Curio 9 has been released. Apparently the internals have been reworked and the new version is only compatible with OS X Mavericks and the upcoming Yosemite. The rather idiosyncratic interface introduced with Version 8 has been reworked, to be more consistent with the new versions of iWork. As such, there is a customizable toolbar across the top and an inspector area to right. There are many new features, that will take time to evaluate. Some notable changes include: Lists, a.k.a outlines, have been improved by having only disclosure triangles appear and eliminating bullets on childless nodes. There are new figures types including Albums - images and captions, and a Pinboard, like a small idea space within an idea space.

The change from version 7 to 8 caused some initial disorientation for users; so far the change to version 9 seems much more of an evolution. Curio continues to grow as a very rich note taking environment. While there is still no sign of an iOS version, which is apparently in the works, there is iThoughts Native File Support and a "live PDF" export option, which can produce a readable and updating version of a notebook on an iPad. I look forward to further exploring this program.

Mark

Mark, thank you for the notice -- and the loss of sleep! -- I stayed up many hours too late just to play with the new version of Curio ;-)

I have used Curio since its first release, and I continue to be delighted by every new version. The developer, George Browning, in my opinion is among the top tier of the group of independent creators of Mac software -- along with Keith Blount (Scrivener) and Criss Grunenberg (DEVONthink and DEVONagent). After spending a few hours with Curio 9, I agree with Mark's assessment that Curio 9 is evolutionary. The interface is much more refined and seems to incorporate the design elements of Mavericks with more polish, understanding, and care than Apple does with its own products. But I don't want to imply there are no new features -- the release notes are extensive and the feature set is richer than before. It will take much more time to explore the product. I'll be interested to read others' impressions, too.

Thanks, both. I too have long been a fan of Curio - a true outliner in the widest sense of the word - and I'm looking forward to exploring the new version.

One of the indicators for me of the level of the skill of George Browning - as Paul says, the developer of Curio - was the relative ease and error-free quality - in computing terms - of the previous version, which was very different in design from its predecessors.

Just swooped in to inform everyone that Curio 9 was officially released, but see that Mark beat me to it. But I can add this link to an overview of new features:

http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/#whatsnew

I concur with what has been said here about George Browning. My only problem with Curio 9 is that it requires Mavericks, which means I can't use it on my MacBook Air, which I had upgraded then rolled back to Mountain Lion, since the memory was being pushed to the edge under Mavericks and it was consistently running hot. Maybe the next OS version (Yosemite?) will cure that problem.

Steve Z.

I concur with the hope that Yosemite will be less hungry for memory. I remember that a previous version of OS X (Snow Leopard?) shrank the operating system's memory demands. In any case, I'm looking forward to Yosemite (which is also one of my favourite spots on the planet).

Two features of Curio 9 whose significance I am not grasping are the "album collection" and the "pinboard collection". First off, they seem to be the same thing with slight differences: floating parking lot windows to paste stuff into for later retrieval. It appears these "collections" are only available on the page (which Curio calls an "idea space") of the document where they were created. They cannot be saved apart from the document, though they can be copied.

I would be interested in hearing what other users are doing with these features.

Korm, I guess you are not alone in finding the new two new features puzzling. Today, George posted on the Zengobi Forums, explaining the function of Pinboards and of Albums, as he intended them. Curious of what you think of his reply.

Mark

In purpose, the pinboard seems a lot like an adornment in a Tinderbox map, a place to corral related notes. I can see that being useful.

Steve Z.

Thank you, Mark and Steve.

I read George's posting and was a bit more confused than before. I wrote there that "... the thing I find confusing, even more so after George's helpful note, is that Pinboards and Albums are captive to the idea space where there were created. The way they're described, I would expect something that's either universal to the document I'm working on, or even universal between documents."

Steve -- they are sort of like Adornments, yes. Though Tinderbox Adornments have all manner of nifty things they can do depending on the action code associated with them.

I can seem some utility in grouping thoughts using Pinboards, (e.g. Day 1, Day 2) and then being able to move that group around, without having to stop and manual group those objects. If you want use a Pinboard in another idea space, you can always save it as a Pinboard Stencil and drag it into another Idea Space in your document. When I start a new notebook, I often copy a page of frequently used images, to pre-populate the Library in the new notebook. You can do the same with stencils across notebooks, although you need to resave them in the new notebook.

I do find the Album Object a bit more puzzling, given the inability to resize the collected images, other than it auto-arranges the inserted images.

regards,

Mark

I'm having a thorough sniff around the skirts of the evaluation version of Curio. Very impressive, if a little umständlich (as the Germans say) in some respects. Fantastic search engine. Extremely good looking. And lots of nice keyboard shortcuts.

As for iOS integration: I had an interesting exchange with George Browning, who remarked that a Curio app is unlikely because Curio is simply too big. I tend to agree with him, actually - it's capable of handling vast databases of stuff. Instead, he's thinking of integrating Curio with certain favourite iPad apps such as e.g. iThoughts. It's already integrated with Calendars and Reminders (and Contacts). This sounds like a jolly good idea to me. Perhaps we should list a few apps George could consider (e.g. OmniOutliner)? I've already mentioned Growly Notes and Notebooks.

I love the idea of Curio as a kind of universal platform for top iOS apps!

If and when George can work out full integration with Evernote, that would go a long way. Right now Curio can import an Evernote note, but edits in Curio do not flow back to Evernote.

Since NoteSuite has been a topic in another current thread, it seems to me that app would be a great fit with Curio, as it too combines different elements on the page.

An iPad app I've very fond of, which I don't use because it isn't well connected to any other software on other types of devices, is ThinkBook. If I could read and edit ThinkBook pages/notes in Curio, that would be the cat's meow!

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Since NoteSuite has been a topic in another current thread, it seems to
An iPad app I've very fond of, which I don't use because it isn't well
connected to any other software on other types of devices, is ThinkBook.
If I could read and edit ThinkBook pages/notes in Curio, that would be
the cat's meow!

BTW, that's not a serious suggestion, just a little dreaming. ThinkBook does not have enough users to make it worthwhile for George to do that, not to mention I imagine it is way too difficult. George's first priority, if it is at all possible, is getting full Evernote integration.

Thanks for mentioning Thinkbook, Steve. I wasn't aware of it.

Ha! Yes, I've always loved the sheer elegance of ThinkBook. That would be rather wonderful.

Mind you, integration of ThinkBook with Ulysses would be cool, too.

And what about Editorial on iOS? Amazingly powerful, supports TaskPaper syntax - another good option for Ulysses AND Curio, especially in view of the absence of an Editorial desktop app.

Just spitballing here (as our American cousins say)!

I'm glad to read that George might not invest time in an iOS Curio -- I think it would never be satisfying and divert developer attention and resources. (For the same reasons, I hope Eastgate also stays away from attempting to port Tinderbox to iOS.)

I've had exchanges with George Browning in the past about having a Curio "shape" (i.e., a control or widget) for Markdown -- could be previewed either as raw markup or as rendered text.

Another feature that would tighten integration with iOS would be letting us choose a folder to synchronize with the Library. The Library today supports "assets" for the current project, the Scrapbook (a holding taking for documents that can be moved into any project), and Evernote. I would like it we could configure a fourth tab in the Library to sync (two-way) with a filesystem folder.

With that, what I would do is sync my nvALT folder (which is in Dropbox) with Curio. I already have that folder synced with Nebulous notes on my iPad. Then, if the Markdown shape came about, I could drag markdown-ified notes into Curio projects.

Some of the features announced for Yosemite and iOS 8 will make this type of integration easier.

"holding taking" --> "holding tank" (thank you, autocorrection)

That's a good idea - a bit like Ulysses with Daedalus (and eventually, I trust, with an actual Ulysses for iOS).

After firmly telling myself I wouldn't, I've quite suddenly lost all my moral fibre and bought Curio. And I'm glad, glad, do you hear me!?!

Actually, I'm really impressed. Curio is just ridiculously omnicompetent. I'm using it to draft some copy for a new car campaign, and the dual-pane view, the high-quality word-processing, the amazing way you can 'spread' pages of a PDF file over a page (sorry, that's an 'Idea Space') so you can write alongside them – it's all very, very impressive.

Above all, I'm impressed by the many export options, plus all the sharing options. You could easily use Curio to manage a nice little brochure website or landing page – it produces relatively tight code with some sensible navigation features. Projects can be shared via Dropbox or over a network file server, and styles and 'scrapbooks' can be shared, too (in fact, you can share all kinds of stuff, but some of it is rather technical). Oh, and there's the automatic PDF export option, too, whereby projects are shared as a set of PDF files that are automatically updated every time you exit the project. Bloody clever!

And, of course, it does various kinds of outlines – two-pane outlines, plus outlines within the main page ('Idea Spaces') – like OneNote – plus the dual-pane view, which allows you to run multiple outlines alongside each other. Or mind maps, or anything else you happen to feel like. Oh, and you can reconfigure the two-pane (primary+secondary) view so the panes are arranged vertically or horizontally.

Rarely have I been so overwhelmed by a program. Yes, there's a lot to learn, but to be honest, I'm already finding it a lot more intuitive and straightforward than Scrivener, even though it has more features. It's a truly superb piece of design – in many ways it's a program that shows how future computing should work.

Having now worked with it in earnest, I have to say I would love to see an iPad version. And given the power of the latest iPads, maybe that's actually feasible, although I have my doubts as to whether George could be persuaded... Nevertheless, the various synchronisation options (with iThoughts, MindNode, Reminders, Calendar and all sorts of other apps) are enough to be going on with (not to mention the auto-PDF output described above; the latter can be set up to transfer straight to Dropbox or OneDrive, and from there to an iDevice).

It's really quite inspiring to encounter something that breaks the mould. You could almost say it's what OneNote ought to be. Not to dismiss OneNote, of course, but Curio is truly awesome.

Cheers,
Bill