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Online or cloud-synced 2-pane outliner?
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Posted by dan7000
Mar 16, 2012 at 07:15 PM
I have recently rediscovered the usefulness of a powerful outliner for brainstorming, creating first drafts, and keeping track of discrete projects. I was a big ADM fan until it collapsed, and sense then have been pretty much Evernote-centric. But when I need to see an overview of how one project or document draft all fits together, I need an outline.
Like most here, I have installed most Windows outliners multiple times over the years, so I am pretty familiar with what’s out there. My current favorite Windows outliner is MyInfo because it handles rich text really well, it’s fast with good keyboard support, and it has excellent import and export capabilities. But I find myself addicted to the Evernote ability to see my data on my android tablet, my iphone, and my laptop. So I’m looking for MyInfo either as a web-based product or in a multi-platform cloud-sync format.
I have tried a number of web-based outliners, and I think they are getting there, but none of them seems to be two-pane. Loosestich, Checkvist, Workflowy, Wunderlist, etc.
I have also tried TheBrain, which has a web-synced implementation. This almost gets what I want, and I used it for a recent project, but I found that the mind map format does not let me visualize my project very well (ironically). For instance, after I had spent a couple of hours entering some things in a map with some complex relationships, I found myself looking at a complete mess of lines and text - I could only really grok the current item and maybe 1-2 parent and child levels of the item at a time. Worse, when you click on a new item, everything moves around so you have to re-visualize how everything fits together. In contrast, with an outline you can see the whole top level plus whatever branch you’re looking at all at once, and when you click on something it stays put. I tried TheBrain’s outline mode but it had the same problems. Also, export was completely unusable.
So here are my base requirements:
- 2-pane outliner. Notes pane must handle rich text; ideally also embedded pictures.
- hierarchical tree with collapsing of branches
- implemented on the web or in a format that syncs to the cloud with Windows and Android clients.
Nice to have:
- attachments
- internal links
- import from OPML or Word outlines
- export entire outline as rich text
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 16, 2012 at 09:15 PM
Dan,
Notecase Pro http://www.virtual-sky.com/ might be a solution for you; the Android version is now under testing, and will read/write the files of the desktop version (Windows, Mac, Linux) which can be synchronised via Dropbox or a similar service.
You can read about the developments here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/notecase-pro
Posted by dan7000
Mar 16, 2012 at 11:25 PM
Thanks Alexander. I downloaded Notecase and gave it a try.
While it did not import a word outline directly, I was able to import a Word outline into MyInfo, export to Treepad format, and import into Notecase. Not surprisingly, it lost a lot of formatting in the process, but it’s possible.
Formatting from scratch, however, seems to work pretty well in the rich text editor.
But the thing that really hung me up was the inability to edit item titles without going in to a separate dialog box. Correct me if I am missing something, but to change the title of an item in the outline, you have to go into the item properties dialog and change it there, rather than editing directly in the outline? That’s pretty clunky.
Nevertheless I did download the Android version, which looks pretty slick, so I may go this route eventually. Unfortunately you have to buy the full desktop version in order to try creating a file on Windows and opening it on Android because the Windows lite version doesn’t use the same file type as the Android version.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 17, 2012 at 05:56 PM
dan7000 wrote:
>Unfortunately you have to buy the full desktop version in order to try creating a file
>on Windows and opening it on Android because the Windows lite version doesn’t use the
>same file type as the Android version.
Hmm, I didn’t know that. I have bought the full lifetime license because I use it in several PCs in Windows and Linux, plus development is really continuous.
I would suggest that you post a message about this at the forum above; Miroslav, the developer, is very open to suggestions. I understand that he wants to use the Android version (which is unlikely to bring in much money) to promote the paid version of Notecase, but he may have a solution.
By the way, I personally use Checkvist for working on outlines on various devices. In recent times, I have opted for several web solutions for collaboration reasons. I can’t say that I am enthused by all of them (though I find Checkvist is one of the best) but I find that the synergies from sharing and collaborating with others greatly exceed the disadvantages.
If you have your own server, or are technically fearless enough to run one, you may also want to try our Kerio Workspace http://www.kerio.com discussed here in the past. It is download only, i.e. no hosted version available, but it is a real two pane outliner. You can try it out here http://demo.kerio.com/ Note that it asks for a minimum screen resolution which may not be provided by your tablet.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 17, 2012 at 05:59 PM
dan7000 wrote:
>Correct me if I am missing something, but to change the title of an item in the outline,
>you have to go into the item properties dialog and change it there, rather than editing
>directly in the outline? That’s pretty clunky.
You can also press F2; you’ll get an editing window again (I believe this has to do with the GTK infrastructure used by Notecase) but it’s quick enough.