Hi,

has anyone had a look at this yet : http:\\www.maxthink.org ?

I tried it and after a short time was really convinced of its philosophy. It seems to be a really good piece of outlining software. In a few seconds, one can display all files in a directory, make subnotes to it, categorize. Above all, like in brainstorm, the user's always focused on the parent and its childs ( keyword : magical 7, reason why mindmapping isn't so useful at all ) without being confused by a list of sub-topics and sub-sub-topics.

Wow. I haven't checked out MaxThink in ages. I just noticed that it now costs just 29 dollars... that makes it CRIMPfordable. Didn't it cost 200 dollars before? So, of course I've once again downloaded it and am giving it a go. I'm more impressed this time around... perhaps it has improved or I'm just getting it better.

Thanks for the reminder about MaxThink.

Steve Z.

I'm working with MaxThink since 3 hours, and I'm really overwhelmed so to say - it's simple and highly effective. I ' ve never seen a piece of software that allows to create, restructure and organize outlines and data in such a quick and complete way. Above all, it does without all the 100 and 1 functions that one has to learn first and that you don't really need. Keep it simple, things are complicated enough.

I downloaded the installer, but rather than installing MaxThink, it tried to install "Essentials Codec Pack."

What's with this? Anyone else have this happen?

I noticed this on the download page Bob:

"Note: If running "InstallMaxthink.exe" loads another program, erase "setup.lst" from your download directory, then rerun "InstallMaxthink.exe"."

Graham

Bob Mackreth wrote:

I downloaded the installer, but rather than installing MaxThink, it tried to install
"Essentials Codec Pack."

What's with this? Anyone else have this happen?

Thanks, Graham - I missed that.

Graham Rhind wrote:

I noticed this on the download page Bob:

"Note: If running "InstallMaxthink.exe"
loads another program, erase "setup.lst" from your download directory, then rerun
"InstallMaxthink.exe"."

Graham

Bob Mackreth wrote:
>I downloaded the
installer, but rather than installing MaxThink, it tried to install
>"Essentials
Codec Pack."
>
>What's with this? Anyone else have this happen?

I saw all of the positive reviews about MaxThink on the MaxThink website so I gave MaxThink a try last night. I wasn’t impressed. I prefer NoteMap.

Is MaxThink really the power software for upper level thinking? Am I missing something?

I uninstalled it from my computer.

I saw all of the positive reviews about MaxThink on the MaxThink website so I gave
MaxThink a try last night. I wasn’t impressed. I prefer NoteMap.

I think the reviews relate to Maxthink for DOS - at least that's what the title in the browser windows ("DOS Version") and the dates and the price indicate.

Is MaxThink really
the power software for upper level thinking? Am I missing something?

That's exactly what I asked myself after installing the software yesterday and looking through the example file.

When going through the website and the short "videos" (nothing more than simple presentations in Flash format, no screenshots of the software), I thought that there were a number of tools to "help you think", to structure your writings. But I failed to find that in the software.

It is true: Maxthink comes with 55 questions that will help you produce complete information on any topic. But I thought that would be part of the software - and not only the contents of a Maxthink file.

So, I'd say: It's a 2-pane outliner, not a idea processor.

Compared to Notemap, Maxthink may have a superior feature set - I haven't compared them, yet. But the interface is ugly and cramped. The icons are really small, and there is a lot of them in the toolbars. The toolbars are fixed: You cannot remove or rearrange icons, you cannot hide the toolbars or move them. The windows are also fixed - no way to make the left window smaller or wider. There is no hoist command, you cannot open part of the outline in a separate window.

The help file is kind of strange: Don't expect a how-to explanation. There is a "TOC" but there are no headings and no contents. Through the index you get explanations of the commands - and a lot of practical advice on how to structure and organize data. A nice touch: It's the only help file that I know of having entries for "Noam Chomsky", "Socrates" or "Aristotle" in the index. :-)

I uninstalled
it from my computer.

At the moment, I cannot see a reason why I would need it. But I'll keep it installed for a few days.

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

I think the
reviews relate to Maxthink for DOS - at least that's what the title in the browser
windows ("DOS Version") and the dates and the price indicate.

That would explain a lot. If Maxthink were the only outliner around, I would probably think it was a wonderful tool. However, the many shortcomings that Franz correctly points out in its UI and feature set seem to place it below other tools available today.

It does have one significant advantage over NoteMap, though: price. Last time I checked, NoteMap listed for five times the price of Maxthink.

Franz Grieser wrote:

>I saw all of the positive reviews about MaxThink on the MaxThink website so I gave

>MaxThink a try last night. I wasn’t impressed. I prefer NoteMap.

I think the
reviews relate to Maxthink for DOS - at least that's what the title in the browser
windows ("DOS Version") and the dates and the price indicate.

>Is MaxThink really

>the power software for upper level thinking? Am I missing something?

That's
exactly what I asked myself after installing the software yesterday and looking
through the example file.

I'd suggest exploring the commands 'Binsort,' 'Categorize' [which I mistakenly called 'Classify' in a previous post], 'Fence,' and 'Levelize.' Try them out, read the indexed descriptions and the cross-refences.

To take an example: wouldn't it be useful to efficiently set up a handful of categories and efficiently assign all of a long list of topics to its proper bin? This is what Binsort does.

To take an example: wouldn't it be
useful to efficiently set up a handful of categories and efficiently assign all of a
long list of topics to its proper bin? This is what Binsort does.

Stephen.

I know what Binsort does (I used Grandview ages ago). In fact, this is the only Maxthink feature I really miss in other outliners and OpenOffice.org. But that is not enough to make me put up with the inflexible interface of Maxthink (and: yes I know that you can resize the editing window, but I find it annoying that at every start the Maxthink window is back to its original miniature size).

The other really practical thing is the 55 questions list (in the Think.max file) that help me when compiling all the topics for a piece of work. But these questions are also on the website http://www.knightwriter.com/question.htm (see the links from Maxthink.org).

Franz

I have to comment on my only disagreement with Guido in this thread. Does the magical number 7 vitiate mindmaps. Answering this question points to where mindmapping is useful.

When you have arrived at superordinate categories, MaxThink seems to be the fastest software in implementing and organizing matter beneath them. What it doesn't provide is the mechanism for arriving at those categories.

When you have a long list and are searching for organizing principles, limiting the display to 7 or so items is not productive. While you can only retain some seven items, you can group and regroup items in your list to form possible groupings. In a mindmapper you do this quickly, by saccadic eye movement, without having to scroll or reorganize. This is the stage where the mindmapper is useful.

Guido wrote:

Above all, like in brainstorm, the
user's always focused on the parent and its childs ( keyword : magical 7, reason why
mindmapping isn't so useful at all ) without being confused by a list of sub-topics and
sub-sub-topics.

So, I just paid my $29 for a MaxThink license. I got an e-mail from Neil (probably automated) telling me how to get unlock codes for any computer I want to use it on. This was refreshing -- a developer who didn't require a new license for each computer. (I'm not saying that this is rare, but it isn't as common as it should be.)

There are many weaknesses with MaxThink, as has been pointed out here. In its intentions, MaxThink is the most powerful outliner I've seen since GrandView. I wanted to support Neil's vision, if not his execution of that vision. And, despite its faults, MaxThink is a very useful tool... one I'm glad to add to my array of apps. Yes, that is CRIMP talking.

Steve Z.

Never having used DOS, I am speaking here very provisionally. It seems to me that when a developer ported a DOS program to Windows, the developer must have reconceptualized the program for the new environment. Features might be replaced when they could not easily be implemented smoothly in a graphical user interface, in addition to adding the features that Windows affords. Someone who actually knows might comment on whether the first clause is true.

It seems to me--again, very conjectural--that Neil refused to take the above upgrade path. He thought he got it right the first time, and proceeded to implement the same features in Windows. Perhaps this direct translation approach explains the Java implementation (somehow). I don't think Neil _likes_ Windows. Although it seems inherently unlikely, perhaps he thinks more of Vista, since he came out quickly with a Vista-compatible version.

An interesting question is whether DOS was actually more congenial to the development of powerful outliners than Windows. Even without knowing anything about DOS, I think I can "feel" the DOS logic in MaxThink. Grandview, MaxThink, and Brainstorm were all originally DOS products and the latter two retain to different degree remnants of their heritage. It may be that their origin in DOS is not only their weakness but their strength.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

So, I just paid my $29 for a MaxThink license. I got an e-mail from Neil (probably
automated) telling me how to get unlock codes for any computer I want to use it on. This
was refreshing -- a developer who didn't require a new license for each computer. (I'm
not saying that this is rare, but it isn't as common as it should be.)

There are many
weaknesses with MaxThink, as has been pointed out here. In its intentions, MaxThink
is the most powerful outliner I've seen since GrandView. I wanted to support Neil's
vision, if not his execution of that vision. And, despite its faults, MaxThink is a
very useful tool... one I'm glad to add to my array of apps. Yes, that is CRIMP
talking.

Steve Z.

An interesting question is whether DOS was actually more congenial to the development of powerful outliners than Windows. Even without knowing anything about DOS, I think I can “feel” the DOS logic in MaxThink. Grandview, MaxThink, and Brainstorm were all originally DOS products and the latter two retain to different degree remnants of their heritage. It may be that their origin in DOS is not only their weakness but their strength.

But Ecco was a great ouliner and a Windows app...

I would tend to think that it has more to do with MS presence, Internet and "free" software:

1- The Outliner/PIM market was much more dynamic and creative when MS Office did not include (free) Outlook.
2- Software prices have dropped due to good quality open-source/add-based/cheap software. When users complain that $39.95 is too much for a software, it is sometimes difficult to find incentives for development. 10-15 years ago paying $99 for a piece of software was a good deal, now it is either free or < $40 (giveawayoftheday, bitsdujour, etc)

PPL wrote:

But Ecco was a great ouliner and a Windows app...

Here is where I disagree with you. Ecco was a great application, but it was only a servicable outliner. Its power came from its use of columns and all the ways the information in the outline could be categorized and manipulated. But if I were rating only Ecco's outlining and writing capabilities, I would give it a moderate rating at best. NoteMap and Inspiration are more powerful outliners. Even a program like TKOutline is comparable to Ecco -- in its outlining features. In my mind, Ecco was a PIM not an outliner... That's not to say you couldn't use it as an outliner, as many people do. It is servicable in this capability, as I said. But it was far from GrandView, NoteMap, Inspiration or even MaxThink in regard to raw outlining power.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Ecco was a great application, but it was only a servicable outliner.

Yes, Ecco's outliner is elegant, but limited - about the level of PocketThinker (but prettier) maybe, and probably as good as its designers thought it needed to be in the context of a PIM.

The quality of outliner one gets seems to depend - not surprisingly - upon the overall purpose of a piece of software. We've all seen programs that start as single-function ones, then morph into complex multi-function ones. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But the likelihood of getting a fully-featured outliner as a later addition to a program with a quite different core mission does seem to be rather small (viz, Ecco, InfoSelect, OneNote).

Unless you start with outlining as a central organizing goal then it when it does finally arrive as another feature, it tends only to be as "good as it needs to be" for whatever the core purpose of the software is. GV clearly started out - aka PC-Outline - with the intention of being a powerful outliner, and then added PIM features to it. That way the core mission of the software never got lost or compromised. (How good its PIM features were is another interesting debate.)

Maybe this also accounts for the difficulty of providing an attractive writing environment in a PIM - or, indeed, in many two-pane "outliners" - given all the other goals and distractions. With all these programs, writing per se as a creative activity demanding its own set of essential features seems to get lost among all the other priorities.

Derek

I am using the DOS version of MaxThink and I also ordered the printed manual from Neil Larson (creator of MaxThink). Bought them 2 years ago, costs more than the windows version. With the manual and tutorial files, I can really appreciate the fluidity and cohesive capabilities of the software. It's hard to learn the software without the manual.

What MaxThink really shines is the way it can coax your mind into different modes of thinking, almost effortlessly. You're missing the big picture if you allow the formats of text, structure in general and navigation to inhibit this flow. Windows itself is too much information (TMI) in terms of display, compared to DOS which is a blank slate. TMI affects the way you think.

MaxThink is primarily a tool for thinking (great thinking, I would say...). The commands built in MaxThink follows Bloom's taxonomy (low level thinking skills - memory, understanding, application whereas high-level thinking skills - analysis, evaluation, creative, synthesis etc).

a sample of Table of Contents in the manual

Chapter 06
COPY, MOVE, UNDO, DELETE commands
Analytical Thinking - discoveries by breaking information into component parts, to better understand all inherent relationships, dependant on outline manipulation processes

Chapter 07
PRIORITIZE command
Evaluative Thinking - Integrating information and values using attributes external to the information itself (those in your mind), dependant on list manipulation processes

Chapter 08
BINSORT, RANDOMIZE commands
Creative & Synthesis Thinking - Combining existing information in new ways, humans are spectacular in pattern-recognition but deficient in short-term memory (5-9 items at a time). randomize the items and suddenly the mind creates a new perception on the items.

Chapter 09
UNDO & LOCK commands
Experimental Thinking - Curiosity and Observation, curiosity being an inclination to ask unbiased questions of information, types of questions asked determines the types of thinking used to produce answers

Chapter 10
GET, PUT, GATHER commands
Systematic Thinking - Organizing information in pre-planned ways

Chapter 11
SORT command - organizing information by attributes contained within the information (the opposite of prioritize)

* Chapter 12 *
LEVELIZE, CATEGORIZE, TAG, UNTAG, FENCE commands
Perceptual Thinking - Aristotelian, Boundary, Focused, Structural & Linguistic Approaches
- Aristotelian : classification affects how you think, we control the conceptual knife
- Boundary : new ideas are found at conceptual boundaries
- Focused : eliminate textual distractions to thinking
- Structural : communication transmits structure as well as words (guess which you hear first)
- Linguistic : Language controls conscious vision, insight is nothing more than a shift in the meaning of language/memories

Chapter 13
JOIN & DIVIDE commands
Frame Thinking - organizing information into idea units, frames is the smallest unit of information that contains a complete idea

Chapter 14
JUMP & X commands - ways to rapidly traverse information structures, define 20 "jump-to" locations in each outline for current/future reference

Chapter 15
Z command - instantly switch and transfer information between 2 separate outlines

... chapter 29

Currently, I use MaxThink in Slackware Linux, via dosemu, which gives fullscreen, font changing, anti-aliasing etc. Dosbox is also available for windows. I prefer the DOS version over the new windows version of maxthink, and would consider upgrading if the new version is better.

If anyone is serious about learning maxthink, buy the printed manual and the tutorial files, email Neil Larson. Audio tapes are available too, iirc. If you miss the tutorial files, I can provide them plus the built-in help system. Neil didn't have these files on-hand when I bought Maxthink, I got them from another forum.

@letsemoir: I bought Maxthink DOS some years ago during a period of acute CRIMP mania, my purpose being to compare it with Grandview, which I had been using for a long time under WIN98 and XP. I strongly agree about the DOS version. In fact the feature sets of GV and MT (DOS) are very similar indeed. Although I prefer GV, finding it considerably easier to use, my preference might have been different had I started out with MT.

@others using Maxthink for Windows: it's now been a month or so since you started using Maxthink. How have you been getting on with it?

@Steve: is it worth giving MT(W) the benefit of another of your excellent reviews in your "Welcome to Sherwood" blog?

Derek

I remember using MaxThink DOS when it was a new program and found the various binsort, randomize and prioritize functions very useful for brainstorming. Later, I moved on to GV, InfoSelect and Ecco I just dug up my old copy which is version MAX 89 (3/1/89). For those of you who bought the DOS version more recently, what version do you have?

Derek Cornish wrote:

@Steve: is it worth giving
MT(W) the benefit of another of your excellent reviews in your "Welcome to Sherwood"
blog?

Derek,

Thanks for your kind remark. I haven't been using MT, so I'd need to focus some attention there before I was comfortable writing about it too much -- not that my blog is influential at all. There are probably a few applications I'd write about first, though I might make a comparison to GV, which I've already blogged about.

Food for thought. Thanks!

Steve

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Thanks for
your kind remark. I haven't been using MT, so I'd need to focus some attention there
before I was comfortable writing about it too much -- not that my blog is influential at
all. There are probably a few applications I'd write about first, though I might make a
comparison to GV, which I've already blogged about.

Food for thought.
Thanks!

Yes, that would be a very interesting comparison.

Derek

Steve

gunars wrote:

I remember using MaxThink DOS when it was a new program and found the various binsort,
randomize and prioritize functions very useful for brainstorming. Later, I moved on
to GV, InfoSelect and Ecco I just dug up my old copy which is version MAX 89 (3/1/89). For
those of you who bought the DOS version more recently, what version do you have?

AFAIK, Maxthink for DOS goes up to at least Update97, via MAX91 and 94. I don't know whether Neil produced any more updates, but he may well still be selling the DOS software, and presumably the updates, too. I think I bought mine in 2001.

Derek.

gunars wrote:

I remember using MaxThink DOS when it was a new program and found the various binsort,
randomize and prioritize functions very useful for brainstorming. Later, I moved on
to GV, InfoSelect and Ecco I just dug up my old copy which is version MAX 89 (3/1/89). For
those of you who bought the DOS version more recently, what version do you have?

My version is from 1996. Neil Larson didn't have MaxThink on hand when I purchased it from him, so I guessed he just pop any diskette he could find for me. Even the help system and tutorial chapters are missing. I paid for the printed manual when learning MT was too difficult. There could be newer version for DOS, maybe someone should email him?

letsemoir wrote:

My version is from 1996. Neil Larson didn't
have MaxThink on hand when I purchased it from him, so I guessed he just pop any diskette
he could find for me. Even the help system and tutorial chapters are missing. I paid for
the printed manual when learning MT was too difficult. There could be newer version
for DOS, maybe someone should email him?

Just got off the phone with Neil. He indicated the latest version he has is Max96.