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NoteTab for note-taking
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Posted by WSP
Apr 16, 2011 at 05:18 PM
Despite my enthusiastic comments about MyInfo on the “MyInfo 6 Just Released” thread, I confess that I fantasize about finding a plain-text solution for note-taking. I’ve tried and used a lot of programs through the years, including Treepad, Onenote, Evernote, and MyInfo, and what I feel about all of them is that they’re fun to use but are sometimes buggy, often bloated, and invariably force me to lock up my data in a proprietary format. I do hanker after a more lightweight program that uses plain text.
The one alternative I’ve experimented with most is NoteTab (the Standard variety), which, with its outline feature, is actually quite good for storing notes. Of course if I were to use it, I would lose some text formatting (though it’s easy to indicate italics and bold with standard markdown symbols) and images (though I can envision ways of switching easily to another program such as Picasa to look at images).
I’m just wondering whether anyone on this forum has had any extended experience with using NoteTab for note-taking (i.e., not for writing code or creating HTML pages). I would like to hear advice about limitations, pitfalls, etc.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 16, 2011 at 07:10 PM
I admit that my own experience with Notetab’s outlining features did not impress me particularly. However, I can very much agree with you on the attractiveness of a plain text outlining environment. In this respect, my own favourite is still Brainstorm.
You may be interested in trying out is Insight http://www.dataomega.com/insight/index.htm Though it is basically plain text, it can handle specific styling. What’s more, it can read Notetab .otl outline files.
Posted by WSP
Apr 16, 2011 at 08:07 PM
Thanks. I’ll take a look at Insight, though the screenshots on their website are not reassuring: it has an incredibly cluttered UI. I’m drawn to minimalism at the moment, but of course I also want enough power and flexibility to organize information in various ways.
Some note-taking programs (Evernote springs to mind as a prime example) seem to be in danger of sinking under the weight of their own complexity. I don’t mean that Evernote is especially difficult to use, but you sense that some sort of heavy, clanking, steam-driven machinery—that’s how I envision it, at least—is thumping away in the background and is threatening to collapse at any moment.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Apr 16, 2011 at 09:31 PM
You should also look at ResophNotes:
http://resoph.com/ResophNotes/Welcome.html
It has a plain text mode and syncs with SimpleNote, if that matters to you. It also will display marked up text.
I’m a fan of NoteTab, using it frequently to write first drafts. I tried using it for making day notes, making use of the outline function. I created a new outline document for each month, then made an outline entry for each day. I think this could work pretty well, but in true CRIMP fashion I didn’t sustain it.
Steve
Posted by Gorski
Apr 17, 2011 at 12:21 AM
Check out emEditor too.
It has an outliner plug-in that lets you move sections of text up and down easily.
http://www.emeditor.com/modules/feature1/rewrite/tc_30.html