As I said in 'outliner of giants', speed is the number one feature for me.

Search is second.

I find "search as you type" and especially "filter as you type" to be extraordinary features. They are so useful and frequently used (for me) that they dwarf other considerations.

I love workflowy and noteliner's implementation. For a quick understanding, see the latest blog post about using multiple ***** for prioritization:

http://blog.workflowy.com/2014/01/10/how-to-use-and-and-for-prioritization-awesomeness/

It may be hard to understand without witnessing it in action, but it is awesome. Even more awesome in Noteliner since NL is a hundred times faster than workflowy (note that workflowy is 10 times faster than most other web apps).

I love OneNote also for its extreme power, flexibility, and even customization (with Onetastic). But while it has a sort of search-as-you-type, with varying search contexts (this page, this section, everything), it doesn't filter. At all. And it doesn't focus/hoist.

I also love Excel and have toyed with using it for outlining but it is cumbersome to put it mildly. However for tabular lists it is unsurpassed, especially with slicers.

Anyway, does anyone know which other outliners which have outstanding search-as-you-type and filter-as-you-type, like workflowy and Noteliner?

yosemite wrote:

Anyway, does anyone know which other outliners which have outstanding
search-as-you-type and filter-as-you-type, like workflowy and Noteliner?

The filter of the Outline pane in ConnectedText is very fast. Surfulater also has one (though it's probably not an outliner in the classical sense), but it's not as fast, once it's got several hundred records.

Anyway, does anyone know which other outliners which have outstanding search-as-you-type and filter-as-you-type, like workflowy and Noteliner?

InfoSelect comes to mind. But I don't recommend it anymore, as a) it became a feature-stuffed monster and b) development is appears to have come to a halt.

Franz

InfoQube for one.

Jon

Funnily enough, good ole' Tomboy has a rather good search function. Not only does it do the 'search as you type' thing, it lists the number of matches in each note and, once you open a specific note, highlights search results AND allows you to move from one 'hit' to the next (and back again) inside the note using a neat little in-note search box (prefilled with your search request).

I've been reminded of Tomboy by the recent appearance of TomBox on iOS and Android - a simple but pleasing (and FREE) utility that allows you to view Tomboy notes on your iOS/Android device.

Mind you, installing Tomboy on Windows is a bit of a PITA. But easy to do in Linux.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have used InfoSelect years ago; I've either forgotten its search abilities or never knew them.

I keep trying to understand InfoQube but can't get rolling with it.

I will look into Tomboy. I see it has wiki/linking structural abilities but does it do outlining? At first glance it seems like Cintanotes with wikilinking.

Speaking of this, I, secretly yearn for a tool which would be a crossbreed of Notational Velocity and a spreadsheet app, allowing for searching, filtering and inputing information on the fly, to a database with multiple datasets/dataviews. And manipulating the data on-the-fly too, if it is the case. That would be my dream productivity app for the moment.

As a matter of fact, Tomboy does have an outliner view, although it's not immediately apparent. It's the 'Search All Notes' view, and lists Notebooks on the left, with a list of notes on the right. It doesn't have a third pane (showing individual notes), unfortunately, but notes are very quick to launch.

It's not, strictly speaking, a full outliner, because there's no hierarchical structure (apart from Notebooks and two 'virtual' categories: All Notes and Unfiled Notes). But as a general note-taking applet, it's very pleasant to use.

While CintaNotes is indeed a close equivalent, there are other very good sticky note apps out there. Probably the best Windows-optimised equivalent is Zhorn Software's Stickies, which has a management window similar to the Tomboy 'Search All Notes' view, and is also still free.

MadaboutDana wrote:

While CintaNotes is indeed a close equivalent, there are other very good
sticky note apps out there. Probably the best Windows-optimised
equivalent is Zhorn Software's Stickies, which has a management window
similar to the Tomboy 'Search All Notes' view, and is also still free.

I recently did a quick evaluation of some sticky note software (Notezilla, GumNotes, Stickies and Stick A Note) that had the ability to stick a note to a specific document (not just to the software window or the desktop), and GumNotes looked pretty good too (although in the end I went with Stick A Note, which is very basic, but the best one for my specific purpose: http://alternativeto.net/software/stick-a-note/reviews/

yosemite wrote:

Thank you for the suggestions. I have used InfoSelect years ago; I've
either forgotten its search abilities or never knew them.

InfoSelect8 has a normal search, but I always use the better one. It goes like this:

Hit F5 and start typing letters. The F5 pops up a box with a visual (grid of red dots) and numeric counter of how many total notes you have (2174 for me). As you type each letter the count shrinks to only notes matching what you've typed so far. This is powerful. If you get to zero, backspace some or all and type different letters. Try as many variations as you like. When satisfied hit return and the search box is gone, but now the whole app only sees the notes that matched. Select titles show their note or F3 thru all matches. Either way all texts that match are highlighted until you edit something.

When you're done you can instantly return to seeing all 2174 notes, with a choice of what note you're now looking at: the one you found, the one before the search, or both in 2 windows.