A lot of posts recently have lamented the lack of single-pane outliners, especially outliners serving writers. What I haven't seen are solutions people here are using.

What single-pane outliners are people using for writing?

I write as part of my job - figure a 30 minute speech every week. Currently, I use Inspiration 8 (windows), and find it useful, but not perfect. I don't use the mind-mapping feature (not my thing), but as an outliner it is great. What is lacking is control over formatting (and the company making it doesn't really seem to care about user feedback!)

Why don't software companies let users control the style in outlines?

I've used ECCO Pro in the past (but not for 10 years now), it deserves its praise, but it too is crippled in output control. I've seen the posts about SQLNotes, but haven't used it. Honestly, although it claims to be similar to ECCO Pro, I see it as a PIM, information collector, not writing outliner (and it appears advertised this way too.)

Am I missing something? Are there programs out there in the Mac/Linux world that are designed for outlining for writers?

Thanks

DaXiong

I use NoteMap for most of my composition, then cut and paste the text to Word for final polishing. NoteMap's outliner features are pretty powerful; certainly enough for my needs. Formatting transfers to Word reasonably well.

As a long-time ECCO user, I find working in NoteMap very comfortable.

There are several negatives to point out before I'd recommend NoteMap too enthusiastically, though:

1. It's expensive, with a list price of $150 last time I checked. Watch for special deals, though: I picked my copy up for half-price during a sale.

2, There's a long-standing bug that interferes with the built-in "Export to Word" function. I work around this with cut and paste.

3. The original developer sold out to Lexis Nexis a year ago or so, and the new owners seem uninterested in further development. Others have posted here that Lexis Nexis does not make much money from the program, and have no interest in marketing it more effectively to improve the situation.

Bob Mackreth wrote:

I use NoteMap for most of my composition, then cut and paste the text to Word for final polishing. ...

2, There's a long-standing bug that interferes with the built-in "Export to Word" function. I work around this with cut and paste.

There is an easy way to bypass the "export to Word" bug: Export to rtf and then open the rtf file in Word.

This would be so easy to program into NoteMap that I have to believe that there will be no further NoteMap development.

-c

Bob Mackreth wrote:

I use NoteMap for most of my composition, then cut and paste the text to Word for final polishing. ...

2, There's a long-standing bug that interferes with the built-in "Export to Word" function. I work around this with cut and paste.

There is an easy way to bypass the "export to Word" bug: Export to rtf and then open the rtf file in Word.

This would be so easy to program into NoteMap that I have to believe that there will be no further NoteMap development.

-c

Could you clarify what you mean with regard to Inspiration lacking formatting capability, as the user can set formats for levels and apply formatting directly to text elements?

Cassius, Bob fyi

Strange, a) Notemap's export to word function works fine for me. And b) I don't see any option allowing me to send from Notemap as RTF. I click; it opens in Word as a doc file.

The only bug I see in the exported doc is the lack of a space between numerals after 9 and the first line of text. Since numbered text is for my own use, this isn't a problem (and I could probably sort it out by messing around with word).

I'm running MS Word 2002 SP3 and the latest Notemap v 2.1.0.11.

Ike

Cassius wrote:

Bob Mackreth wrote:
>I use NoteMap for most of my composition, then cut and paste
the text to Word for final polishing. ...

>2, There's a long-standing bug that
interferes with the built-in "Export to Word" function. I work around this with cut
and paste.

There is an easy way to bypass the "export to Word" bug: Export to rtf and
then open the rtf file in Word.

This would be so easy to program into NoteMap that I
have to believe that there will be no further NoteMap development.

-c

Ike Washington wrote:

Cassius, Bob fyi

Strange,
a) Notemap's export to word function works fine for me.
:
And b) I don't see any option allowing me to send from Notemap as RTF. I click; it opens in Word as a doc file.

I'm running MS Word 2002 SP3 and the latest Notemap v 2.1.0.11.

Ike

----------------

Ike,

I'm running Word 2000, so perhaps "Send to Word" works properly with your, newer version.

I also run the latest version of NoteMap. The bug I mentioned occurs when I have a NoteMap "note" (= numbered outline item) that includes more than one paragraph, where the succeeding paragraphs in the note are not numbered. When exported to Word 2000, every paragraph becomes numbered, even the ones that were not numbered in Notemap.

To "export" to an rtf file in NoteMap:

Choose FILE, SAVE AS, SAVE AS TYPE, (down arrow to) RICH TEXT (*.rtf). Then choose a file name and SAVE.

-c

Cassius wrote:

Ike,

I'm running
Word 2000, so perhaps "Send to Word" works properly with your, newer version.

I also
run the latest version of NoteMap. The bug I mentioned occurs when I have a NoteMap
"note" (= numbered outline item) that includes more than one paragraph, where the
succeeding paragraphs in the note are not numbered. When exported to Word 2000, every
paragraph becomes numbered, even the ones that were not numbered in Notemap.

Cassius,

Don't go upgrading your Word app. At least not to avoid the NoteMap export bug. Yes, I agree now that it is a bug. I've got the same problem.

When I export from NoteMap to Word using the MS Word icon in the toolbar, the drop down list, those paragraphs which would be hidden if the numbered note was folded, have numbers; they shouldn't. This throws the whole document out of whack. A nuisance, I can see.

I've never noticed because I never add paragraphs within numbered notes. The numbering is just for my own use while I'm building up a piece. In Word, after exporting, I get rid of the formatting, add paragraph breaks and rewrite.

And, yes, your solution works. Save as rich text is the way to go.

Thanks for putting me straight.

Ike

Stephen

What I mean by "formating" is the indentation/tab spacing in Inspiration seems hard-coded. My outlines tend to have 3-5 sub-levels, with the indenting Inspiration forces, the deepest levels are less than half a page wide.

In a perfect world, I'd have a single-pane outliner that used style-sheets users could control.

Bob Mackreth wrote:

1. It's expensive,
with a list price of $150 last time I checked. Watch for special deals, though: I picked
my copy up for half-price during a sale.

So, you must be a very, very lucky one! Finding a sale and above all beeing able to give your money to LexisNexis ... (see http://www.revenuejournal.com/2007/04/april_6_2007_please_please.php

DaXiong wrote:

Stephen

What I mean by "formating" is the indentation/tab spacing in Inspiration
seems hard-coded. My outlines tend to have 3-5 sub-levels, with the indenting
Inspiration forces, the deepest levels are less than half a page wide.

----
Strange...I couldn't find any setting for this or for tabs. Yet, among my Inspiration outlines are ones with different indentation settings. I suspect that these settings are a function of the type font and font size. Try changing your outline's font to Times New Roman, size 12. That gives me relatively short indents. You might also want to contact the online technical support or phone technical support at 800/877-4292. I have called several times and have always been satisfied. If tech support tells you of a way to change indents, please let the rest of us know.

As far as trying to get Inspiration's developer to actually implement suggestions, forget it. It is aimed at primary & secondary education. I once suggested adding a homework planner so students would get more practice using Inspiration. No go.

-c

Bernhard wrote:

Bob Mackreth wrote:

>1. It's expensive,
>with a list price of $150 last time I
checked. Watch for special deals, though: I picked
>my copy up for half-price during
a sale.
>

So, you must be a very, very lucky one! Finding a sale and above all beeing
able to give your money to LexisNexis ... (see
http://www.revenuejournal.com/2007/04/april_6_2007_please_please.php

Interesting and very discouraging- more evidence that NoteMap is the forgotten stepchild in the family.

I should have mentioned that I bought my copy before CaseSoft sold out.

I think your prognoses about NoteMap's demise are dead wrong. It simply would make no sense to build more links to NoteMap into the CaseSoft Division's mainstay product, CaseMap, if they intended to phase out development.

What is the case is that the company has limited interest in selling to non-lawyers, or at least to users outside the legal profession. Thus they want to force the buyer to contact the sales rep. so they can sell more products, particularly their excellent but expensive extended support services.

As to the bug, two possibilies. One, I'm not sure any bug can be known to be easy to fix in advance. Maybe a programmer can comment. Two, again the legal profession thing. If you are not an attorney or a paralegal and don't have a support account with the CaseSoft Division, they may not care about your opinions. What did they say when you reported the bug? Even though my account with them has expired, I get periodic e-mails asking if I need any assistance. If I reported the bug, I would at least get an answer.

Indents don't appear to be editable. It looks to me that Inspiration indents 4 spaces of each level. What size indent do you get? Would you actually want less than 4? Five levels seems to leave plenty of room on my system, with a 19-inch monitor. I don't know if that's a factor.

DaXiong wrote:

Stephen

What I mean by "formating" is the indentation/tab spacing in Inspiration
seems hard-coded. My outlines tend to have 3-5 sub-levels, with the indenting
Inspiration forces, the deepest levels are less than half a page wide.

In a perfect
world, I'd have a single-pane outliner that used style-sheets users could control.

Am I imagining it, or do posts continually disappear and reappear in this thread?

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

I think your prognoses about NoteMap's demise are dead wrong. It simply would make no
sense to build more links to NoteMap into the CaseSoft Division's mainstay product,
CaseMap, if they intended to phase out development.

What is the case is that the
company has limited interest in selling to non-lawyers, or at least to users outside
the legal profession. Thus they want to force the buyer to contact the sales rep. so
they can sell more products, particularly their excellent but expensive extended
support services.

As to the bug, two possibilies. One, I'm not sure any bug can be
known to be easy to fix in advance. Maybe a programmer can comment. Two, again the legal
profession thing. If you are not an attorney or a paralegal and don't have a support
account with the CaseSoft Division, they may not care about your opinions. What did
they say when you reported the bug? Even though my account with them has expired, I get
periodic e-mails asking if I need any assistance. If I reported the bug, I would at
least get an answer.

Well, when I reported the bug, I received NO answer. As far as the WORD conversion bug, well, at one time I did a lot of programming. The easy fix can't take more than

1) removing the current, faulty "conversion from rtf to doc" code
2) replacing this code with a duplicate of the "save as rtf" code followed by code that tells Word to open the rtf export file.

Word will then properly open and convert the rtf file.

Programming can't get much easier than that.

-c

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Am I imagining it, or do posts continually disappear and reappear in this thread?

We've had a lot of cross-references in different threads. I've had trouble keeping them straight. Perhaps you are having the same difficulty, leading to the sense that posts are doing odd things. Or maybe they are doing odd things.

Steve Z.

Yeah, I've thought so too.

I think you're right about an automatic 4 position indent. My problem is this: With 4 or 5 levels of outline, I end up being indented almost half the page. If I could set it to 2 (or even 3) it would help a lot.

Like I said, I communicate for a living, and would love to just print from Inspiration, but find the lack of control over format & printing frustrating. I know I can transfer to Word, but that's a workaround, not really a solution.


Anyways, I see this topic has split into 2 - the original about single-pane outliners, and a new branch about NoteMap ... will let NoteMap continue.

DaXiong wrote:

I think you're right about an automatic 4 position
indent. My problem is this: With 4 or 5 levels of outline, I end up being indented almost
half the page. If I could set it to 2 (or even 3) it would help a lot.

I must be missing something, or other outliners are different from mine. Opal uses 16 pixels per outline level. The 5th level is thus indented only 64 pixels from the 1st level. That's less than 10% of any screen these days.

If you have or would write a clear and complete description of the bug, I'll see if I can get an answer from them. For myself, I have never been able to get a good one-click conversion to Word from _any_ non-Microsoft program. Probably the way | use styles in Word.

Cassius wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>I think your prognoses about NoteMap's demise are dead
wrong. It simply would make no
>sense to build more links to NoteMap into the CaseSoft
Division's mainstay product,
>CaseMap, if they intended to phase out
development.
>
>What is the case is that the
>company has limited interest in
selling to non-lawyers, or at least to users outside
>the legal profession. Thus
they want to force the buyer to contact the sales rep. so
>they can sell more products,
particularly their excellent but expensive extended
>support services.
>
>As to
the bug, two possibilies. One, I'm not sure any bug can be
>known to be easy to fix in
advance. Maybe a programmer can comment. Two, again the legal
>profession thing. If
you are not an attorney or a paralegal and don't have a support
>account with the
CaseSoft Division, they may not care about your opinions. What did
>they say when you
reported the bug? Even though my account with them has expired, I get
>periodic
e-mails asking if I need any assistance. If I reported the bug, I would at
>least get an
answer.

Well, when I reported the bug, I received NO answer. As far as the WORD
conversion bug, well, at one time I did a lot of programming. The easy fix can't take
more than

1) removing the current, faulty "conversion from rtf to doc" code
2)
replacing this code with a duplicate of the "save as rtf" code followed by code that
tells Word to open the rtf export file.

Word will then properly open and convert the
rtf file.

Programming can't get much easier than that.

-c

That's what I was getting at. My guess is he tiles several windows on a small screen, and that he means 'windows' for 'screen.' He's right. This should be customisable, and customisability is Inspiration's weakness. This is particularly true as to its arcane shortcut keys, although More shared them and also didn't allow customisability.

[But then we had Quickeys that could easily create system-wide and application specific macros. I don't think there's an equivalent on Windows--AutoHotkey lacking the ease of use--or on OS X. Or has Quickeys gotten back up to speed there?]


David Dunham wrote:

DaXiong wrote:

>I think you're right about an automatic 4 position
>indent. My
problem is this: With 4 or 5 levels of outline, I end up being indented almost
>half the
page. If I could set it to 2 (or even 3) it would help a lot.

I must be missing something,
or other outliners are different from mine. Opal uses 16 pixels per outline level. The
5th level is thus indented only 64 pixels from the 1st level. That's less than 10% of any
screen these days.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

If you have or would write a clear and complete description of the bug, I'll see if I can
get an answer from them. For myself, I have never been able to get a good one-click
conversion to Word from _any_ non-Microsoft program. Probably the way | use styles in
Word.

The bug in the NoteMap to Word 2000 file conversion is simple to explain: In NoteMap one can have many (un-numbered) paragraphs in a single numbered note. When "Sent to" Word, every paragraph is numbered. However, if one exports the NoteMap file to rtf and then opens the rtf file in Word, all is OK.

-c

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

My guess is he tiles several windows on a small screen, and
that he means 'windows' for 'screen.'

Actually, he wrote "page," and at 72 pixels/inch, 64 pixels is still a pretty small amount of an 8.5 inch page -- bigger than 10% it's true.

[But then we had Quickeys that could easily create system-wide
and application specific macros. I don't think there's an equivalent on
Windows--AutoHotkey lacking the ease of use--or on OS X. Or has Quickeys gotten back
up to speed there?]

Mac OS X lets you assign custom keys: (Apple) > System Preferences, choose Keyboard & Mouse, choose Keyboard Shortcuts tab. IMO there's little reason to write your own code for this. (And I think QuicKeys still exists, and would be another reason not to bother writing your own.)