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OneNote lovers on MacOS
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 21, 2013 at 01:44 PM
I don’t entirely agree with you Stephen: certainly Outline for the Mac is not as powerful as OneNote, but it’s still a very powerful application, with a number of interesting features. There’s the multilayered structure, for starters. There’s the whiteboard-style page, on which you can place a wide variety of elements. There’s support for attached files. There’s a good search function.
It’s capable of creating OneNote files from scratch - it’s not just a way of viewing/editing existing OneNote files.
But there are also a few other things that make it attractive: tagging, for example, not to mention styles, password-protected encryption, web clipping, checkbox lists, support for images and screenshots, etc. Sadly, it doesn’t have the powerful in-page OneNote folding, but then, neither do any of the other OneNote clients apart from the Windows desktop version. I’m not sure if it supports OneNote’s very intuitive table creation feature (using the tab key) - probably not (yet). It does allow you to switch to a full-screen view. In fact, it offers more features than many competing outliners, even if you leave the OneNote compatibility out of the equation.
All these features together make it very powerful. And aesthetically, it’s a good-looking app (better looking than OneNote for Windows, in my view). Finally, it’s only version 1.0, from a developer who’s shown enormous competence and enthusiasm in recreating OneNote for a variety of platforms. I’ll be interested to see what version 2.0 looks like! In this sense, I would rate it more highly than Circus Ponies NoteBook, which has been languishing for a long while now.
So I think one could realistically use it as a OneNote for the Mac, especially in conjunction with the iOS version. Plus, it isn’t constrained to SkyDrive - it also supports Dropbox and Box (and I believe they’re looking at WebDAV, too - convenient for Apple Server users), which means you don’t have to have a Microsoft account.
Just my thoughts!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 21, 2013 at 08:27 PM
Hi, Bill,
I’m not trying to trash the program. It does what it does well, and if you need that, it is a great choice… probably the best choice. I just think there are better options as an outliner, info manager (or OneNote alternative for Mac) if you don’t care about the OneNote synching.
A few comments about your comments, from my observations after using Outline for a couple of days now:
MadaboutDana wrote:
I don’t entirely agree with you Stephen: certainly Outline for the Mac
>is not as powerful as OneNote, but it’s still a very powerful
>application, with a number of interesting features. There’s the
>multilayered structure, for starters. There’s the whiteboard-style page,
>on which you can place a wide variety of elements. There’s support for
>attached files. There’s a good search function.
>
>It’s capable of creating OneNote files from scratch - it’s not just a
>way of viewing/editing existing OneNote files.
Agreed! That’s all good. (Although, if you’re looking for a white-board-style notebook for Mac, I still think Curio is the best choice, though more expensive and without the iOS companion app.)
>
>But there are also a few other things that make it attractive: tagging,
>for example, not to mention styles, password-protected encryption, web
>clipping, checkbox lists, support for images and screenshots, etc.
>Sadly, it doesn’t have the powerful in-page OneNote folding, but then,
>neither do any of the other OneNote clients apart from the Windows
>desktop version. I’m not sure if it supports OneNote’s very intuitive
>table creation feature (using the tab key) - probably not (yet). It does
>allow you to switch to a full-screen view. In fact, it offers more
>features than many competing outliners, even if you leave the OneNote
>compatibility out of the equation.
The tagging is a nice feature, but it is limited to the pre-packaged tags. I don’t see any way to create your own custom tags. That will probably come along in a future release.
The web clipping is simply a cut and paste operation. Most apps can handle that okay.
It does NOT allow you to capture screenshots from within the app, as OneNote does.
No, it does not support the table-building function that OneNote has. In fact, you can’t create a table from within Outline (at least I can’t find it).
>All these features together make it very powerful. And aesthetically,
>it’s a good-looking app (better looking than OneNote for Windows, in my
>view). Finally, it’s only version 1.0, from a developer who’s shown
>enormous competence and enthusiasm in recreating OneNote for a variety
>of platforms. I’ll be interested to see what version 2.0 looks like! In
>this sense, I would rate it more highly than Circus Ponies NoteBook,
>which has been languishing for a long while now.
Agreed that improvements and additional features will likely be included in the future.
>So I think one could realistically use it as a OneNote for the Mac,
>especially in conjunction with the iOS version. Plus, it isn’t
>constrained to SkyDrive - it also supports Dropbox and Box (and I
>believe they’re looking at WebDAV, too - convenient for Apple Server
>users), which means you don’t have to have a Microsoft account.
>
The sync via Dropbox works fine, with a few small glitches (e.g. a “w” replaced a bullet in a bullet list). I have also had Outline crash on me when I tried to delete an image… it worked fine when I reopened it and went to delete the same image, so I don’t know what happened. Usual issues with 1.0 releases, I suppose. Those will undoubtedly get cleared up.
>Just my thoughts!
>Cheers,
>Bill
I don’t want it to sound like I’m trying to talk people out of getting the app. I just don’t want them to get it thinking it will come close to matching all the great and powerful features of OneNote.
Cheers in return!
Steve Z.
Posted by Lucas
Jan 18, 2014 at 06:17 PM
A quick follow-up regarding syncing:
Since I was also using OneNote on Android, which syncs via SkyDrive, I chose to use SkyDrive sync method in the Outline (Mac Onenote) program. However, I have now had the experience of losing information I had writting in Outline, because it eventually replaced the note with the (older) SkyDrive version. So I’ve stopped using the program for now.
(Incidentally, I’ve also lost data with the Android version of SimpleNote, so I still haven’t settled on what the best method is to sync notes, and preferably outlines, between Android and Mac.)
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 18, 2014 at 07:45 PM
Lucas wrote:
>(Incidentally, I’ve also lost data with the Android version of
>SimpleNote, so I still haven’t settled on what the best method is to
>sync notes, and preferably outlines, between Android and Mac.)
Having had similar experiences, I have to say that I’ve settled on Dropbox for such work. For me it suffices if a format can be consistently read/written in my various platforms (Windows, Linux, Android). Rather than expect from my apps to do the syncing themselves, I am happy with Dropbox handling it. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…
Some exceptions apply: Evernote is excellently self contained and efficient in syncing, and trying to correctly/quickly sync its database of several gigs via Dropbox would be pushing one’s luck to say the least.