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You need a different view on your outline - a corkboard with arrangeable index cards
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Posted by Edwin Yip
Jan 2, 2011 at 05:10 PM
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/
—-
Edwin Yip
MS Word Add-in for project-based writing for long documents.
http://WritingOutliner.com
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jan 2, 2011 at 06:01 PM
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
Posted by moritz
Jan 3, 2011 at 12:19 AM
@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!
Posted by Edwin Yip
Jan 3, 2011 at 03:45 AM
@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!
Posted by Edwin Yip
Jan 3, 2011 at 03:46 AM
And happy new year to you all!