I have used single pane outliners on the Mac(Omni, tree, and I forget how many) and for a variety of reasons have come back to Windows. Actually the reasons is Lion, but also much of the scientific software I use is only available on Windows. I have also used and crimped a huge number of outliners in Windows including inspiration, InfoSelect, and many more.
As I am an academic scientist, I need to collaborate and there is no going away from Microsoft Word. Scrivener is nice but it does not allow in situ use of endnote or of the reference managers. There has been one light, unbelievably flexible, OPML aware outliner which had used for years and which now has somehow gone down the gurgler. Brainstorm SW was the perfect tool for crunching text and ideas. I have no idea what has happened to this. To forestall possible substitutions connected text does not do the same job, it is too complicated, and does not deal with plain text in the same totally OPML hierarchical way that brainstorm SW did. Furthermore namesakes were an amazingly useful way to see things in a multidimensional way if you're crunching a lot of ideas. It seems to me that people who previously liked this program of all of sudden decided that as in the pictures of unsuccessful members of the politburo the 2 progressive inventors of the program and their program has been erased. I could not make sense of all of has since claimed ownership of the program; but surely the work of the original authors and their progressive and super useful program ought not to be wiped from the memories and brain cells of us working academic writers.
The silence and wiping out of from history what was and still is software way ahead of its time is a little disquieting. Perhaps modern writers do not need a simple yet superpowerful outliner-I have no idea but I miss this program very much-and it used to play nice with Microsoft Word.
Am I the only one who misses brainstorm SW, or is it verboten to ask this question? As far as I know there is nothing on the market as good as this. The other new single pane outliners do not have a facility to catch clipboard text nor any of the other super features. I think maybe the program was too simple and powerful for anyone to actually like it. Is there any hope that the 2 wonderful programmers to make this program could come back or that there could be some future for something which in my book was better in the early 90s that anything available on any platform today.
Anyway, just wishful pathetic hope for the continuation of another good software seems to have gone that was so super super useful and which other academics aside from me used to rely on.

Actually, I believe that Brainstorm is still mentioned in this forum fairly regularly, considering that its development has been frozen in time (by the way, it changed ownership some years ago, which explains why David Tebbutt does not pop in the forum himself).

For me it remains an indispensable tool for all the reasons you mentioned, even though I am not an academic. See also this reference from yesterday to a disturbance-free writing environment http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3931/0/markdown-everywhere I still use Brainstorm with DOS-like yellow text on very dark blue background, similar to what WriteMonkey and other minimalised word processors provide.

That said, I can think of three reasons that Brainstorm is not discussed here as often as it deserves:

- The first, mentioned already: no development under the new ownership, whereas the personal information management world is swarming with innovative tools. Let us not forget that competition is no longer just among Windows tools; much can be done via webware nowadays.

- Second, as information snippets for most of us become "richer", including formatting, images, tables, as supported by a majority of tools these days, Brainstorm becomes less useful.

- Most importantly, even in the "good old days" many people did not "get" Brainstorm. A search of the forum for namesakes will find mostly posts by my good self. I have always found them indispensable for organising information --but I have found that most people can't find a use for them in their workflow. Brainstorm itself with its 'permanent hoist view' is not always easy to grasp: see my reference here regarding an academic application and Dr Andus' response further down http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3906/

Indeed, I hope that your post will re-spark deeper interest in the programme (also on the part of its current owner), because it remains quite unique.

Hi.

Just tried to download BrainstormSW but F-Secure reported that the EXE file contains spyware and adware. :-(

I'm starting to wonder if Windows software in general is dead. Seems like all anyone makes anymore are web apps with pretty limited features.

I mean, what was the last piece of Windows software, PIM, outliner or otherwise worth getting excited about?

That said, I wish the Brainstorm folks would just admit it's abandoned and open source it or something.

If you haven't tried Noteliner yet, you might give it a try. It has a lot of built in functions for task management, which, if you don't need them, might make you think twice about the application. But just as an outliner, it is very fast and easy.

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

Steve Z.

I have no clue what period of time would be better for windows PIM software than 2012. Evernote, Org Mode and CT are all under continuous development, and multiple mature specialized products exist. I'm just glad I was born when I was.

The virus thing is a long-standing false positive about which BrainStorm can do nothing. There's a certificate of clean health on the download page, or you can get it thru a mega download site like download.com, which AV scans everything.

I concur that it's actually a good time for Windows software. I believe that many people (myself among them) were turned off by the uselessness of Vista, and began exploring other platforms --most turned to Mac, I turned to Linux. This may have included some developers.

When Windows 7 came out I was quite impressed: stability and performance were made available with reasonable hardware. So Windows have remained my platform of choice (with Linux providing an acceptable backup) and I have stopped shying away from non-cross-platform applications. In this respect, I am quite happy by the options provided by WIndows-only programmes still actively developed like ConnectedText, Sense, UltraRecall and Zoot, and most optimistic by the growing number of cross-platform apps like TreeSheets, TheBrain and Evernote.

Most importantly though, I do not believe that there is a dilemma between Windows/desktop and web applications. Both are now required and I maintain that applications that do not become web aware in this interconnected world have little future to hope for. I love the simple model with which an ecosystem of desktop and mobile applications has grown around the Simplenotes syncing service; in short, you don't need to have Evernote-size funding to ensure cross-compatibilty --there's many a developer out there looking for other apps and services to link their programme too, making it far more compeititive an attractive.

"Brainstorm itself with its ?permanent hoist view? is not always easy to grasp:"

Permanent hoist view crippled an otherwise useful program, if you ask me. Hoisting is a good way to focus in on one level of an outline, but what if you need to refer back to some other part of the outline? The Brainstorm model forced you to go back to the previous level, find the new level, hoist that level, etc., etc. I eventually stopped using Brainstorm for just this reason. A good outliner has to be more flexible than this. The user should be able to control how much of the outline is visible at any one time.

Gary Carson wrote:

Permanent hoist view crippled an otherwise useful program, if you ask me.
Hoisting is a good way to focus in on one level of an outline, but what if you need to refer
back to some other part of the outline?

This is where I use the namesake feature the most.
I create namesakes like wiki-links, like this: [[idea]]
I use it to refer to other part of the outline and jump around quickly.

Same here for the use of namesakes. In my MBA class notes I had 'fields' like etc. and I could very quickly scan back and forth the various material in sequence. I even put all such 'fields' under the home entry, so I could go from there to wherever.

The 'permanent hoist' view is the essence of Brainstorm. If you don't like it, then there's no need to use Brainstorm. Another tool that forces you to focus in a similar way (also coming from DOS by the way) is Maxthink.

As for getting an overview of everything, the 'balloon view' is a simple way to do it, but what I usually do is write everything to the clipboard in tab-indented text (Ctrl+W) and paste to a mindmapping program or to TreeSheets.

Let us render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. No tool is good at everything.

tradercclee wrote:

Gary Carson wrote:

>Permanent hoist view crippled an otherwise useful program, if
you ask me.
>Hoisting is a good way to focus in on one level of an outline, but what if you
need to refer
>back to some other part of the outline?

This is where I use the
namesake feature the most.
I create namesakes like wiki-links, like this:
[[idea]]
I use it to refer to other part of the outline and jump around quickly.

(Interesting: the fields were considered markup by our forum software and were removed from view. Here is my post again.)

Same here for the use of namesakes. In my MBA class notes I had ?fields? like [lecture title], [lecture notes], [questions] etc. and I could very quickly scan back and forth the various material in sequence. I even put all such ?fields? under the home entry, so I could go from there to wherever.

The ?permanent hoist? view is the essence of Brainstorm. If you don?t like it, then there?s no need to use Brainstorm. Another tool that forces you to focus in a similar way (also coming from DOS by the way) is Maxthink.

As for getting an overview of everything, the ?balloon view? is a simple way to do it, but what I usually do is write everything to the clipboard in tab-indented text (Ctrl+W) and paste to a mindmapping program or to TreeSheets.

Let us render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar?s. No tool is good at everything.

I don't particularly dislike Brainstorm. I used to use it all the time. It's an odd kind of outliner, though, that only lets you view one level of an outline at a time. If I remember correctly, Brainstorm's aerial view lets you see everything, but it's not editable. Could be wrong about that, though. I haven't used Brainstorm in years.

Maybe Brainstorm shouldn't be classified as an outliner, but a different kind of tool altogether. It's LIKE an outliner in some ways, but maybe it would be more accurate to call it a "thought processor" or something like that.

Any tool sucks if you use it for the wrong thing. See hammer, screws.

BrainStorm is for sorting thoughts rapidly. Accessing them is another matter. You probably want something else.

I don't want a chainsaw for finishing hardwood furniture, but I sure want it when I'm cutting up the tree.

Gary Carson wrote:

If I remember correctly, Brainstorm's aerial view lets you see everything,
but it's not editable.

You remember perfectly!

An interesting post in Manfred Kuhn's blog, about how he uses Brainstorm with ConnectedText
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/connectedtext-and-brainstorm.html

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

- Most importantly, even in
the "good old days" many people did not "get" Brainstorm. A search of the forum for
namesakes will find mostly posts by my good self. I have always found them
indispensable for organising information --but I have found that most people can't
find a use for them in their workflow. Brainstorm itself with its 'permanent hoist
view' is not always easy to grasp: see my reference here regarding an academic
application and Dr Andus' response further down
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3906/

Indeed, I hope that your
post will re-spark deeper interest in the programme (also on the part of its current
owner), because it remains quite unique.

I have just realised that in my earlier comments about Brainstorm I was not in fact commenting about Brainstorm. The first time I looked into it when JBfrom started posting here and when I looked at his posts I assumed that his Cyborganize system and Org Mode and Emacs was Brainstorm. When I was looking at those links I just couldn't get my head around it. But I have just downloaded Brainstorm from http://www.brainstormsw.com/ and that looks a lot more straightforward. So apologies and ignore anything I said about not understanding Brainstorm.

Emacs is basically the Grandview of text editors. The default version IS scary. But Ergoemacs preserves all your windows keybinds, which removes the difficulty. If you get DOS there's nothing conceptually difficult, for basic word processing. As a distraction-free hyper-efficient ultra-portable fully-extensible composing environment, I wouldn't use anything else. Writing in something like Notepad or Word feels like hopping on one leg. Especially with that stupid ribbon the new Word has.

I just got up and running on Windows ErgoEmacs because i need to use it with CT. EE really saves a ton of time. Very impressive program.

I have my text files synced up in Dropbox. So I can pop things open on the Windows laptop on the road, or at home on the desktop workhorse. Thing of beauty.

Now I can finally start rewriting all my confusing Wordpress-borked T1 content into CT. But I'm putting another secret internet project ahead of Cyborganize, because the community's a lot more receptive on that unrelated topic. Demand is king...