Lately, I've come to the conclusion that I'm "over-engineered" when it comes to organising my data. I use OneNote and Ultra Recall. Both good applications.

But in reality...most of the data I want to keep track of is plain text. Probably 95 per cent of it. And good as those two applications are, they are slow in use compared to working with a good text editor. So I'm also looking a lean, fast program that helps me work with plain text files in one place. A straight-forward, two-pane plain text organiser/editor, with global search and under active development. No limit on individual note size (within reason). I'd prefer if it used a separate text file per tree item/note. I thought there would be many options, but I'm struggling to build a shortlist.

MemPad (http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/wmem.htm is interesting. It works well and is fast in use. Global search is quick. However, MemPad keeps all the data in its own database (which seems to be a plain text file that has been "tweaked" slightly), and I'm not sure about taking that route. I haven't ruled it out. I just feel that separate text files per note might be a better way to maintain speed and integrity over time.

AM-Notebook is also interesting (http://www.aignes.com/notebook.htm Strictly speaking this doesn't meet my criteria either as it offers formatted text. I had dismissed it completely because I had lazily assumed it used the MS richedit control to generate files (with all the associated bloat). But I discovered it uses a different control, TRichview (http://www.trichview.com/ which seems to generate sensibly-sized files (though larger than MemPad). And AM-Notebook does use a separate file per note (unfortunately not a standard format -- it uses TRichview's native format, but it can be exported to RTF and HTML).

I tried WikidPad (http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad/ but it just did not appeal. I don't think I like the wiki way of doing things. Both MemPad and AM-Notebook offer the option to link between notes.

And beyond that I'm running out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Treepad Lite
http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/

I second the suggestion of checking out Treepad Lite.

Also, take a look at PowerOutlines: http://www.dataomega.com/PowerOutlines/index.htm

I think it matches most of your criteria, although I'm not sure about how it stores its files. If you need something more powerful, PowerOutlines big brother, Insight, might be worth a look.

Steve Z.

Notetab comes to mind. But you'd probabably want the standard or pro version, which have also rudimentary outlining capability and the ability to link to entries by enclosing them with "[" "]". You can have several such outlines open because it has a tabbed interface. Otl or Outline Files files are text files as well.

I think the trial version lets you experiment with that as well.
Manfred

Thanks for the information about TRichview (http://www.trichview.com/ It seems that MyInfo and TreeDBNotes Pro use it as their editor, too. I did not know that. Unfortunately it does not look as though it can be used to produce single-pane outlines. But I digress...

Yes, I would go along with others about Treenotes and PowerOutlines. I liked Insight when I trialled it some time ago, but found it a little buggy. It is also very expensive for a text-only two pane outliner. Its developer has done some work in connection with NoteTab, with which he says his products are compatible, so I think the files are stored as plain text.

At the moment I use NoteTab Pro. As Manfred says, the two-pane outliner option is rudimentary - more of a table-of-contents than a proper outliner - but useful for navigating around a document divided into many sections. It also has a lot of other neat features, and stores data as plain text, whether you are using its two-pane "outlining" option or not. It can also save sequential versions of the file you are working on. Very useful.

Derek

I use since over a year now EmEditor Professional with Outliner Plugin.
I never regretted my move to text, no CRIMPing since a year.
You can define markers for the outlining levels easily yourself,
f.e. I use for 3 levels "__" "___" "____" at the beginning of a paragraph.

JohnK wrote:

Lately, I've come to the conclusion that I'm "over-engineered" when it comes to
organising my data. I use OneNote and Ultra Recall. Both good applications.

But in
reality...most of the data I want to keep track of is plain text. Probably 95 per cent of
it. And good as those two applications are, they are slow in use compared to working
with a good text editor.

Can you be more specific what do you find slow in UR? You must be really fast typing/thinking ... I really cannot imagine how could UR slow me down.
Plus, you can easily create empty txt file (or create many templated txt files) and put to Template directory. Then, you can have your whole UR file with plain txt items which would export as single txt file/per item exactly like you want

And you could still use it for those 5% rich text items, everything under one roof ...

Stephen, I don't recall Powerr Outlines and Insight being discussed here before, and am familiar with neither of them.

How do they compare with the two-pane outliners we normally talk about. Insight seems pricey, but with a lot of features.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I second the suggestion of checking out Treepad Lite.

Also, take a look at
PowerOutlines: http://www.dataomega.com/PowerOutlines/index.htm

I think it
matches most of your criteria, although I'm not sure about how it stores its files. If
you need something more powerful, PowerOutlines big brother, Insight, might be
worth a look.

Steve Z.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Stephen, I don't recall Powerr Outlines and Insight being discussed here before, and
am familiar with neither of them.

How do they compare with the two-pane outliners we
normally talk about. Insight seems pricey, but with a lot of
features.

I think they were discussed briefly awhile back. Stephen Diamond, I believe, has talked about InSight some. In a moment of CRIMPtation, I broke down and bought a copy of PowerOutlines... partly because I like plain text for many purposes, and PO is more powerful than Treepad Lite. Unfortunately, the license allows you to install on just one computer, and I chose my home computer... so I have yet to actually put it through its paces, but here are a few observations based on limited use:

There are some interesting functions with both programs for working with plain text. One of these is the ability to build a decent table. Another is selecting text in columns.

The user interface appears rather old-fashioned and clunky. I have not worked with the program enough to determine if this is the case in practice or just appearance. Having said that, I have a soft spot for old-fashioned looking GUIs.

I think if you would like a true plain text outliner, PO would be a reasonable choice.

I agree that the price of InSight is particularly high, especially considering the amount of power you can get for half the price in PowerOutlines Pro. See the comparison chart, here: http://www.dataomega.com/PowerOutlines/images/PO_IS3_Features_Table.htm

This evening I will fire up PO again and see if anything else seems worthy of note.

Steve Z.

Crikey. I leave my computer for a few hours, and I'm flooded with replies. I'm impressed and grateful.

Thomas -- I like Treepad (I have a licence for the Enterprise edition - more over-engineering by me). I would be happy to use Treepad Lite but it uses a single and proprietary database, just like its grown-up relatives. As I said in my first post, I haven't ruled that out, but I prefer the idea of a separate file per note.

Steve Z -- I have never heard of PowerOutlines before. It's always exciting when you come across something new! But it does seems very expensive for what it does (you would need at least the Pro edition to avail of decent search). And although it's been going for almost a year, the user group has just 22 members (and that group also covers Insight). I'm getting an uneasy feeling...And single machine licences are a big no-no as far as I am concerned. I have three machines to feed.

Manfred -- yes I have a licence for NoteTab too... but while it's a good text editor, it's not really designed for the level of organisation I'm looking for.

quant -- It's not that UR is slow for what it does. But I just want something with the reaction time of a good text editor, so that when I use shortcut keys to create a new note (Restore [program] --> New Note --> Paste --> Minimise [program]), it's all happening at warp speed. Which is does with a good text editor. I'm also keen to simplify my system of preserving data (hence separate plain text files).

So far, I have been playing quite a bit with AM-Notebook (http://aignes.com/notebook.htm and the more I play, the more I like it. Early days, but it's not bad at all. One or two keyboard shortcuts missing, but I've built those with AutoHotkey. Other than that, no big holes so far.

JohnK wrote:

Steve Z -- I have never heard of PowerOutlines before. It's always
exciting when you come across something new! But it does seems very expensive for what
it does (you would need at least the Pro edition to avail of decent search). And
although it's been going for almost a year, the user group has just 22 members (and that
group also covers Insight). I'm getting an uneasy feeling...And single machine
licences are a big no-no as far as I am concerned. I have three machines to
feed.

I wasn't even aware of the users group on Yahoo... Thanks for pointing it out. It does seem a little scary that there are only 20 or so members (now one more if they approve me), but the good news is the group has been going since 2001...

I agree about the cost and about the fact that the license is for just one machine... that seems rather silly in this day and age.

Steve Z.

JohnK wrote:

I'd prefer if it used a separate text file per tree item/note.

Hi John,

Take a look at TextPad: http://www.textpad.com/products/textpad/features.html
I had tried it out several years ago and it seemed to do what you wanted, i.e. use the Windows folders for organising information. In practice, it's just a powerful text editor, but with the added benefits of a windows explorer window within the program, with which you can organise your files.

Another option is a simple utility called Plain Text Wiki, available for free from Donation Coder. It works with conjunction with a variety of text editors. What it does is create a new text file from within the editor and link to it. So you end up with a variety of text files linked among them, but still searchable from the Windows system. Then again, as you noted, the whole wiki philosophy may not appeal to you.

Cheers
alx

Alexander's comment reminded me of a nifty, free editor called Rough Draft. You can open and create both RTF and plain text documents. It has a files panel, from which you can view folders and files -- so achieving the same organizational scheme that Alexander was refering to. The program even offers the ability to search files in any given folder for text strings... unfortunately, when I tried this just now it appears to only want to search RTF files. I've sent a note to the developer asking if that's a glitch or what.

Still, if anyone it looking for a great little free text editor, Rough Draft is pretty nice.

http://www.richardsalsbury.com/

Steve Z.

I'm also searching outliner treat only plain text,
but It's more hard to me, because some nice tool has bugs in utf-8.

you can try this one: AceText,
from JGsoft, means brother of EditPad.
maybe this is what you want.