Natura Bansai Outliner

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by JohnFredC
Sep 25, 2007 at 05:09 PM

New member here! Hello to everyone!

I have been an hierarchical text nut since the days of PC Outline (late 80’s), graduating from there to GrandView, then to Ecco Pro, then to Treepad and KeyNote. So sad about the demise of the latter.

IMHO of those tools, only PC Outline and Grandview are true outliners, the rest are hierarchical organizers (with Ecco on the fence).

A new “true” outliner I have discovered recently is called Natara Bonsai for Windows (and Palm). It supports a few metadata columns as well as a separate note pane a la the crowd of 2/3-pane organizers.

But the great thing about Bonsai is that if you are a “pound the keyboard” outline person, it does the best job of quickly building an outline since Grandview (the epitome). You can just start typing and have your outline as quickly as you can type.

Check out the Windows version at natara.com/bonsai

(I am not affililated with natara in any way)

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 25, 2007 at 05:57 PM

I agree with you that most of the software we discuss are not true outliners, but are hierarchical information managers.

As for Bonsai, it does seem like a nice piece of software, but I am not so certain how much different it is from ListPro from Iliumsoft. In fact, ListPro offers completely customized columns with meta data. Perhaps Bonsai is more keyboard oriented…

Steve Z.

Posted by Cassius
Sep 26, 2007 at 01:12 AM

Am I missing something?

Aren’t there a number of 2-pane PIMs that have optional columns? Having looked at the Bonsai and ListPro Web sites, these PIMs seem to me to be the same as a 2-pane PIM with columns, but missing the right pane.

If this is true then, as the left pane of such PIMs are outliners, can’t one just choose one of these and drag to the right the vertical line separating the 2 panes, thus creating a “one pane” outliner? Of course, unlike GV or NoteMap one is limited in the length of an item, but Bonsai and ListPro also appear to be so limited.

-c

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 26, 2007 at 03:51 PM

Well, you are probably right, but I think of both these applications a bit differently than other hierarchical PIMs because the emphasis with Bonsai and ListPro is on the outline (or list), not on the note content. Even with a program like MyInfo, which has excellent column customization features, the main purpose is providing organization for the content of the notes. With Bonsai and ListPro, the outlines themselves are where the focus is. I’m not very familiar with Bonsai, but in ListPro this means there is a lot more organizing power in the list itself (with total column customization, etc.) Am I making sense?

Steve Z.

Cassius wrote:
>Am I missing something?
> >Aren’t there a number of 2-pane PIMs that have optional
>columns? Having looked at the Bonsai and ListPro Web sites, these PIMs seem to me to be
>the same as a 2-pane PIM with columns, but missing the right pane.
> >If this is true
>then, as the left pane of such PIMs are outliners, can’t one just choose one of these and
>drag to the right the vertical line separating the 2 panes, thus creating a “one pane”
>outliner? Of course, unlike GV or NoteMap one is limited in the length of an item, but
>Bonsai and ListPro also appear to be so limited.
> >-c
>

Back to topic list