Are there any reasonably priced one- or two-pane outliners/PIMs that have footnote capability? I'll be writing one, possibly two, nonfiction, slightly technical volumes that will require some footnotes, but not a great many.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you!

-c

Hmm, this seems like the sort of thing you'd put in a subtopic or a column. In my mind, footnotes are more for a final formatted document, and that's not usually what I use an outliner for.

I am not aware of any one- or two-pane outliner with footnoting capability. The closest thing I can think of is IdeaMason.

I think David is right that the best way to handle citations in an outline is to treat them as sub-items to the quoted material.

Unlike David, however, I could envision a program like Whizfolders, which purports to be a writing environment, benefitting from the addition of footnoting capability... assuming it is even doable in the two-pane outliner.

Steve Z.

In Whizfolder it is easy to have subtopics named 1, 2, 3 or whatever and to put a hyperlink or jump like [~Jump 1] at the place where the footnote reference should go. Clicking on 1 will take you to Subtopic 1. If you put a jump back to the original topic into the subtopic, it will take you back to the original document. That works pretty much the same way as in a word processor.

You could also have one document for the text and another document for the footnotes, you would then have to insert a jumpfile link, like this: [~JUMPFILE target-whizfolder::target-topic].


Only problem is (in either case) that you have to keep track of the numbers. But it works either way, and if you don't anticipate many footnotes, it should be just fine.

I use Whizfolder for writing and ConnectedText for keeping notes. The two work well together.

Manfred

Manfred wrote:

In Whizfolder it is easy to have subtopics named 1, 2, 3 or whatever and to put a
hyperlink or jump like [~Jump 1] at the place where the footnote reference should go.
Clicking on 1 will take you to Subtopic 1. If you put a jump back to the original topic
into the subtopic, it will take you back to the original document. That works pretty
much the same way as in a word processor.

You could also have one document for the text
and another document for the footnotes, you would then have to insert a jumpfile link,
like this: [~JUMPFILE target-whizfolder::target-topic].

This seems like a decent work around, but how much time does it cost you when you export to Word for final writing, formatting, etc? It really would be nice to have footnotes integrated into an outliner, but it seems like it might be pretty tough to achieve...

Matt

I have been looking for exactly this feature for some time now, as well as a bibliographical listing of the citations. There is a distinction to be made between software that manipulates data (i.e. particular times or dates) and one that manipulates text (i.e. paragraphs or pages). The latter often requires the author to keep track of her or his sources. Netmanage's Ecco Pro is the best compromise I have found, but no citation component. IdeaMason works, but slowly. I have been using ndxCards for smaller projects. The citation output is rather limited, and the program has several quirks. But it works well enough, again for smaller projects. I have endnote only because my school provides it but it doesn't allow the kind of text manipulation I want in an outliner. What I lust for is a form of PCoutline or Grandview that has a bibliographical component. I haven't round anything like that yet.

Cassius wrote:

Are there any reasonably priced one- or two-pane outliners/PIMs that have footnote
capability? I'll be writing one, possibly two, nonfiction, slightly technical
volumes that will require some footnotes, but not a great many.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Although I really don't think that WebIdeaTree (WIT - http://www.webideatree.com is the program that you're looking for, it does offer some interesting features. Depending on the project, WIT may have something to offer.

Admittedly, its output is to html and its purpose is website generation and content management (and you've got to put up with "branded" pages), but it does provide for a biblio database (http://www.webideatree.com/mu-en/text/publications.html

What I find interesting about WIT is the way it breaks down a page into structured elements, and allows for the inclusion/exclusion of these elements and their ordering on the page (CSS).

URL links, extenral doc links, and image links are available thru a site (project) wide respository. It also has the ability to create reciprocal links.

Another one that comes to mind is The Literary Machine (http://www.sommestad.com/lm.htm

Although I've never had a reason to throw a project into this program, it may have something to offer.

Just throwin' out some ideas.

JG wrote:

I have been looking for exactly this feature for some time now, as well as a
bibliographical listing of the citations. There is a distinction to be made between
software that manipulates data (i.e. particular times or dates) and one that
manipulates text (i.e. paragraphs or pages). The latter often requires the author to
keep track of her or his sources. Netmanage's Ecco Pro is the best compromise I have
found, but no citation component. IdeaMason works, but slowly. I have been using
ndxCards for smaller projects. The citation output is rather limited, and the
program has several quirks. But it works well enough, again for smaller projects. I
have endnote only because my school provides it but it doesn't allow the kind of text
manipulation I want in an outliner. What I lust for is a form of PCoutline or Grandview
that has a bibliographical component. I haven't round anything like that yet.

To my mind, there is nothing yet adequately does what we are talking about. I am a historian, therefore citations and footnotes are central to my work. What I do is keep all my references in biblioscape. When I take notes, or have an idea, related to a specific reference, I write it in whizfolders, then tag it with one or more temporary citations from biblioscape. Now I can use Whizfolders to do what outliners do best: organize my ideas/research into a coherent structure. Truth is, however, I transport my writing into MS word earlier than I might otherwise because of the ability to create footnotes. BTW, biblioscape will then transform all of my temporary citations into formatted citations in any style I choose. I have done a fair amount of research, and biblioscape appears to me to be by far the most sophisticated reference management tool. I still have not switched over to v.7 for my work...well... because I'm lazy and comfortable with v.6, but I think people should keep an eye on the continued development of the program. It is already a great reference management program, and the developer is working hard to make it a very good note management program as well. I don't think it will ever take the place of a true outliner, but as a primary repository for research I think it will soon be very good. The benefits of having reference management and notes management in the same program should be obvious.

P.S. I did try Idea Mason. Its nifty, seems promising, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. Too, hermetic I think. Even if it was lightening fast, which it isn't, it didn't allow for as easy back and forth movement of information between itself and ms word, which is crucial to my work process.

Matt

I've been intensely searching for and evaluating bibliographic and note-taking software to help me with a huge research project and eventual book. [While I trained centuries ago as a historian, this is the first time in decades that I've been confronted with rigorous documentation/footnoting requirements].

I agree with Matt that BIBLIOSCAPE is emerging as the strongest program of its type. I've recently downloaded version 7.0.1 and successfully imported my database from Citation 9 [which I've given up]. Version 7 does bring together in one place a reference database and note-taking capability. I really like what I see. However, the software still has bugs. A good many people who have upgraded from version 6 are reporting problems. And I've even encountered some problems with organizing my notes into an outline. Developer Paul Chen is very responsive and is working hard at bug fixes -- he's already up to version 7.4. He wrote me that he hopes to have the outlining problems fixed in version 7.5, which he hopes to make available soon.

ENDNOTE remains the industry standard, but I think it's position will be severely challenged by BIBLIOSCAPE 7. ENDNOTE has a very clean interface, and everyone is more or less required to allow data conversion to ENDNOTE format. However, it's note-taking capability is limited.

For what it's worth, I'm writing in Word, each chapter in a separate file, using the Chapter-by-Chapter add-on to manage all the separate chapters. When I need to footnote, I jump to the end of the document, where I am accumulating my footnotes as part of the text, rather than utilizing Word's footnote facility. There I copy and paste a few words from the text whict I need to document, then boldface those words. Then I turn to BIBLIOSCAPE, which easly presents me with a properly formatted citation for the source, to which I add the page number. This system of footnoting is beginning to spread, especially among writers aiming at a popular market.

Opps, my post above got "published" before I was finished proof-reading it.
.
It's BIBLIOSCAPE version 7.0.5 I'm now waiting for, not version 7.5.

A couple of days ago, I came across a video lecture online that explained how to use, my goodness, pen and paper for note-takiing! What a revolutionary idea...

Actually, the system he described makes a lot of sense, especially since we don't yet have a full software solution. Go to: , click on the MWC Online tab, and scroll down in the left sidebar to "sample video." In the video window that will come up, you will see three samples -- click on the bottom one with two speakers named in its title. The system they describe is simplistic, but effective. I went out immediately and bought a steno pad.

Tom

Tom,

I'm curious what that link was... didn't show up for me.

best,

matt

http://www.mauiwriters.com/

Matty wrote:

Tom,

I'm curious what that link was... didn't show up for me.

best,

matt

Matt, Stephen picked up the link for you [thanks by the way]. I'm still learning the conventions of this forum and how to type in information.

Anyway, I'm intrigued that you are a working historian. Are there any good sites online that seriously deal with techniques for writing history -- not just the academic requirements, but also the tools available and the challenge of writing history that comes alive while maintaining scholarly rigor?

After reading your posts in this thread, I've download WhizFolders and will install it later today. By the way, BIBLIOSCAPE's note-taking facility offers a three-pane view: tree-hierachy on the left, note title in upper right and note itself on lower right pane -- and one can link this all directly to the data about the reference itself. Neat...

And have you tried out Zotero, the Firefox plug-in biblio manager?

Tom

Hi Tom,

Anyway, I'm intrigued
that you are a working historian. Are there any good sites online that seriously deal
with techniques for writing history -- not just the academic requirements, but also
the tools available and the challenge of writing history that comes alive while
maintaining scholarly rigor?

Not that I know of.

After reading your posts in this thread, I've
download WhizFolders and will install it later today. By the way, BIBLIOSCAPE's
note-taking facility offers a three-pane view: tree-hierachy on the left, note
title in upper right and note itself on lower right pane -- and one can link this all
directly to the data about the reference itself. Neat...

Yes, biblioscapes note module has a lot of potential. comparing it to whizfolder: It is not nearly as easy to get information in and out, back and forth, between BS and other programs, specifically ms word. Whizfolders allows for incredibly easy organization of notes... drag and drop within one outline or between outlines, drag and drop from WF to MS word and from MS Word, it does not automatically link to references, but, like I said, using temporary references from biblioscape to mark my notes works pretty well. As a historian, the thing that I cannot have happen is to have the perfect quote end up in my notes without reference for it. At that point it becomes as good as useless to me.

And have you tried out
Zotero, the Firefox plug-in biblio manager?

Yes, I have it installed. I think it is very good, and the price is certainly right! So far, it does not have a powerful interface with MS Word for formatting citations, but they are working on this. This program is extremely well conceived, and, it would seem, well funded. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Matt

Matt,

I've looked all over for sites to help historians be more productive, but have found nothing. And I haven't even found more than 1-2 articles online about the techniques of "writing history," other than the mundane directions for college students who must write "papers." Do any of the historical associations -- AHA or OAS, for example -- ever include sessions in their conferences about writing technique and strategies?

You've confirmed my decision to install WhizFolders tonight. Maybe I'll begin to get a better handle on 4 years of research! And I only installed Zotero last week, so much to learn there.

Tom

Tom Colvin wrote:

Matt,

I've looked all over for sites to help historians be more productive, but have
found nothing. And I haven't even found more than 1-2 articles online about the
techniques of "writing history," other than the mundane directions for college
students who must write "papers." Do any of the historical associations -- AHA or OAS,
for example -- ever include sessions in their conferences about writing technique
and strategies?

No, they pretty much expect you to get that in graduate school... ha, ha...

You've confirmed my decision to install WhizFolders tonight.
Maybe I'll begin to get a better handle on 4 years of research!

If you are anything like me, the first step to getting a handle on 4 years of research would be to stop looking for new programs to help me get a handle on it...but what fun would that be. I think you'll like WhizFolders.

m

The two-pane outlining facility of Ultra Recall was another reason I chose it above others. Currently there isn't a straight forward way to combine your primary text + secondary text into RTF or similar file format. (You can export to XML and stuff around with separate RTF files.) I have requested a quick flexible RTF export facility and Kinook have kindly put it on the 2007 Roadmap. Although not helping Cassius or anyone else "today", I hope you don't mind me making mention of it for those who want to "watch this space".

I see a lot of workarounds here implying a lot of fussing ; I understand the need for special citation software when working with more citations than main text, but imho, for most purposes, citations and other footnotes should be integrated in a smoother way into your editing software - see below.

Somebody wrote : "I?m writing in Word, each chapter in a separate file" - ain't we d'accord to consider this the worst of all alternatives ? I do understand that MS Word (tm), or even the editor in MS Works (tm), has the great advantage of a very fine auto-completing function where the completing of your typing isn't triggered by a special character like in most macro programs that offer such a function, but in a perfectly natural way by a space, a return or any punctuation...

...on the other hand, I am currently writing in three languages - yes, there might be many people out there who do this in twelve but I'm not parading, I'm just specifying my problem -, and those MS (tm) applications don't offer any choice of alternative auto-completion tables depending on your currently used language ( and neither do any macro or auto-completing applications ; and understand me right : I am not whining upon the lack of automatic language detection in your paragraph which would trigger the adequate auto completion table : I would be very happy indeed to chose it "manually", but even that is not possible to my knowledge in all those programs )...

... so I understand the willingness to type in MS word (tm) ( in one language only ), but I am not willing to consider MS word (tm) for any serious text editing / text building work, let alone documentation work that goes with it ; I understand people using two programs, one for the text and one for the documentation, but a stable outliner ( stable meaning that it remains stable when it treats files of many mb, and thus the choice isn't overwhelming ) offers text editing and raw material management at the same time and thus seems to me much slicker than any unneccessary combination...

... and then, why would we be here if not for our understanding that outliners are much better

( yes, I'm aware of the need of cloning and tagging superposed on the hierarchical structure(s) for it becoming really helpful, and yes, I'm aware of the need of automatic synchronizing of those tags, and those clones EVEN IF THEY ARE IN SEPERATE FILES, and once you can do this, internal hypertexting without error 404 will be easy )

than text processors ( might they have awkward outlining functions or not ) and mesh software ( of course I'm referring here to wikis like the one this topic is in, let alone evernote (tm) with its ( for the moment being ) absence of outlining by which they succeed in cutting their possible client?le by four fifths.

Somebody advised to do footnotes / citations in sub-items ( of your outlining editing software ) ; the problem is twofold :

- In your outline, over-nesting being not good, we know this, but nethertheless they will be some levels of indentation, but the need for applying footnotes will not be restricted to your innermost level, say level 3, 4 or 5, and thus, on level 2 or 3, you will have some footnotes, when this definetely isn't the most appropriate level for placing them ; you would need a "special level 12" for exemple, which would be assigned to such purposes, as a child item of a 1, or as a child item of an 11 level item ; unneccessary to say that no program of my knowledge does offer such a special child item ;

- When you export for publishing in print, having footnotes in items of various levels will drive you crazy if you didn't mind beginning and ending your footnotes with special characters, but when you did, macros running in the target application of your export could be of great help indeed.

Which brings me to the above-announced better way as I see it :

All dtp programs offer some very sophisticated ways of encoding / tagging imported files, it's just a matter of knowing them, but your publisher will be delighted to communicate them if really you don't find them in the web ( and even the final version of Adobe (tm) PageMaker (tm) has got very fine encoding functionality ). Normally, you use round brackets = parentheses for normal writing purposes ( yep, I use them a lot ), so you are left with square brackets and ( / or at least ) curly brackets = braces ( and perhaps with angle brackets = chevrons ; all this depending on your writing needs.

This way, in any and whatever text editing program, you could use e.g.

[a footnote] and {a citation}

in your text, and if you need more text coding that you have got brackets left for this purpuse, you could use e.g.

{fa footnote} or, for better reading, {f_a footnote}, {c_a citation}, {n_text not to be published}, and so on.

(

In any case, writing lots of texts ( or doing lots of any pc work ) without macros should be prohibited ; unfortunately, the inherent macro functionality of most outliners is zero whereas MS Word (tm) is even "scriptable", but then, you should consider an external macro program even when your main application has a built-il macro facility, be it only to trigger identical / similar functions in all your applications with the same keyboard shortcuts.

Macro programs are somewhat difficult to choose because their function list might be impressive but then their real working in your environment might not, and the other way round : this way, I use a realiable program with rather poor functionality, deliberately depriving myself of some shiny goodies of "better" competitors that simply don't work reliably for me. In any case, your macro program should have assignable system variables, in order to implement some basic form of logic, and of course ( application ) scope is mandatory since without it, it won't be possible to synchronize your keyboard's fonctionality between your different applications.

)

Zargron wrote:

Currently there isn't a straight forward way to combine your primary text +
secondary text into RTF or similar file format.

This is something that InfoQube does very well: Select multiple items (with hierarchy or without) and you get a combined page (outline + rich text). If desired, the page can have expand / collapse buttons (for both the outline and the rich content)

Well, I wasn't aware this was a PPL has it all project where your postings are replaced by PPL's.

When you first post, you have to be approved by a moderator. From now on, your posts will appear immediately.

Fredy wrote:

Well, I wasn't aware this was a PPL has it all project where your postings are replaced
by PPL's.