

@Mathias

Thanks for pointing me to Scenari. It looks quite interesting. I'm realizing now, having done a bit more research, that the phrase "structured document" has various shades of meaning beyond what I had realized (sorry for my ignorance), and beyond what I'm actually looking for. In many cases, the phrase refers to documents that follow some sort of predefined structure, which is the sort of need that Scenari meets. For my own purposes, however, I simple want to compose academic documents in such a way that I can manipulate both the structure and the body text seamlessly (along with other features mentioned earlier).

@Steve

What a surprise! I'm very glad to here that Writer's Blocks is still in development---thanks for letting us know. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Just a really quick comment. I love WritersBlocks, but it is so darned expensive. I looked for a long time to find an affordable alternative. I eventually found SuperNoteCard. It is cross-platform and has a cloud component that allows you to create documents from any web-connected device.
http://www.mindola.com/

Dear CRIMPers,

Writer's Blocks and SuperNoteCards look interesting. I'll have to give them a try, although the former strikes me as ridiculously over-priced, especially for an application that hasn't been developed in so long. Maybe the new version will provide better value.

I do want to pick the one desideratum of Lucas' original post: "two-pane outlining with an editable combined view in the right-hand pane." This would be really valuable to me. Any other applications offer this?

Cheers,
David

Hi,

You may take a look at Writing Outliner a MS Word Add-in:
http://writingoutliner.com/

Dominik

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Hi,

You may take a look at Writing Outliner a MS Word
Add-in:
http://writingoutliner.com/

Dominik

Thanks, Dominik. Does Writing Outliner now enable editing in the combined view?

Lucas

In theory anyway, Writer's Blocks is a fuller writing environment than SuperNoteCard, but I agree completely that SNC is the superior application at this point in time. I really appreciate what Writer's Blocks aspires to be. The implementation is weak -- perhaps not when it was first introduced a dozen years or more ago. Even at its last update, which must have been five to seven years ago, it was feeling old. It would be very welcome if they've used the many years since the last version came out to really upgrade the whole thing. They don't need to add any features, just make it all work better and with a cleaner, more friendly user interface. If they've done that, this would be an excellent application and worth the money, in my opinion.

Steve

One other note: It may be that NoteCase Pro offers something along the lines of what I mentioned, but I've never been able to test the software, because the pro features are disabled in the demo. The website reads:

"Without a license key file, the program is started in a light mode (fully functional, but some advanced features are blocked)"

http://www.virtual-sky.com/download.php

I don't see why anyone would be convinced to purchase the software if there is no opportunity to test out the advanced features beforehand. (I do enjoy the irony of the phrase, "fully functional, but some advanced features are blocked". Hmm...)

Lucas

Lucas, many thanks for the heads up on SENSE; in terms of its basic functionality it is something that I have been looking for for quite some time.

As you noted, there are several rough edges with the program. Unfortunately, this applies also to the registration process, which is as user-unfriendly as it can get. It also seems to not work at the moment (the online option is unresponsive, and the offline points to the wrong email) even though the actual purchase and payment works fine via Plimus.

I am waiting for the developer's response and will post back here with an update.

Hi Lucas,

No, Writing Outliner doesn't support editing in a combined view yet, but it's on my plan already :)

And thanks for this post, I didn't realize that a editable combined view of multiple documents can be that useful for writers.

--
Edwin Yip
Writing Outliner - Turn Microsoft Word into an all-in-one writing software for long documents.
http://WritingOutliner.com

Lucas wrote:

Dominik Holenstein wrote:
>Hi,
>
>You may take a look at Writing Outliner a MS
Word
>Add-in:
>http://writingoutliner.com/
>
>Dominik
>


Thanks,
Dominik. Does Writing Outliner now enable editing in the combined view?

Lucas

Just a note to say that I received my product number via email and it works OK.


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Lucas, many thanks for the heads up on SENSE; in terms of its basic functionality it is
something that I have been looking for for quite some time.

As you noted, there are
several rough edges with the program. Unfortunately, this applies also to the
registration process, which is as user-unfriendly as it can get. It also seems to not
work at the moment (the online option is unresponsive, and the offline points to the
wrong email) even though the actual purchase and payment works fine via Plimus.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Just a note to say that I received my product number via email and it works
OK.

Thanks -- good to know. I will probably make the modest ?12.99 investment as well, with the hope that Mr Ewins, the developer, will go on developing this uniquely useful software.

The developer's description of the inception and trajectory of this software project gives me reasonable confidence in its future:

http://www.silvaelm.co.uk/about.shtml

It seems likely that the rough edges will get fixed up, and I'm gradually figuring out how to work around them. On the whole, the application appears stable.

Lucas

(The "?" preceeding "12.99" in my last post was a pound (GBP) sign that appears not to have been recognized.)

The reasonably low price for the Personal version might seem O.K., but I was suprised to find that the importing and exporting features are apparently only available for the Professional one. Shouldn't these be basic to any version?

What we have here is beta software for which donations might be a preferable way of raising money, especially given the "rough edges" mentioned (but not so far described).

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

The reasonably low price for the Personal version might seem O.K., but I was suprised
to find that the importing and exporting features are apparently only available for
the Professional one. Shouldn't these be basic to any version?

Looking at the version comparison chart, "rtf file import/export" is available in the Personal version, while the Pro version offers "Source Code Import/Export." I don't actually understand what the latter term means. However, it appears that the operative principle in distinguishing the two versions is that the Pro version is designed for programmers. Can anyone who has tried the app shed light on the difference between these import/export options?

Cheers,
critStock

critStock wrote:

Derek Cornish wrote:
>The reasonably low price for the Personal version might
seem O.K., but I was suprised
>to find that the importing and exporting features are
apparently only available for
>the Professional one. Shouldn't these be basic to
any version?

Looking at the version comparison chart, "rtf file import/export" is
available in the Personal version, while the Pro version offers "Source Code
Import/Export." I don't actually understand what the latter term means. However, it
appears that the operative principle in distinguishing the two versions is that the
Pro version is designed for programmers. Can anyone who has tried the app shed light on
the difference between these import/export options?

Cheers,
critStock

From what I can tell, you both are right. The website claims that the "Personal" edition features "Import and Save As between Rich Text Format(.rtf) and plain text (.txt) file-types."

http://www.silvaelm.co.uk/products-sense-personal-edition.shtml

The demo version of the program allows switching between "Personal" and "Professional" modes. But when I switch into "Personal" mode, while I can save the whole document as .rtf (using "Save as"), it does not appear to be possible to import or open .rtf files. In the "Professional" mode, on the other hand, there are "import" and "export" commands from the File menu that both seem to work fine. So, unless I'm missing something, this would seem to be a serious oversight -- perhaps someone can contact the developer? (I probably won't get to it before next week.)

Lucas

Sense Version 1.7.0 has been released today http://www.silvaelm.com/download.shtml

This fixes a number of issues including RTF and Text file Import for the Personal Version.

I'd be interested in the bug details in Sense so they can be fixed?

Dave Ewins

Lucas,

Looks as though the developer has now put additional import and export features into the "Personal" edition (see his post on Sense v1.70 today. Good show!

Has anybody experimented with importing Brainstorm text files into Sense? This would seem to me to be one obvious use for Sense - i.e. start with a detailed outline and then move this into Sense for further drafting.

Derek

Hi

Although Sense should import the BrainStorm Outline text file sucessfully, the resulting format isn't structured being simply a flat document of paragraphs.

A more rewarding approach is via Sense To Webpage (A maintenance version is available as detailed later) - Sense To Webpage will hopefully convert your BrianStorm Html file to a Sense Document..

The procedure to try is as follows:

Publish your BrainStorm file as as a simple outline version (FullJavaScript model is switched off).

Run Sense To Webpage and open a New "Project by local file open" selecting the html file.

The Validation should initially fail with a "doctype" as an unexpected token.

Close this dialog and allow a XHTML Resolver Retry by selecting Yes.

If the Validation is now successful, Click any of the links in the Navigator browser view to open Sense and the content should hopefully now be structured into sections.

It's important to Save As your file somewhere useful for later use.

Exit Sense and Exit Sense To Webpage not saving (cancelling) the project to tidy up.

I have placed on the support site http://support.silvaelm.com/maintenance/tools/ a Sense To Webpage development version (1.4.1) incorporating extra handling to convert HTML 4 (transitional) to XHTML.

Dave Ewins

Hi Dave,

Yes, this looks like a very viable solution. I have a Brainstorm outline file that I'm working on with a colleague. Just as an experiment I downloaded the Sense to Webpage program and loaded the exported html file (simple outline version) from BS into it.

Everything worked well until the XHTML Resolver got to work on tidying up the file, when it threw up the following error message:

"Error: CreatWebpageOutline

Information:
Outlining Webpage

Outlining Webpage

Invalid character in the given encoding. Line 35, position 1029."

At this point the Resolver stopped and the view of my html file was replaced by the Welcome page - presumably because the Resolver could not proceed any further.

When I later looked at this line and position in the Brainstorm html file, using a syntax editor (www.econtrol.ru) with word wrap off, I couldn't see anything obviously wrong. This position was at a word in the middle of a sentence that began and ended with " &nbsp". The sentence itself was embedded in a longer paragraph. I also checked with another editor (HippoEDIT) and got the same result.

What should I try next?

Derek

Hi Derek,

Good work.

Interestingly, the XHTML Resolver / Validation has passed --- the failure
in the Outlining Webpage suggests the presence of a special character
encoding in the html like ® that isn't being handled by the subsequent XSL transform - it may be that this is in a meta element within the html head or attribute somewhere --
special characters are handled in the main body text nodes.

The Sense To Webpage Help provides a listing of Special Characters currently supported.. Also
there is an Invalid Character Errors explanation within the Validation Errors help page.

Please check for a special character encoding around line 35 where a sub-string starts with an ampersand and ends with a semicolon -- it may be that it's an encoding that isn't supported currently.

If there is a special character encoding, in what context is it occuring -- ie html tag, attribute etc?

It would help greatly if you could send me even a snippet of the file around
line 35 -- unfortunately, it isn't necessarily easy to strictly identify the
exact location of the error despite the error reporting from the underlying
system.


Dave