Forum Posts Feed
Mac: Notebook vs Notetaker
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Ken
Jan 27, 2011 at 10:36 PM
I am a big fan of Circus Ponies’ notebook app for one and only one reason: the ease of creating bullet-list outlines. For whatever reason, my head thinks in hierarchical lists. NB works in bullet-list format by default (probably a settable preference but I never have), and tab, shift-tab, return, and other keystrokes do exactly what they should (indent, outdent, new list item, etc). You can expand or collapse individual lists, you can move an entire hierarchy around easily, and you can format/highlight/place notes anywhere.
Most other things in Notebook are less than satisfying. The multidex is slow and cumbersome, the contents pages are awful and there is no way to organize other than the linear notebook/divider/page metaphor, and other things (todo items) are much less useful than they could be. And, after months of waiting, we finally got an iPad app—unusably bad for $30.
The only other tool I know of that works that well with outlines is OmniOutliner, which doesn’t have an iPad version at all. I’ve tried MacJournal, but it’s got a normal text editor, not an outliner, so that’s no use.DevonThink is expensive, and looks interesting but I’m not going to waste time learning it since it doesn’t have an outliner either (unless I haven’t found it). Any other possibilities I haven’t thought of?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 28, 2011 at 01:52 AM
OmniGroup is promising an iPad version for OmniOutliner—though it was supposed to be out by the end of 2010, and now they are just promising sometime this year. Still, it might be worth the wait.
Steve
Posted by Ken
Jan 28, 2011 at 04:23 AM
In reading this post (as I was not the author of the above post), I realize that we now have two Kens posting on the site. I am a bit surprised that site software does not prohibit identical names, but I am sure we can work to keep the two of us properly identified. While I have an iPod Touch, and was a Mac user many years ago, I work with PC’s and an Android smartphone. So, any Mac postings like the above will not be from me. Unless a Mac appears in my future. ;)
—Ken
Posted by Simon
Jan 24, 2012 at 12:21 PM
What happened to Notetaker? Much was said about Notebook, but nothing about Notetaker and the op was Notebook vs Notetaker.
I’m looking a purchasing one of them would be interested in the which one folks believe to be better.
-s
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 24, 2012 at 04:36 PM
I have used both, but I do not rely on them much, so this opinion is not based on deep usage.
I think Notebook is considered the more solid of the two, and that matches my experience. I do like the cleaner feel of Notetaker, and Notetaker has a PC version, although not a particularly powerful version. Development of Notebook is pretty slow.
What is your intended use? You might check out Growly Notes, which is free and pretty feature-rich:
http://growlybird.com/GrowlyBird/Notes.html
Steve Z.