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EccoPro: Why has nobody developed a clone so far?
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Posted by sracer
Sep 4, 2007 at 01:16 AM
Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>Then, if Note = Body text, the above should read
>‘only the Heading should be displayed,” (when an entry is folded). What confused me is
>that you have Folding SHOWING Notes (or body text).
Oops, you’re right. That is what I meant. :-)
When an outline entry is folded/hidden then the “heading” should be displayed.
When an outline entry is expanded/visible then the note/body text should be displayed.
It should be an either/or scenario…one or the other is displayed at any one time.
Posted by sracer
Sep 4, 2007 at 01:28 AM
PPL wrote:
>Hello,
>I’m working on building a new outliner (+ much much more). See
>www.sqlnotes.net. It is based on the Ecco Pro outline/grid concept, the original
>post subject, which had a specific form of ouliner, not always recognized as the best.
>This post has evolved in an interesting direction and I’m planning on implementing
>some of the comments read, namely being able to toggle between showing the summary
>heading and the rich body text. Thanks for the input.
>
>The best (free and on PC?)
>outliner to simulate would be which one?
As you can tell from this thread, there are a few of us who would dearly love a dedicated outliner. SQLNotes as it is, is just overkill in that regard. I’m sure it is a fine app for those who need an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach, but there is no viable single pane outliner available for Windows. (well, in retrospect there may be one or two… far far fewer than the number of 2 and 3 pane outliner/organizers out there)
Posted by Chris Thompson
Sep 4, 2007 at 01:56 AM
The only good single pane outliner currently available for Windows is NoteMap, but and development on that seems to be stalled (and it’s overpriced IMHO). Still, be sure to check it out if you haven’t. The availability of multiple good single pane outliners was one of the things that pushed me over to the Mac side.
—Chris
sracer wrote:
>
>As you can tell from
>this thread, there are a few of us who would dearly love a dedicated outliner. SQLNotes
>as it is, is just overkill in that regard. I’m sure it is a fine app for those who need an
>everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach, but there is no viable single
>pane outliner available for Windows. (well, in retrospect there may be one or two…
>far far fewer than the number of 2 and 3 pane outliner/organizers out there)
>
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Sep 4, 2007 at 01:57 AM
> but there is no viable single
>pane outliner available for Windows. (well, in retrospect there may be one or two…
>far far fewer than the number of 2 and 3 pane outliner/organizers out there)
SQLNotes was originally a single pane outliner supporting rich text in the outline itself. And automatic formatting based on outline level is planned and will be implemented soon. In outine mode, a 2nd pane (the HTML Editor) can be used to create the body text.
The addition based on what was discussed in this thread is to allow each item to be displayed in one of 2 modes:
1-Outline summary (as it is now), or
2-Full rich body text (editable directly in the outline or in the separate edit pane). In that second mode, the outline summary is hidden, being replaced by the body text (as was suggested my other contributers)
Posted by Chris Thompson
Sep 4, 2007 at 02:04 AM
I really appreciate your work on SQLnotes. You’ve done a fantastic job already, and I look forward to where it’s going.
To answer your question, unfortunately there aren’t any good free pure outliners for the PC. It’s IMHO not worth imitating much of what’s out there. Ecco is good in terms of usability (it’s the data model, not the interface, that people find too complex). Other than that, root around to see if you can find an old copy of GrandView, or run an OS 9 emulator and try More, which was released to the public domain a while ago. Both are exceptional outliners. Try the demo of NoteMap.
For more ideas, it’s worth borrowing someone’s Mac for a weekend, and give the modern single pane outliners like TAO, OmniOutliner, and Opal a try. OmniOutliner Pro in particular has an interesting way of dealing with collapsing long items interactively, which is related to the discussion here but hasn’t been mentioned yet. You’re cutting yourself off from a lot of good ideas if you don’t take a look at some of these programs, and there certainly is room in the Windows market for someone to bring a good, modern, fully functional single-pane-capable outliner to the Windows platform.
—Chris
PPL wrote:
>Hello,
>I’m working on building a new outliner (+ much much more). See
>www.sqlnotes.net. It is based on the Ecco Pro outline/grid concept, the original
>post subject, which had a specific form of ouliner, not always recognized as the best.
>...
>The best (free and on PC?)
>outliner to simulate would be which one?