...well, almost! and I didn't find what I'm looking for.

Newbie in this forum, I'm an old hand at outliners: I bought More the month it came out (1984? V1.0?), then graduated to Think Tank, Think Tank 512 (best outliner ever), then had to switch to Windows and used Agenda for a while (out of this world), then Word (:, then NoteMap 2...

I've been looking for... NoteMap 3! I mean, a single-pane lean, mean outliner, with
- Clones
- Mark and Gather
- Hoist
- URL links
- Minimal + and - headline "bullets" (+ = something below, - = nothing below... Why oh why isn't this used everywhere?)
- Click the + for collapse/expand
- Drag'n'drop the headline by drag'n' dropping the + (includes children) or the -
- Sensible multi-headline and text selection (dragging outside text = select headlines, dragging inside text = select text. Again, why o why...)
- Undo, multiple undos for any action (can you believe the number of rather decent programs discussed here that have NO UNDO?)
and...
PICTURES. .png, .jpg. Just one headline = one picture taken from disk and displayed right there in the outline. No need for a database, image editing, or kitchen sink neural networks. Collapse/expand/select/cut/copy/paste/drag/drop just like text. No need for text and picture in the same headline.

This would allow me to use the program as always, to develop texts from brainstorming to final version (formatting can be done somewhere else, just give me csv/tab delimited export), PLUS storyboard frames, thumbnails, reference pictures, doodles, etc.

Thanks to the great people on this website (and other sources), I must have tested about 20 different programs in the last few days. Over the years, I kept track of developments and tested anything that came along. I'm working now with OneNote 2010, but I hate so many things about its UI (I never could swallow the ribbon) and the lack of minimal +/- signs, visible at all times, in front of headlines, the containers, "click-anywhere-and-just-start-there"... This is DECADENT. I want old school. On top of that, I should abandon XP in order to be able to even test OneNote 2013? (Two censored words here to Microsoft).

Inspiration 9 is almost there, but the rendering engine or whatever is from the Middle Ages and text looks incredibly ugly; it also sure feels more like Expiration as far as the future is concerned.

Thanks again for all the links in previous posts, but... suggestions welcome!

This sounds like the police composite sketch of a criminal who probably does not exist :) I can't think of a single single-pane outliner that can do all this.

Single-pane outliners seem to focus more on writing and to-do management than on the note-taking and organising that you seem to be after. So there is a gap in the market.

What I consider the better single-pane outliners (Bonsai, Outline 4D, NoteMap) are all aging now, so your desired image support and advanced features such as cloning and URL support are just not going to be there.

One possibility might be using the edit window of ConnectedText with "folding" turned on, as a single-pane outliner. Then images can be dragged and dropped in. The "Table of Contents" pane could serve as an optional second pane, and in the forthcoming v. 6 hopefully items could be moved around easily via the TOC. But there is the markup (and learning curve) to deal with and the editor pane is not that easy to manipulate as a dedicated outliner such as Bonsai. Although CT has its own separate single-pane outliner (http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/outlining-in-connectedtext/ but it can't do cloning and images either, as far as I know.

P.S. Another solution might be to go for a two-pane outliner (Scrivener, Whizfolders etc.?) that can do most of those things and then use a one-pane outliner alongside if and when needed.

Dr Andus wrote:

Although CT has its own separate single-pane outliner
(http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/outlining-in-connectedtext/
but it can't do cloning and images either, as far as I know.

The "no cloning" bit seems rather strange to me. In ConnectedText you are able to link anything to anything. If a topic is linked to from two other topics as 'parents' will it not appear in two separate positions in the outline? Or are we talking about the outlines _within_ a topic/page? Sorry, I always get confused with this.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

The "no cloning" bit seems rather strange to me. In ConnectedText you
are able to link anything to anything. If a topic is linked to from two
other topics as 'parents' will it not appear in two separate positions
in the outline? Or are we talking about the outlines _within_ a
topic/page? Sorry, I always get confused with this.

Yes, sorry, you're right, I was muddling it up a bit too. Maybe I'm not entirely understanding what people generally mean by a "clone," especially in a single-pane outliner context. But yes, you can have two separate items in CT's dedicated single-pane Outliner linked to the same topic. However, this will turn it into a two-pane outliner.

I guess Brainstorm's "namesakes" would be cloning in a single-pane outliner, although I'm not sure if Brainstorm can be considered either "single-pane" or an "outliner." So maybe what I meant was that CT's single-pane Outliner doesn't do cloning as Brainstorm's "namesakes."

I don't know enough of MaxThink but it seems to tick some of the boxes here. On the other hand it's another old-timer that might be lacking in other respects...

Well, I haven't given up yet. I did try ConnectedText a few days ago, but it didn't pass the test. Can't remember exactly why, it's all a blur of ThisNote and NoteThat... maybe because of the markup. I could do markup, but I don't want to. I've tried dual-pane applications, but usually the tree editing is just too basic, not intuitive. I did test Scrivener, but... no.

Still downloading, testing. Next: Brainstorm, Whizfolders. Thanks.

(by the way, by "clone" I meant the ability to have several live copies of a headline/note/item anywhere in an outline. Editing any clone changes all its "twins".)

Ad-Aware 10 detects a Trojan in Brainstorm setup file (setupbsw.exe). ?

That's a longstanding false positive.

Someone has ported BrainStormSW's functionality to Ecco via an extension. I gotta get the 64 bit version to test. If anyone wants to take the 32 bit for a spin, just email me - joseph.buchignani@gmail

That ought give my spam filter a workout.

It's so upsetting when something like Whizfolders seems almost perfect, then... "Undo (can only be used for text editing)"

All this download-test-delete is getting tedious...

Could anybody confirm that in Notemap 2, the "file://" hyperlinks don't work? (I'm not talking about linked files with icons in the margin)

Anybody using Nethnic Pandora (http://tinyurl.com/d4la26b ? it looks good, but there's no trial version.

Hi ChristianRR

Could anybody confirm that in Notemap 2, the "file://" hyperlinks don't
work? (I'm not talking about linked files with icons in the margin)

What do you mean by "file://" hyperlinks? If you tell me how I insert them, I can try it. I have Notemap 2 installed.
The "Insert -> Linked file" command does work (this produces the icons in the margin).

Franz

ChristianRR.

I found it: "Insert -> Hyperlink". It does insert a clickable file://... link. And it does work. At least with PDF and DOC files (I just checked these 2 file types).
So: Sorry, I cannot confirm that it does not work :-)

Franz

That's weird... I tried .pdf, .jpg, and .png. When I click the link, I can see the hourglass for a fraction of a second, then nothing. A link looks like this:

http:// works fine.

Oups, apparently, the forum software didn't like that one. Let me try again, putting quotes around that link. the "smaller than" and "bigger than" signs do indeed come from Notemap 2. Apologies in advance if that still doesn't show.

A link looks like this:

" "

Christian.

Linking to PNG and JPG files does work in my Notemap, it's version 2.1 (Build 012)

Franz

smaller than
file://
C
colon
backslash
Documents
backslash
Pictures
backslash
somefile.jpg
bigger than

Ah ha! I have version 2.1 build 011...
Checking their website now!

I did the upgrade to build 012, no change. Thanks for your help, Franz. Moving to TKOutline.

Well, just for the sake of completion: after spending half my Sunday messing with things like Process Monitor (!), I got my Notemap "file://" hyperlink feature working again (could it really have been diffdoc.exe ?).
I just finished transferring all the info I had in OneNote to text in Notemap and picture files in the OS. Links to these pictures in Notemap, with a minimal XnView window on the side: kind of a custom two-pane outliner...
I'm sure gonna miss the "Clip to OneNote" Firefox plugin!

ChristianRR wrote:

I just finished transferring all the info I had in OneNote to text in
Notemap and picture files in the OS. Links to these pictures in Notemap,
with a minimal XnView window on the side: kind of a custom two-pane
outliner...

Have you or are you planning to purchase the program or are you just testing? I'm asking because it does not seem evident that you can actually still purchase it. Unless I missed the solution to this issue.

ChristianRR

If I were you, I'd backup my Notemap files regularly. One of the members in this forum says he lost a considerable amount of text due to Notemap.
I haven't, but I only use it for outlining not for storing notes and images.

Franz

Well, just for the sake of completion: after spending half my Sunday
messing with things like Process Monitor (!), I got my Notemap "file://"
hyperlink feature working again (could it really have been diffdoc.exe
?).
I just finished transferring all the info I had in OneNote to text in
Notemap and picture files in the OS. Links to these pictures in Notemap,
with a minimal XnView window on the side: kind of a custom two-pane
outliner...
I'm sure gonna miss the "Clip to OneNote" Firefox plugin!

ChristianRR, as a Newbie here, you may not know that Notemap 2 has problems. Worst that I found was that it can permanently lose material you have typed into it. I originally recommended it, but the loss of several paragraphs, plus the developer's failure to fix the simplest of problems when updating from version 1 to 2 caused me to completely stop using it. Further, devlopment has stopped. It is highly unlikely that there will be a version 3.

Re: file://hyperlink.
First, note that there probably should be the colon (:) that I've shown.
Second, some PIMS will work with file:///hyperlink.
Many PIMs won't recognize either.
Finally, I still do not recommend Notemap.
-----------
ChristianRR wrote:

All this download-test-delete is getting tedious...

Could anybody confirm that in Notemap 2, the "file://" hyperlinks don't
work? (I'm not talking about linked files with icons in the margin)

Anybody using Nethnic Pandora (http://tinyurl.com/d4la26b ? it looks
good, but there's no trial version.

Re: Notemap data loss:
My loss occurred while I was entering a somewhat long outline item. Much of the text just disappeared and "UNDO" (CTRL-Z) did not retrieve it. Apparently Notemap will work with brief (not too long) outline items, but sometimes goes bonkers with long entries.