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A pipe dream: bare bones research writer's outliner and word processor?
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Posted by williaq
Sep 21, 2007 at 05:15 PM
More excellent feedback folks—here is what I’ve learned, for our general edification (I’m seeing that there is a whole, community of us clamoring for something like this—wow—hope I can contribute to our collective knowledge here). I’ve jotted notes below for the gang, and individuals:
All—
Of the things that I have looked into thus far, Lotus Smartsuite WordPro (9.7 is what I have, I thin) looks somewhat promising. One of the features it has is a custom view where one can have the outline view in one pane, and a synchronized “draft” view in the other (actually, there is a third pane as well, showing a microsopic multi-page view of the document). This is handy for watching the document develop as I work in the outline view. The standard Alt-arrow combination is what moves nodes around. Overall, the outlining seems okay—It is a bit quirky, however, though I’m fuzzy on specifics (so many software programs at once).
And also—due diligence—I came full circle and looked more closely at MS Word. After recording some macros to move nodes up, down, promote, demote, and assigning them to the traditional Alt-Arrow combinations, I might give this another try. Still hard on the eyes, and not as clean as Ecco, or tkoutline. Also, as my doc gets bigger, we’ll see how things slow down. For the short term, to minimize disruption (I have to actually get some stuff done, whatever tool I end up with, after all) I might give this (Word—reprised) a shot for my next project.
Sracer—
> thanks for the heads up on Listpro (will bear in mind);
> I tried to find ClarisWorks to give it a try—couldn’t find one—any leads?;
> If you manage any expansions of TKoutline, please count me in as very interested!
PPL—
> I had a look at SQL notes a bit ago—probably pilot-error, but I had a bit of trouble driving, trying generate outlines for my purposes—looks like a powerful program for sure; will probably look at that again, when my needs are for a more comprehensive PIM
Cassius—
> I did look into wordperfect—all I had was an old copy of 2000—it had outlining features, but I found it awkward and limited and quirky; again, this all might be pilot-related, I’m also trying to consider how intuitive or painful I find the interface given my (unfortunate, perhaps =]) MSWord background
Chris—
> I may toy with tkoutline to see if I can cause the output to include footnotes a-la-microsoft—there is a learning curve for me here though, as I’m more of a traditional c-programmer type, mostly for quick tools for work in days past, and I’m new to xml, and xslt (as far as xslt goes—embarrased—don’t even know what that means! (yet));
Steve—
> I just sent a note to the ndx cards developer to inquire re. footnotes. Will probably try the demo for myself if I can find time.
Keep thots coming as they occur.
—Will
Posted by sracer
Sep 21, 2007 at 05:32 PM
williaq wrote:
>Sracer—
>> thanks for the heads up on Listpro (will bear in mind);
>> I
>tried to find ClarisWorks to give it a try—couldn’t find one—any leads?;
I was hesitant to post a link, but considering that I found numerous references to it on Digg, I figured one more reference isn’t going to slam their servers.
http://download.nides.bc.ca/Software/Windows/OLD%20programs/
Posted by Cassius
Sep 21, 2007 at 07:37 PM
Willaq said that maybe Word isn’t so bad after all. Well, when I was forced to abandon GrandView as a composition/writing tool, I did migrate to Word…at least most of the time. (I created a special toolbar icon to make adding footnotes easy.)
One CAUTION, which I believe I’ve posted before. It is VERY important to create a large document in several separate Word files. At the end, they can all be pasted into one long Word file, but DO NOT delete the originals, at least for a while.
Why? Here’s a real-life example: Several people were writing separate parts of a document, which the editor then pasted into a single Word file, deleting the originals. Unfortunately, at least one of the pieces had some corruption. This corruption infected the entire document and could not be eliminated. The editor ended up retyping the entire document from scratch!
Another real-world Word problem: Emailing a Word file as an attachment can result in formatting changes in the most unexpected places, requiring a re-proofing of .the entire document. I always zip my Word files before emailing them. It SEEMS to help.
-c
Posted by williaq
Sep 27, 2007 at 05:39 AM
More evaluative thoughts for us all:
Clearly, some good software out there, each having has it’s own “take” on things:
ndxcards: looks like a good program; The interface was somewhat ‘modal’ and would take some getting used to; I believe (from my brief demo) that to capture references, sources have to be inputted via a card and appropriately linked
claris works: outlining is visually *very clean*—very nice, but hotkeys are unavailble for some of the common node-placement operations (move up, down, expand, collapse—at least i couldn’t find them, and I don’t think they are customizable) ; also, cutting and pasting from my libronix doesn’t automatically generate foonotes (this was possible with lotus smartsuite)
Looks like the bottom line for me (sigh, gasp) is that I’ll be working with MS Word for for now and working in “outline” view: Some factors that have led me to this point:
1) Can automatically capture citations / references and generate footnotes even as I paste citations into my outline
2) I can get around the clunky interface using VB scripts, and assigning to them to hotkeys (for instance, expand/collapse, moving nodes up/down/demote/promote)
3) I can then seamlessly move into the “word processing” mode (that is, final formatting, and prepping for print).
On the downside: visually, I personally find the outline view sort of hard on the eyes (would be nice to have an extra half-line of spacing between nodes, for instance)
I will keep looking. And if anyone stumbles on the ideal, or other candidates, throw in so we can all check things out, and learn =].
—Will
Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Sep 27, 2007 at 06:10 PM
> On the downside: visually, I personally find the outline view sort of hard on the eyes (would be nice to have an extra half-line of spacing between >nodes, for instance).
Word 2007 causes a little less eyestrain in outline mode than Word 2003 (which I’m guessing you’re using). Not from any increased capability (such as the ability to insert space between nodes), but from more salient expand/collapse icons which help guide your line of sight. Probably not enough a reason to buy it, at least for me.
One suggestion for this problem: you might want to try running the outline mode with a 1.25 or so zoom factor.