Hi folks,

I haven't visited this forum for a while, mostly because I've been busy with the new version of Writing Outliner - An add-in software that turns Microsoft Word into an outliner software.

I've just added the new corkboard feature to Writing Outliner, which gives you a big picture of your writing outline, which is good for plotting, taking notes, etc.

The corkboard view allows you manage your outline in a different and exciting view - a corkboard - each outline nodes are presented as cards, which can be freely arranged, and changes to the card order changes the outline structure.

At the initial stage of the development of Writing Outliner I've got great advices here so I'd like to let you know this news :)

Details in my blog post: http://writingoutliner.com/writing-software/blog/new-version-1-2-0-662-with-the-new-corkboard-index-cards-view/

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Edwin Yip
MS Word Add-in for project-based writing for long documents.
http://WritingOutliner.com

Edwin.

For my eyes, that looks like a 1:1 clone of Scrivener.

Without having given your Word add-in a thorough testing: I'll stick with the original.

Franz

@Franz - I am getting fantastic benefits from the integration of WritingOutliner with Word 2010 as add-in.
If your concern is specifically about "borrowing" ideas from Scrivener, I would argue that the cork board metaphor was already in play a long time ago (e.g. Mindola SuperNotecard, ...) and some of the other elements (e.g. left tree pane) have resemblance with many tree based outliners; the working style enabled by WritingOutliner has some resemblance with WhizFolders or UltraRecall, ...
I am sure you see where I am going with this: It is very hard to come up with "innovations" in this field.
If anything, I would give Edwin credit for his contribution in attacking the very real and very painful "n tools" issue by keeping the project management component inside the writing environment. This is where time savings by avoiding the import/export ritual come into play for me. Also, without the artificial multi-app barriers, jumping between the big picture and granular changes is more conductive to my creative process, technology not slowing me down for once?

I would encourage you to take a peek at Edwin's blog; you will find that he is looking at issues relevant to real world users with great insights and recommendations (e.g. a great example that shows that this product has legs and is not just a doomed "me too" experiment: http://writingoutliner.com/writing-software/blog/good-tutorial-for-writing-large-word-documents/ ).

I am using Scrivener on my Macs and I am big fan, however since my "serious" workflows are all PC centric, I never got around to using it for heavy lifting.
WritingOutliner, on the other hand, will be my main tool to develop the outlines for 3 75 minutes technical presentations that I have to deliver at a big conference in February. I am just now starting down that road, thanks to having discovered WO on this forum (KUDOS, all, for keeping this community alive and kicking!) and will report conclusive findings after I am done with that project.
Happy new year!

@Franz,

Thanks for the comment. With great respect, I have clearly stated in the first post of my Writing Outliner blog that Writing Outliner was mostly inspired by Scrivener for Mac, when Scrivener has only a Mac version. Actually, I even have had an email exchange with the developer of Scrivener, Keith, he's nice and he appreciate I was frank :)

Writing Outliner it's not a 1:1 clone of Scrivener, what makes it different is that it's built-on top of/seamlessly integrated into MS Word (so that you can utilize all it's powerful functions). On the topic of "original", the respectable developer of Scrivener, Keith, he also has ever said that he was inspired by other programs.

My first blog post about Writing Outliner: http://writingoutliner.com/writing-software/blog/scrivener-for-windows/

@moritz,
Thanks!

And happy new year to you all!

Edwin.

------ quote -----
Thanks for the comment. With great respect, I have clearly stated in the first post of my Writing Outliner blog that Writing Outliner was mostly inspired by Scrivener for Mac, when Scrivener has only a Mac version. Actually, I even have had an email exchange with the developer of Scrivener, Keith, he?s nice and he appreciate I was frank :)

Writing Outliner it?s not a 1:1 clone of Scrivener, what makes it different is that it?s built-on top of/seamlessly integrated into MS Word (so that you can utilize all it?s powerful functions). On the topic of ?original?, the respectable developer of Scrivener, Keith, he also has ever said that he was inspired by other programs.
----- end -----

I know you said in 2009 that Scrivener was an inspiration. You may not have seen that but I was one of the guys at the LitLatte forum that came to your defense last year when someone blamed you for "shamelessly ripping off" Scrivener.

But for me, the 1:1 copy of the look and feel of the index cards of Scrivener was simply too much.

BTW: I did not say that Writing Outliner was a 1:1 clone of Scrivener. I said it looked like a 1:1 clone. That's a big difference.
I was talking about the look and feel not about the functionality.

All the best, Franz

Edwin, on a slightly different subject: you have mentioned in your blog that Writing Outliner will eventually integrate with you mind mapping program Mind Visualizer.

I have purchased Writing Outliner but don't want another mind mapping program. Any chance for WO to import stuff directly from some of the more popular mind mappers, e.g. Mind Manager and/or Freemind/Freeplane? These seem to provide the formats most usually read by other mind mapping applications too.

Franz, your comments and Edwin's make me think that I need to use WO for my next project. If it really is a "clone" of Scrivener, but it also includes Word, then to me that means it's miles ahead of Scrivener in functionality.

Having tried Scrivener for Windows for a recent project over the last few weeks, I found it nearly unusable because of the lack of text formatting capabilities. If WO has everything Scrivener has, plus Word's text formatting, then it will really be a killer app.

I'll try it for my next project and see how it goes.

Downloaded and tried. Cannot get it to run. Crashes with "CoOutliner4Word error: the add-in has fired an exception. Unspecified error."

I am gun-shy about downloading the add-in too. I recall that Word crashed on me before when I installed the add-in. I should note however that the notice does state that the add-in does not work with MS Word 2010 64 bit

I have tried the Scrivener Windows beta, but was unimpressed. I've tested/used many similar products, including MyInfo, MyNotesKeeper, MyBase, and TreePad, but the strength of Edwin's product is its tight integration with Word -- my writing tool of choice. This one feature sets it apart from other products, imho.

Dan, on my Win 7 + Office 2010 system, I ran into the same errors as you. However, I purchased the product after downloading the latest 1.2 version, which has run flawlessly thus far. I would recommend sending Edwin an email to request the latest edition for testing.

Glen

@Franz,
Thanks for your comment, yes, the corkboard function is similar to Scrivener's, honestly, I've not able to come up with better idea yet for a corkboard function, and IMHO, Scrivener's corkboard is a good design, why not stand on top of the shoulders of the giants? The bottom line is, however, you can't pretend to be original. In real world, all cars have four wheels, can we say that the manufacturers' designs are not original? And I have no offence here :)

@Alexander,
That'll be a great idea, I added it to the 'wishlist'.

@dan7000,
A add-in software usually runs on a more complex environment than standalone softwares do, especially when it has to be compatible with multiple versions of the host software (word 2000 - 2010), for example, the problem might occurred because a conflict with another add-in installed on your computer. If you send me the details about the problem I'll be glad to help.

@Mitchell,
The latest version has a lot stability improvements. And it's true that Writing Outliner doesn't support Office 2010 64-bit, but it supports Office 2010 32-bit that installed on Windows 64-bit machine.

@Glen, moritz,
Thanks for the comments, you know, it's very important to know how the users think about the software :)

Changing the items on Word 2000 taskbars apparently causes Writing Outliner errors.