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Noteliner adds tables
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Posted by JohnK
Jul 3, 2011 at 12:50 AM
The latest beta of Noteliner has a surprise addition (to me anyway) ? tables.
http://www.noteliner.org/i/Main.html
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 3, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Noteliner is one of my favorite applications for Windows. In fact, it is so good, I wish Sam would do a version for Macs.
The table feature is interesting. At first it looks as if an entire table is treated as one item in the outline, but in fact it is far more powerful than that. From my testing, it seems that each item in a cell is treated as an individual item—that is, each item in a cell can be marked as an action item, or have a date applied, etc… just as you would any item in the outline. This seems as if it will be especially handy for managing certain kinds of projects. I’m looking forward to further explorations of this functionality.
Steve Z.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 4, 2011 at 12:08 PM
Thanks, John/Steve, for the heads-up. That’s rather impressive - tables appears to be an alternative way of lining up items and sub-items. The fact that you can fold rows within a table is particularly impressive! The interface isn’t entirely intuitive, but it’s not too tricky, either.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jul 5, 2011 at 02:15 PM
Steve, I found your comment on Noteliner interesting.
Noteliner makes me wonder if we’re seeing the return of basic one-pane outlining. The program is very simple to learn, and to use, yet has some nifty features. Being a table/columns kind of guy I like the new table feature in the current beta.
I wonder if Noteline can be used in a way similar to Planz. Planz does do some nifty things with its journal feature, which always present the current day as “today” but I’ve been frustrated at time with seeming inconsistencies with it when trying to enter a new subhead as opposed to a note.
I’d appreciate it if you can say something more about how you’re using Noteliner, and what it is that has made it one of your favourites.
Thanks.
Daly
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Noteliner is one of my favorite applications for Windows. In fact, it is so good, I wish
>Sam would do a version for Macs.
>
>The table feature is interesting. At first it looks
>as if an entire table is treated as one item in the outline, but in fact it is far more
>powerful than that. From my testing, it seems that each item in a cell is treated as an
>individual item—that is, each item in a cell can be marked as an action item, or have a
>date applied, etc… just as you would any item in the outline. This seems as if it will
>be especially handy for managing certain kinds of projects. I’m looking forward to
>further explorations of this functionality.
>
>Steve Z.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 5, 2011 at 06:13 PM
Hi, Daly,
Glad to add some details. So far I’ve used Noteliner primarily as an outlining application and have not taken much advantage of its task- and day-management features, but as it continues to evolve I may begin to use it more fully.
As an outliner it is a nifty application because it just works seamlessly with my fingers on the keyboard. Type, hit enter to make a new note, tab to indent, shift-tab to out dent. Think only of the words and not the outliner. That’s how outliners should work. It’s how Noteliner does work. Of course it does way more than that. It provides a nice hoist feature—“focus” in Noteliner-talk. When your outlines start getting long, add bookmarks to make it fast and easy to get to various sections. It has a simple but effective export, either through the export command, or simply by highlighting and copying. So, when I just need to outline a writing project or brainstorm a plan, Noteliner is usually the tool I turn to.
As for specific applications, I use it for keeping notes of phone conversations I have with our marketing consultant. In addition to being easy to capture our thoughts while I’m on the phone, I can also use Noteliner’s STATUS feature to mark items that need follow-up.
I’ve also, off and on, been using Noteliner as my day journal. It is actually excellent for this, but my sense of CRIMP has kept me hopping around. Here’s how I would use it for the day journal: Create a note for the year, then a sub note for the month, and a sub-sub-note for the day. Put the focus on the day, and just write whatever notes you need. Notes that need followup can be marked as such and found quickly even days later. Check off items that are complete. Use the unique tagging feature (unique in how it is implemented) to categorize notes by project.
I haven’t been able to work tables into any kind of Noteliner workflow, because the implementation is in a beta version, with no backward compatibility with exisiting outlines. But I have been playing around with the table function and see that it could be really handy. The neat thing about it is that it is just an overlay. That is, you can view the notes on any page (page being Noteliner-talk for any set of notes that share a parent) as a table, then remove the table and your notes remain in the outline. I’m still learning the ins and outs of this feature.
I don’t know if that answered your questions or not. I wasn’t familiar with Planz (because I don’t have Windows 7 or Office 2007), but there is a similarity in some ways between the two. Planz appears to have a much more robust linking capability. Beyond that I can’t comment.
Steve