Got GrandView running on VMWare 7 on a Vista64 machine. No problem running it at all; however, I have not figured out how/where to access the GV documents I create so that I can import to Word to clean up.

I assume I have to go through Word Perfect or Wordstar, convert to Word.

Have not used GV for a long time because of all these issues. I used to run System Commander Multi-boot, and thus could run GV, but that went away, although I still have that laptop.

Did my best writing with GrandView--the best outliner for organizing thoughts, sorely miss it. Wrote 60, 100 page documents with ease. Had not been doing significant writing for a long time, crunching numbers instead; now want to get back to writing and missing GV.

Gosh sure wish for a GV for Windows. Is there a market? Scrivner is on sale, wondering if I should buy; but nothing could compare to GV--logic, flow of thinking, ability to change stuff around.

Sigh. This is progress.

Backbutton wrote:

Gosh sure wish for a GV for Windows. Is there a market? Scrivner is on
sale, wondering if I should buy; but nothing could compare to GV--logic,
flow of thinking, ability to change stuff around.

I haven't had the pleasure of using GrandView, but I'd think that Outline 4D as a single-pane outliner with inline notes (which can be toggled off) is closer to GrandView than Scrivener (though a bit more expensive).

The following is self explanatory. Except: After you add the extension ".rtf", open the ".rtf" file in Word.

10/30/11:

The best approach (so far) that I've found for converting GV files to Inspiration is:

In the GV file, switch to "Outline View" and turn both "Columns" and "Category Display" OFF.
Expand EVERYTHING, then highlight EVERYTHING.
Choose the labeling style "Outline/Labels/Get Style/Indentation w/no labels."
Export the file to "PA -Paragraph" format. (File/Export/Paragraph)
Pick a file name and add the extension ".rtf" Note which folder the file is in.
Open the exported file in Inspiration. Inspiration will automatically convert the ".rtf" file to an Inspiration file.

To keep the GV file the way it was before you made these changes, do not close the file using the GrandView "Quit." Instead, with the GrandView window displayed, close it in Windows using one of the following:
Press the combination ALT-SPACEBAR, then choose CLOSE (works in XP, may work in others)
OR
Open the Windows Task Manager, choose GrandView and choose "End Task."

FOR SAFETY, do not delete your GrandView file. The conversion might have errors or might not have copied everything.

The one possible difficulty may be the limited size of each Inspiration note. I don't know what might happen if the conversion process encounters one that is too long.

Cassius wrote:

The following is self explanatory. Except: After you add the extension
".rtf", open the ".rtf" file in Word.
The best approach (so far) that I've found for converting GV files to
Inspiration is:
Export the file to "PA -Paragraph" format. (File/Export/Paragraph)
Pick a file name and add the extension ".rtf" Note which folder the
file is in.
Open the exported file in Inspiration. Inspiration will automatically
convert the ".rtf" file to an Inspiration file.

This process then would probably work for importing into O4D as well, as .RTF is pretty much the only standard file format it can import (the others being Dramatica, Screenwriter and Hollywood Screenwriter formats).

"sure wish for a GV for Windows"

There actually IS a pretty good substitute called UV Outliner.

Listerene wrote:

"sure wish for a GV for Windows"
There actually IS a pretty good substitute called UV Outliner.

I tried UV Outliner again, but for my purposes I'm finding it rather limited and slow to use. For one, it doesn't seem to be possible to import content easily, not even with copy and paste, which is essential. E.g. if I copy a hierarchy from Bonsai and paste it into UVO, it pastes the whole thing into a single node. If I do the same with Noteliner, it recognises the hierarchy and the items.

If one needs an outliner with inline notes, then I'd suggest that even Workflowy is better (although it doesn't recognise the hierarchy from a Bonsai copy, at least it pastes them as individual items, so they can be re-indented).

And then there is Outline 4D, which - although it pastes the text into a single node - provides tools to quickly break them up into a hierarchy.

Glad you wrote that, Dr Andus. UV Outliner might be a fine, stand alone outliner, but it doesn't come close to GrandView -- then again, no apps do. The closest in my view is OmniOutliner, though I haven't tried 4D Outliner.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Glad you wrote that, Dr Andus. UV Outliner might be a fine, stand alone
outliner, but it doesn't come close to GrandView -- then again, no apps
do. The closest in my view is OmniOutliner, though I haven't tried 4D
Outliner.

Just to be clear, I didn't intend to knock UV Outliner in general. I'm glad and grateful when anyone cares to develop a new outliner and share it with the rest of the world, especially for free. I'm sure it suits some people's workflows.

I was just commenting on the specific issue of transferring information back and forth between outliners, which is a critical feature for me. My most basic expectation is that I can copy and paste very quickly using CTRL+C and CTRL+V (and CTRL+M with PureText, when I need to remove formatting).

In fact even ConnectedText's outliner falls down at this hurdle. It doesn't respond to the above shortcuts, one needs to use the mouse and the context-menu. For this reason I increasingly find myself using Natara Bonsai and Outline 4D in tandem, as it's easy to swap info using keyboard shortcuts. Noteliner is also a good one for that but I prefer Bonsai for its additional features.

I presume that Grandview was installed in C:\GV? I believe it defaults to that location. If, from Grandview, you do a "Save As", the directory path should be on the bottom of the dialog box.

Backbutton wrote:

Got GrandView running on VMWare 7 on a Vista64 machine.

Just wondering: why go all the way to VMWare? I would expect that a simpler solution like Dosbox should be adequate, lighter on resources, and probably easier to use for file exchange.

I finally got Scrivner for Windows, but have not used it. It is so complicated and not intuitive. The tutorial is complex too. I just bought another book on Scrivner to learn how to use it.

With Grandview, after a bit of time getting familiar with the keys, it is just type and think as you type, intuitively; if want to move or change a block, just cut and move, hoist and de-hoist a topic at will, totally reorganize, etc.

I contacted Symantec and asked to buy the source code for GV, they checked and came back to me saying they had sold it, to they don't know whom, and it was no longer available.

So we would have to develop from scratch if we want a Windows version.

My Vista 64 computer with VMware crashed, so using Windows 7 machine now, and have to reinstall VMware and Grandview.



Dr Andus wrote:

Backbutton wrote:
>Gosh sure wish for a GV for Windows. Is there a market? Scrivner is
on
>sale, wondering if I should buy; but nothing could compare to
GV--logic,
>flow of thinking, ability to change stuff around.

I haven't had the pleasure of using GrandView, but I'd think that
Outline 4D as a single-pane outliner with inline notes (which can be
toggled off) is closer to GrandView than Scrivener (though a bit more
expensive).

I finally got Scrivner for Windows, but have not used it. It is so complicated and not intuitive. The tutorial is complex too. I just bought another book on Scrivner to learn how to use it.

With Grandview, after a bit of time getting familiar with the keys, it is just type and think as you type, intuitively; if want to move or change a block, just cut and move, hoist and de-hoist a topic at will, totally reorganize, etc.

I contacted Symantec and asked to buy the source code for GV, they checked and came back to me saying they had sold it, to they don't know whom, and it was no longer available.

So we would have to develop from scratch if we want a Windows version.

My Vista 64 computer with VMware crashed, so using Windows 7 machine now, and have to reinstall VMware and Grandview.



Dr Andus wrote:

Backbutton wrote:
>Gosh sure wish for a GV for Windows. Is there a market? Scrivner is
on
>sale, wondering if I should buy; but nothing could compare to
GV--logic,
>flow of thinking, ability to change stuff around.

I haven't had the pleasure of using GrandView, but I'd think that
Outline 4D as a single-pane outliner with inline notes (which can be
toggled off) is closer to GrandView than Scrivener (though a bit more
expensive).