In your "Simple View," keep the bars. They add info without adding complexity.

I hope that the outlines will also have some numbering, etc. options rather than just the bullets and optional lines connecting outline items that are at the same level.

-c

I hope that the outlines will also have some numbering, etc. options rather than just the bullets and optional lines connecting outline items that are at the same level.

Numbering column is always present. It was simply made very narrow in that screenshot.
Connecting lines display is an option

Cassius wrote:

I hope that the outlines will also have some numbering, etc. options rather than just the bullets and optional lines connecting outline items that are at the same level.

Mark wrote:

I like this. Even more so if I can turn off the lines between the items, the yellow background color, the toolbar and the status bar. :-)

How about this:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/public/download/SQLNotes/TextOutliner/SimpleView2.jpg

Pierre,

To be honest, SimpleView2 is the first time I've seen (or recall seeing) the numbering done in a separate column, rather than replacing the bullets that are just before the text. I can see some advantages to this way of numbering. Whether it would bother some people used to other schemes is difficult to say.

If you run into questions about GV, ask. For many years it was my sole calendar, PIM, and writing environment.

-c

Pierre Paul

Just one hint: Save the screenshots as GIF or PNG files. The JPG files look sh...

And keep them simple.

And do keep your app simple. It does not make sense to add every feature you like in other apps - yours will soon get overloaded and slow (why do I have to think of Ideamason right now?). Always ask yourself: How does that fit in with my vision of what my app should be like?

Franz
(ok, these were 3 hints, but nevermind)

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

All can be done in the current
version except grid lines. I'll add it tomorrow.

That will be great!

Derek

Pierre Paul,

A word of support here for the time you've put in porting the Ecco notebook concept (and more) to the powerful SQL infrastructure. Personally, I think the most significant lack of SQL Notes at the moment is that of its marketing which in its modern approach includes the interface friendliness, examples of use, documentation and, of course, a more 'sexy' name for your product. But I would like to emphasize the importance of the good infrastructure.

I have seen this with two other products that I strongly endorse, UltraRecall and Surfulater. They both started with few bells and whistles but with a solid infrastructure. Long term development has showed that their creators were able to cater for a multitude of users' suggestions thanks to that infrastructure. See for example:
http://blog.surfulater.com/2007/11/27/view-surfulater-kbs-in-any-web-browser-wherever-you-are/

I would suggest that you take in user input (plentiful in this forum at least) but also urge that you remain true to your vision, as Franz has noted; i.e. learn to say 'no' -- or at least 'not yet'. Until version 1.0 at least, and given the flexibility of the product, there is a need for clarity of the purpose(s) served by the program. Perhaps the different screen layouts possible can be used as examples of fulfilling certain needs through different approaches (but not too many).

Keep up the good work,
alx

Agreed...with the qualification that "good infrastructure" should include as a basic goal the achievement of more than merely minimally useful outlining features. History has shown that unless developers get the basic structure right from the beginning, all they produce is a succession of disappointingly inadequate efforts.

Getting a better single-pane outliner has been the point of the discussion in this thread and is the raison d'etre of the forum itself, whatever additional tasks (better pims, or two-pane outliners) it has taken on over the years. This is about the first time we have captured the attention of a developer prepared at least to study Grandview and attempt to achieve a Windows outliner with its feature-set and ease of use, and with the skills, vision and energy to do so. So I for one don't intend to let the opportunity slip by :-).

I recognize the anxieties of erstwhile Ecco-users and other pim afficionados that Pierre should not get distracted from what they view as core objectives. But I think he shown himself well able to cope with the ostensibly conflicting demands from this forum, donationcoder.com and all the other forums on which he is active. And as far as I can see he is advancing very capably on all fronts.

Derek

Alex wrote:

more ‘sexy’ name for your product

Do you have suggestions?
How about OutBase, the outlining database/PIM ?
How about Daou, the data outliner/PIM ?
How about IciNotes ?

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

Alex wrote:
> more ‘sexy’ name for your product

Do you have suggestions?

The current name is all about the underlying technology. It's about as important to the user as if my car were an InternalCombustionMobile, or Opal were called CocoaNotes. Does the user see any benefit to you using SQL (SQLite I assume) as your data store? I doubt it. You might think it conveys power or stability, but to me it sounds more like arcane syntax or security risks like SQL injection attacks.

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

Alex wrote:
> more ‘sexy’ name for your product

Do you have suggestions?
How about
OutBase, the outlining database/PIM ?
How about Daou, the data outliner/PIM ?
How
about IciNotes ?

Some suggestions:

AmpNotes (for amplified) or AmpOutliner

or, to make the connection with GrandView, GrandVista

or, to connect with former Ecco users, EchoNotes


Steve Z.

Back to the original subject of this thread, I got news from Ray at PocketThinker:

Ray wrote:

Actually, I am considering to make the whole codes open source. That way you won't need to pay anything. However, I will need some time to set it up.

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

Talk about a nice x-mas present!

It isn't GrandView just yet, but SQLNotes HTML Export has been expanded. Outline and rich text can be combined into a single document with the possibility to collapse both the outline (click on the +) and/or the rich text content (click on the (...)).

Example here (first 4 items of the Welcome page of the default template):
http://www.public.sqlnotes.net/download/SQLNotes/other/ItemsWithHTMLPaneExample.htm

www.sqlnotes.net

I am wondering if anyone knows how one can obtain the desktop Pocketthinker software now that the company is out of business. I haven't been able to find any site that allows purchase (that is legit).

If you have a direct email for the vendor that you could share (or pass this message on to him), I'd like to write to him to see what might be possible. My email is outliner AT ritavine.otherinbox.com

Rita

Rita,s post is missing!

And now it's back (from outer space :-)

It was indeed missing when I checked earlier today. I suspect it may be some kind of time-zone related bug.

Rita wrote:

If you have a direct email for the vendor that you could
share (or pass this message on to him), I'd like to write to him to see what might be
possible. My email is outliner AT ritavine.otherinbox.com

I had one, just tried it now and it bounced. :-(

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

And now it's back (from outer space :-)

It was indeed missing when I checked earlier
today. I suspect it may be some kind of time-zone related bug.

I think people who have never posted before need to be approved by Chris before their message posts.

Hi Mark,

I searched my hard drives and came up with these two files:
PocketThinkerStandAloneSetup 1v5v29.exe that is 1.9M
PocketThinkerPPCSetup155.exe that is 172k

I don't know if they are the last version released.
I know the desktop version works but don't now about the
PPC version.

Are they what you are looking for?

Keith

keiffer wrote:

Hi Mark,

>I searched my hard drives and came up with these two
>files:
>PocketThinkerStandAloneSetup 1v5v29.exe that is
>1.9M
>PocketThinkerPPCSetup155.exe that is 172k

I don't know if they are the last
version released.
I know the desktop version works but don't now about the
PPC
version.

Are they what you are looking for?

Keith

Hi Keith,
I have PocketThinkPCStandalone version 1.5.12, but the PPC version 1.5.5 would be an update to my current version (1.5.2), so I'd love to get it. I'm not sure how that would work, though. By the way, I also have PocketThinkerPCFull version 1.5.12, which includes the link to Outlook, if you'd like it. Let me know.

Thanks,
Mark

Note to Pierre:

I just reread the Pocket Thinker thread. If you are still interested in GrandView, I may be able to help. In particular, I can send you a list of the files in my GrandView program folder and tell you what most of them are for. I may be able to do more than that. Let me know and if you wish, we can do this more directly in case you wish me to send you files.

copied from another post . . .

Posted by Mark
Dec 16, 2007 at 02:42 AM



If anyone?s interested in trying out Grandview, here?s how to do it on Windows XP with the version you can download at http://vetusware.com/download/Symantec%20Grandview%202.0/?id=3631 as mentioned previously on this thread.

That zip file has three strange files in it called gv printer.IMA, gv program.IMA and gv utilitie.IMA

The files are image files. You can extract them with WinImage, found at http://www.winimage.com/download.htm I used version 6.1 based on something I read while Googling. Don?t know if it would work with a later version. It?s shareware, so you can use it this one time without actually buying WinImage.

I extracted all the files into a single directory. Then I opened up a DOS command window and ran install.exe from that directory. I chose to install it into a directory on the C: drive, although it gives you the option of installing it elsewhere. The installer complains about not finding some sample files that aren?t included with the download, but you can skip those. I also skipped the printer installation, since I don?t happen to have any 15-year-old printers lying around.

You need to run the program from within the DOS command window by navigating to the install directory. If you just try to click on the shortcut for the program or by clicking on GV.EXE from within Windows it will complain about an invalid start directory and instruct you to check your pif file.

More than 15 years after first reading someone rave about Grandview, I finally got to see it for myself. It truly must be Christmas. I didn?t play with it too long, but everything seemed to work, and I even exported a few test outlines to a text file, which worked fine. I do like the way you can show and hide full documents in the outline with just a keystroke. Why are such simple, obvious and useful features so rarely emulated?

Thanks. I tried to figure this out myself but failed.

Outlinersoftware.com: All answers are contained herein.

"As a single-pane outliner, Grandview was unique in my experience. Each heading (note or item, whatever you wish to call it) could have a full wordprocessing document associated with it. Here is how it worked: Create your heading, press the F5 key (I think that was the key) and you switch to a wordprocessing window in which you could write as much text as you wanted. This was a fully functional wordprocessor (lacking some of today?s whistles and bells, such as tables). Once you were done, hit the F5 key again and return to the outline. Okay that?s not so different than the way some of the two-pane outliners work. But here?s the big difference: Now you can toggle the view so that you can see your outline with just the headers or the entire associated documents in the same pane. I found this very powerful, because good writing involves context. In Grandview you can see the whole project as if it were one long wordprocessing document, or you could view only its outline, or you could focus specifically on one section of the text. This ability to take in the many aspects of your project is the perfect writing environment, in my opinion. I have yet to find that functionality in any other outliner."

Org-mode does everything listed here. It can even launch programs and files via links within the text.

The indirect-buffer is key to multi-pane outlining.

"When considering single-pane outliners as writers? tools it?s not simply a question of features - although GV can hoist, clone, gather, binsort, attach categories, and so on - but of general usability, and that intangible but important feeling of being in an undistracting ?writer?s environment? rather than in a spreadsheet or PIM. "

Org-mode does this too.

"Think of a two-pane outliner like ActionOutline. You create your structure in the tree pane, and then can write as much as you want in the note/editor window. Now visualize this? in the tree pane you can toggle the view so that you can either see just the item headers or the item headers with the note contents all in the tree view. Not only that, you can select which headers show their content and which do not."

Does this too.

How are there not any other Org-mode users on this forum? Carsten must suck them all over to his place, never to stray... or even fantasize.