The latest beta of Noteliner has a surprise addition (to me anyway) ? tables.

http://www.noteliner.org/i/Main.html

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.

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.

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.

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

I don't get Noteliner at all. The "pages" confuse me. The keystrokes are counter-intuitive to me. For example, Ctrl-PgDn hoists, and Ctrl-PgUp dehoists. (Noteliner uses the concept of "drilling down" rather than "hoisting up".) Also I find Noteliner lacking in keystrokes for navigating, collapsing/expanding, reordering etc. when compared say, to Ecco. The manual doesn't give a keystroke for moving an item up/down among siblings, I can't find anyway to do it. I've tried some of the obvious candidates (alt-up), nothing works.

Jim,

You can move notes up and down the outline, but the process is a little obscure until you learn what it is (I didn't know it until I e-mailed the developer a few minutes ago so I could respond to your comments). You first have to select the entire line, an extra step, but a pretty small one. With the cursor on the note in question, just use shift-down arrow. Then the entire note is selected, including the bullet. Once the line is selected, use the control key in conjunction with the up and down arrows to move the note around.

One caveat, the shift-down arrow selection process does not seem to work for the last note in the outline. In that case you'll have to use the mouse to click in the far left column (where the reveal triangles live) to select the note.

Steve


jimspoon wrote:

I don't get Noteliner at all. The "pages" confuse me. The keystrokes are
counter-intuitive to me. For example, Ctrl-PgDn hoists, and Ctrl-PgUp dehoists.
(Noteliner uses the concept of "drilling down" rather than "hoisting up".) Also I
find Noteliner lacking in keystrokes for navigating, collapsing/expanding,
reordering etc. when compared say, to Ecco. The manual doesn't give a keystroke for
moving an item up/down among siblings, I can't find anyway to do it. I've tried some of
the obvious candidates (alt-up), nothing works.

Hi Jim,

I'm the developer of Noteliner. I have to admit that I didn't realize that hoisting was a clearer concept to people than drilling down. It that is the case I'm happy to rename and reconfigure the hot keys. If there are any missing hot keys I'm happy to add them, that's the easy part! I'll make Alt-Up and Alt down raise and lower notes compared with siblings.

It is hard for me to judge what is intuitive since I've been using Noteliner for about 17 years at this point. So it is hard for me to understand what is confusing about "pages" or lists of notes. Perhaps you could explain? Noteliner is designed around the idea that if you have a structured approach to your information then entering and managing it is much faster. For example, if one page (list of notes) is a list of project names, those would probably all be underlined or bolded. Shift-Ctrl B lets you bold all your project names with one press. Much of the formatting (the way I use it) in noteliner is at the page level because I always put similar notes together on a page.

To me, in the end it is a simple outline tool combined with a filtering capability that allows you to very quickly keep track of information, and the filter that information to see what you need to actually do. At work, if I need to know what I should be doing next I press Ctrl-2 (now I can click on the A on the tool bar) and Noteliner shows me everything that I have marked for attention or that needed following up.

Tables add structure to an outline and a second dimension. They allow you to continue the outline horizontally rather than vertically. In a table the first column is the parent, the other columns are their children. The table gives you an easy way to specify and see that the first child of every note on a page is "status" the second child is "contact" for example.

Hopefully I haven't muddied the waters even more. The bottom line is, if you think there are missing hotkeys, or better language I can use in Noteliner that will make it more intuitive and quicker/easier to use let me know! I'll make the two changes I mentioned above.

Hope you will give it another try!
Sam

Hi Sam,

Nice of you to post. I should gone through manual.nte again before posting - it makes your concepts more clear.

So much depends on what one is used to (in my case Ecco), so that another approach seems "wrong", which of course is not at all true. Your existing users are used to the Noteliner scheme, and you wouldn't want to make changes that would seem "wrong" to them! :) For example, to someone used to the idea of "ctrl-pgdn" to drill down, it would seem wrong to use it for "dehoist" instead.

If you use alt-up and alt-down for moving items, then you might also want to consider alt-left and alt-right as an alternative means for indenting and outdenting. That way you can do all the moving you want to do simply by holding down the alt key while using the arrow keys to position the item where it needs to be in the hierarchy.

You also might want to consider some more hot keys to expand and collapse. Ecco has handy options for expanding and collapsing from the keyboard. Ctrl+number expands and or collapses the whole outline to specified level number. For example, Ctrl-2 shows all first and second level items. Ctrl-Shift-number expands and collapses the current item to the specified level. So I find myself expanding and collapsing by using the Ctrl-Shift-1 or Ctrl-Shift-2. I guess i found it easy to remember because the key assignments are parallel to the "global" Ctrl-number expansion. But I know other people must prefer other keystrokes for expand/collapse - they might think I'm nuts to use a three finger chord for a simple thing like that. And I know you already have Ctrl-number assigned for another purpose and you shouldn't mess with that.

You have a nice program as it is!

jim

Sam Hawksworth wrote:

Hi Jim,

I'm the developer of Noteliner. I have to admit that I didn't realize that
hoisting was a clearer concept to people than drilling down. It that is the case I'm
happy to rename and reconfigure the hot keys. If there are any missing hot keys I'm
happy to add them, that's the easy part! I'll make Alt-Up and Alt down raise and lower
notes compared with siblings.

It is hard for me to judge what is intuitive since I've
been using Noteliner for about 17 years at this point. So it is hard for me to understand
what is confusing about "pages" or lists of notes. Perhaps you could explain?
Noteliner is designed around the idea that if you have a structured approach to your
information then entering and managing it is much faster. For example, if one page
(list of notes) is a list of project names, those would probably all be underlined or
bolded. Shift-Ctrl B lets you bold all your project names with one press. Much of the
formatting (the way I use it) in noteliner is at the page level because I always put
similar notes together on a page.

To me, in the end it is a simple outline tool
combined with a filtering capability that allows you to very quickly keep track of
information, and the filter that information to see what you need to actually do. At
work, if I need to know what I should be doing next I press Ctrl-2 (now I can click on the A
on the tool bar) and Noteliner shows me everything that I have marked for attention or
that needed following up.

Tables add structure to an outline and a second
dimension. They allow you to continue the outline horizontally rather than
vertically. In a table the first column is the parent, the other columns are their
children. The table gives you an easy way to specify and see that the first child of
every note on a page is "status" the second child is "contact" for example.


Hopefully I haven't muddied the waters even more. The bottom line is, if you think
there are missing hotkeys, or better language I can use in Noteliner that will make it
more intuitive and quicker/easier to use let me know! I'll make the two changes I
mentioned above.

Hope you will give it another try!
Sam

Hi Jim,

I agree that there is always a danger that existing users have become used to the current approach. However, if there is an industry standard that switches things around a bit then it is probably better in the long run. The "hoist" concept is a better way of thinking about "focusing". I put the two changes that I mentioned on the site this morning.

Steve Zeoli was kind enough to send me some screen shots of Ecco so I understood what you were referencing. It made me think that, in some ways, Noteliner has outgrown the original concept of a simple single pane todo-outliner. It's being used in many ways that I never originally envisioned. As such, I think it probably does need an improved navigation system, like a pane of folders on the left. It is a shame to move away from the single pane outliner (although that would still be an option), but I think that is what I'm going to try to do for 3.3.

Sam

Sam, I began using Noteliner this week as an alternative to Planz http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/planner_index.htm

What I realized once I got using Noteliner is how nice it is to have a one-pane outliner. So your contemplation of the possibility of using two panes causes me a little concern, and I'll tell you why. Two reasons actually.

First, everyone seems to do two panes - there's a lot of competition out there.

Second, a lament that has been made here from time to time is that there is not a good one-pane outliner in the Windows world. People who make that lament often have had experience with an old program of DOS days - Grandview - and/or MORE, an outliner in the Mac world.

As OutlinerSoftware members Cassius wrote here 16 Mar 2011: "There are far too many two-pane outliners to begin to list them, but I thought it might be worthwhile to try to put together a list of single-pane outliners, indicating if Windows or Mac, and Text only or RTF-like.

"GrandView was probably the last great DOS-based outliner; RTF-like. Worked well through Win 2000, and for some Win XP.
NoteMap for Windows had promise but development discontinued and it had bugs, including one that could lose your material."

The high end of single-pane outliners is an over-priced product from LexisNexis called NoteMap. It's not clear from their site how much effort is put into developing it.

I think it'd be worthwhile to continue developing Noteliner as a single-pane product. There is still much scope to add new features, without causing bloat or losing speed. It's possible you establish a good niche market by developing a modern, easy to use, single-pane outliner that could be readily sold.

For example, beneath a bullet point it would be nice to have in-line paragraphs that belong to a particular point. That would allow for additional information to be added to a point, or to use Noteliner as a writing tool. In-line paragraphs could be collapsed or expanded, in other words, so the user would have the choice of seeing the bullet point(s) only, or a point(s) plus the in-line material beneath it (them).

A small point: I think the look of Noteliner would perhaps be better if the second line of a bullet point was alligned with the first line, rather than being outdented to align with the bullet above it.

I would also like the links in Noteliner to open a file in one step without having to click on the link, and then to click on "open."

One feature that Planz has is that it provides a date heading for each day in the year. When a particular day turns up, the date heading adds the word TODAY. It is kind of a nice feature, very handy.

I enjoy the way you have the filter set up, as well as tags. I wonder if there is scope for expanding the filter feature, or allowing us to define new filters.

The application of tables in the current beta is quite clever.

Anyhow, thank for your work on Noteliner, and for being so responsive here.

Daly

Sam Hawksworth wrote:

Hi Jim,

I agree that there is always a danger that existing users have become used to
the current approach. However, if there is an industry standard that switches things
around a bit then it is probably better in the long run. The "hoist" concept is a better
way of thinking about "focusing". I put the two changes that I mentioned on the site
this morning.

Steve Zeoli was kind enough to send me some screen shots of Ecco so I
understood what you were referencing. It made me think that, in some ways, Noteliner
has outgrown the original concept of a simple single pane todo-outliner. It's being
used in many ways that I never originally envisioned. As such, I think it probably does
need an improved navigation system, like a pane of folders on the left. It is a shame to
move away from the single pane outliner (although that would still be an option), but I
think that is what I'm going to try to do for 3.3.

Sam

Sam,

1.
As Daly de Gagne quoted me, I took another look at NoteMap on the CaseSoft Web site.
There is a slightly new version, but it's only a new build: My version was 2.10.011. The current version is 2.10.12.2. I'm not trying it, as I permanently lost quite a bit of text with 2.10.011.

2.
Perhaps those of us who are expert in Ecco (not me!), or GrandView (me) can, bit-by-bit tell you about those features that we think are especially useful.

Here's a navigation feature in GrandView that I've not seen elsewhere." GrandView had a very complex/unusual format structure, so it may be impossible to implement this in Noteliner.

"Force right" and "force left" moves an outline item to the right or left without moving anything else.
Example:

A. Now
....1. is
....2. the
.......a. time
B. for

If we force right "2," we get

A. Now
....1. is
,,,,,,,,a. the
........b. time
B. for

If, instead, we force left "2," we get

A. Now
....1. is
B. the
....1.. time
C. for

(In this second case, the "time" does move to the left in order to keep the outline structure without a missing level between "the" and "time.")

-Cassius
-cassius

Cassius, did you ever contact NoteMap about the data loss? If so, I'd be interested in knowing what their response was.

Also, do you remember what you paid for NoteMap? I couldn't find a price for it anywhere on their site yesterday.

Thanks.

Daly

Cassius:

Not to keep this thread too far off topic, where did you find Notemap 2.10.12.2? I have Notemap and if I do a "web update" it says that I have the current version (2.1.0.11). In the about box it says "Version 2.1 (Build 011)"

Thanks!

Charles

Hi Daly,

Thanks for providing the perspectives on different tools, I think the main reason I continue with Noteliner is that it does have all the features that I need, and I do use (almost) all. And lets face it, I enjoy the coding, its a hobby.

After giving the two pane idea some thought and doing some research I agree it is not the right direction. I'm not so much concerned about the competition but the loss of immediacy and simplicity. However, I do think that Noteliner has grown (at least my main file has grown) beyond the simple todo outliner that it started as and that some improved navigation is needed. I'm thinking a hide-able read-only dialog-bar on the side of the window that would show part of the tree and allow you to jump to (hoist) different parts of the outline. What do you think?

In terms of your more detailed ideas, I'm trying to decide which to include in 3.2, which I want to release ASAP, and what to put in 3.3 along with the above. Here is what I'm thinking:

- I agree that the more traditional approach of having the bullet stand free of the paragraph should at least be an option for a document (I originally avoided it to improve real-estate usage on my 1995 CRT.) [3.3]
- I agree that the option of not indenting a page would a good one. This would give you the inline paragraphs, but would also make it harder to understand the parent-child relationship. [3.3]
- I was thinking about your idea of opening links with just one click today. You are right I think in that you only enter the link once, but you click it may times. [3.3]
- In terms of defining your own filters are you saying that you might want to save a filter for quick access: like a search for the words "due date"?
- The "today" idea is a nice one. Can also do "yesterday" and "tomorrow". [3.2]

Best,
Sam

Hi Cassius,

I am familiar with the 'force' left concept that you mentioned. This is the approach that Microsoft project takes (when the item has no children). The question is always: which is dominant the outline structure or the vertical position on the page. I did struggle with this question for a while. Technically the force left is only marginally more complex.

But if you are suggesting that there would be an option to force the vertical position to be maintained (i.e. pressing control when outdenting, or a function key) then that could make sense. The only challenge there is that it is another thing for people to learn.

Sam

Sam,

"Force right" and "force left" would not be used by most people. I found it useful but only very occasionally. I should mention that I used GV for almost everything. I made use of keyboard macros and remapped many of the key commands. I even modified the printer driver to enable the printing of mathematical equations.
P.S. GV also had "force up" and "force down" functions, although I can't remember if ever used them.
-Cassius

Sam Hawksworth wrote:

Hi Cassius,

I am familiar with the 'force' left concept that you mentioned. This is
the approach that Microsoft project takes (when the item has no children). The
question is always: which is dominant the outline structure or the vertical position
on the page. I did struggle with this question for a while. Technically the force left
is only marginally more complex.

But if you are suggesting that there would be an
option to force the vertical position to be maintained (i.e. pressing control when
outdenting, or a function key) then that could make sense. The only challenge there is
that it is another thing for people to learn.

Sam

Thanks for the response, Sam.

Your first paragraph reflects why, for me, I think it is necessary to be selective about what changes and additions are made.

The columns feature in a single-pane outliner and how you have enabled them is very cool. Elegant indeed.

The hide-able navigation tool bar on the side makes sense.

The in-line paragraphs (without bullet points) could make it harder to see parent-child relationship, though it could be understood that any in-line paragraphs, regardless of how many their might be, are the expansion or the embodiment of the idea or topic expressed in the bullet point immediately above them. As a writing tool, it can be helpful to work with a single-pane outliner because you can see aspects of consecutive points at one time. The in-line paragraphs would not really be a child of a parent so much as the development of what is in a bullet point.

To make it easy to move back and forth and to get an overview of the outline (apart from the navigation sidebar) it is helpful if there can be a command to hide the in-line paragraphs of one or some of the bullet points so that only the bullet points would be seen as they are now.

I think you caught what I intended with regard to the filter.

The inclusion of yesterday and tomorrow would be very helpful. Also, perhaps, a next week.

If it can be set up so that the yesterday, today, tomorrow labels shift to the appropriate dates with each new day it would be very helpful. Another thing that would be helpful wld be to be able to enter: Tomorrow 3 pm (or 1500h for those in the military or other fields geared to the 24 hr clock) meet/do/prepare etc. I am told that Lotus Agenda (someone pls correct me if I have name wrong) used to be very good back in the DOS days at accepting plain English commands like that.

This weekend I want to play around with the column feature and see what I can set up.

Cheers,

Daly

Sam Hawksworth wrote:

Hi Daly,

Thanks for providing the perspectives on different tools, I think the main
reason I continue with Noteliner is that it does have all the features that I need, and I
do use (almost) all. And lets face it, I enjoy the coding, its a hobby.

After giving
the two pane idea some thought and doing some research I agree it is not the right
direction. I'm not so much concerned about the competition but the loss of immediacy
and simplicity. However, I do think that Noteliner has grown (at least my main file has
grown) beyond the simple todo outliner that it started as and that some improved
navigation is needed. I'm thinking a hide-able read-only dialog-bar on the side of
the window that would show part of the tree and allow you to jump to (hoist) different
parts of the outline. What do you think?

In terms of your more detailed ideas, I'm
trying to decide which to include in 3.2, which I want to release ASAP, and what to put in
3.3 along with the above. Here is what I'm thinking:

- I agree that the more
traditional approach of having the bullet stand free of the paragraph should at least
be an option for a document (I originally avoided it to improve real-estate usage on my
1995 CRT.) [3.3]
- I agree that the option of not indenting a page would a good one. This
would give you the inline paragraphs, but would also make it harder to understand the
parent-child relationship. [3.3]
- I was thinking about your idea of opening links
with just one click today. You are right I think in that you only enter the link once, but
you click it may times. [3.3]
- In terms of defining your own filters are you saying
that you might want to save a filter for quick access: like a search for the words "due
date"?
- The "today" idea is a nice one. Can also do "yesterday" and "tomorrow".
[3.2]

Best,
Sam

Hi Sam,

here's a happy Noteline user from germany :)

I use Noteliner for everything :) I manage my business and my personal life with it.
And I am *very* excited about the upcoming features. In-line paragraphs would certainly help a lot.
(btw it runs perfectly in my Ubuntu-setup using Wine.)

Here's my tiny list of feature suggestions :)

- In workflowy.com every word beginning with a '@' or '#' instantly becomes a tag. So no mouse clicks needed. Don't know what others think but I find it very useful.
- It would be nice if I could select a tag filter view by using only the keyboard. So I hit Ctrl+4 and then I can somehow scroll through and select tags with my cursor keys (?!)

Thank you so much for your software. Can't believe it's free.

- Stefan

Noteliner is a nice find.

I've been playing with it as a to possible replacement for NoteMap.

In my work, I copy and paste a lot of multi-lined texts to NoteMap from other sources, and NoteMap can merge (ctl-M) lines that I feel need merging.

If only NoteMap could merge separate lines of text into one line of text.

Other that that, I like Noteliner and I'm working earnestly to fit it into my workflow.

Hey, I love the search function.

Adios, gB

CRC wrote:

Cassius:

Not to keep this thread too far off topic, where did you find Notemap
2.10.12.2? I have Notemap and if I do a "web update" it says that I have the current
version (2.1.0.11). In the about box it says "Version 2.1 (Build 011)"

Thanks!


Charles

According to the information displayed during the install, the version is 2.10.12.2.

The NoteMap.exe file's version is 2.10.12 You are right though. The web update indicates that build 11 is the latest version. The web update fails on two computers I tried, so I downloaded the version on the web site.

Jon

Jon:

Thank you very much. I just downloaded it and it installed just fine. It is very frustrating that the web update doesn't work and they don't tell you when they update the program.

Sure would be nice if we knew what they changed (or fixed).

I appreciate your help.

Charles

Again, please take my experience seriously. With NoteMap, if you put too much text in a single outline item bad things can happen...like losing what you have just written. That's why I stopped using it.

I agree with Cassius.

I'm not prepared to risk any big reports with Notemap. Apart from the data issue mentioned by Cassius, the send to Word feature is also buggy. See http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/224 for details.

Unfortunately development on Notemap ceased long ago. There is lot of material about this in the archives, including input from the developer in 2005. http://www.outlinersoftware.com/archives/viewt/4172

It's a pity as Notemap was the market leader at the time with an excellent feature-set (albeit with some bugs).

Jack

Cassius:

I really appreciate your input. Have you tired 2.10.12? I have no idea whether it fixes the problem but I'd be interested.

Frankly, I don't enter large amounts of information into a particular item. I treat each item at the "bottom" level as a paragraph (giving me the opportunity to move them around). I've built some software that then takes the indented structure and figures out "headers" (H1, H2, body text, etc.) and gives me a Word starting point.

It would be nice if LexusNexus gave this the attention it deserves. It is clear it is written in Delphi and if they aren't that interested in it it would be terrific if they would release it to the open source community. It is a really nice implementation (should the bugs that you have discovered be fixed). We could turn it into something over the top in productivity and creativity.

Oh well......

Charles