I am looking for an outliner software with a fairly simple basic feature.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm using a Windows systems, but information from the Mac world is of course very welcome.

Here's a sketch:
You first work on an ordinary outline.
Then, you can highlight those lines in in the outline that shall work as a "node" in a structural overview.
This overview shows the nodes in their hierarchical structure.

Here comes a simple example that should give the flavour - the "node" lines are marked with an asterisk *.
(Hope the display on the Outliner Software forum will show it how it's meant.)

example outline *
this is an irrelevant remark
I'm slowly approaching an insight...
here is my first insight A *
here are some details for A
here are more details for A
here is an important question
and here is the next insight B *
here are details for B
back to the higher level
here is something irrelevant
and here is insight C *

The structural overview for this case would look like this:

example outline
here ist my first insight A
here is the next insight B
and here is insight C

In this case, insight C is not a child of insight A, but a child of "example outline". One can imagine different ways of dealing with hierarchy levels that do not contain a node.
In the case above, empty levels are simply left out, showing A and C on the same overview level although they are not on the same outliner hierarchy level.

Of course, the structural overview and the outline should then interact as a two-pane outliner, with the overview allowing instant access to the nodes.
Inserting nodes directly in the overview would need a mechanism for the exact location of the new nodes in the outline (which should be feasible).

Again, one can imagine all sorts of extra functionalities for this type of outliner.

Here are some remarks.
I try to stay away from CRIMPing as best as I can, so my knowledge of note-taking software is fairly limited.
Most outliners I know store the content of separate nodes in separate "containers" but not in a single uninterrupted outline.
In contrast, the concept above deals with nodes as "signposts" in a single outline.

---

I'm new to this forum, so some bits of information about me may be in order:
My name is Thomas, I'm a 45 year old mathematician from Germany working as an actuarial consultant with a software firm.
My current main interest in the outliner universe is with the process of "Schreibdenken", i.e. the process of thinking through writing.

Welcome to the forum, Thomas. I'm sorry I missed approving your first post. I'm replying here to bump your post back to the top.

Hi Thomas -- welcome!

If you don't need or want "containers" for each node in an outline -- they maybe you already have the tool you are looking for. Just the simple windows Notepad -- or anything along those lines -- would produce the kind of outline you are looking for. Otherwise, I'm not sure why anything more complex than Notepad would be a better tool for you.

A good - and free - option for what you're describing (as I understand it) would be TreeSheets, which runs well on Windows, but also on other platforms.

More info here (it's worth checking out the tutorial carefully to get the most out of this clever, apparently simple but actually very powerful program): http://strlen.com/treesheets/

I'm not sure if I fully understand the requirements but perhaps one way of achieving the effect is to use a Markdown editor like SmartDown that has folding.

Then all you need to do is insert one or more hashtags (#) in front of the lines that you want to act as part of the "structural overview," and those becomes foldable headings (outline nodes).

WriteMonkey additionally also has a standalone floating "table of contents" viewer, so you can have two panes, one with the outline (TOC), and the other that has the entire text.

Goalscape

This is a second test to see if I can post now. Post created 2-3 weeks ago has never appeared. I don't know how to get "approved".

Hi Matthew, I am seeing both of your posts, and you are approved. You can use the site's contact page and we can communicate directly if you are still having any issues.

I maintain Tines, an open-source console-mode outliner that does what I think you're looking for. You can mark a node as text (or a todo item). One of the export features uses XSLT to convert a file (or branch) to Markdown.

Biggest drawback: right now, you have to compile it yourself.

https://github.com/larrykollar/tines

Thanks to Chris for bumping the post, and thanks for all the answers.

My question came from a writing process that I am using sometimes in a mind mapper (MindManager 6) and sometimes in a digital notebook (OneNote 2013 and occasionally 2007).

I write in ordinary outlining fashion (in MM text notes, indenting and unindenting with CTRL + M), and when the outline has reached a certain size, or when a promising new idea or an important new question has appeared, I transfer part of the outline - to a new branch in MM or to a new page in ON.

In each of the programs, this transfer has a number of pros and cons:

In MM, I have to create a new branch, highlight the relevant part of the outline, cut it, paste the text in the text notes of the new branch, reformat it and show in the outline where part of the text has been transferred - all fairly cumbersome. Moreover, I cannot highlight or tag lines in the outlines.
The overview in the map and moving groups of branches however is excellent.

In ON, I find it difficult to indicate the hierarchical structure of the pages when I use more levels than page - subpage - subsubpage.
Handling the outline itself and creating links however is simple and effective. Moreover, tagging lines in the outlines works well.

A blend between the two programs would seem great - write an outline in your text notes, highlight the section you want to transfer, rightclick and give the name of the new branch. The program would do the rest: Create the branch, paste the outline part and do some cross-referencing between the parent and the child branch in the outline itself.

(Whining over existing software and fantasizing about nonexisting one is perhaps not the coolest thing - my apologies.
At least, I've written a feature suggestion for one of the software manufacturers.)

The idea behind my original post was that I saw no real need for "containers" like branches or pages, just for "signposts" in the form of headings, that help to keep an overview over the entire material and allow easy access to points of interest.

Hi Thomas,

Welcome to the forum. I think your question is a good one, and I have tried to do similar things. Here are some possible solutions off the top of my head:

1. You could achieve the desired result using Microsoft Word, although the solution is a bit geeky. You could write an outline in a normal (non-outline) view, simply using indentation or bullets. Then, you would give a special "Style" to the lines that have asterisks in your example, and that style would have a corresponding outline level (that shows up in Outline View). So, when you switch over to Outline View, you would be able to view only the lines with asterisks, and the indentation would be according to their Style-based outline level as opposed to their visible indent level in normal view. (What I have just said may or may not make sense, depending on your familiarity with Microsoft Word.) The downside to this solution is that you can't collapse/expand the nodes of the full outline --- you would only be able to collapse/expand the asterisked nodes.

2. You could use InfoQube and then use filters (or use some other outlining system that supports filtering). If you take some time to master InfoQube, I'm sure you could create a workable filtering system, such as simply filtering to only show lines that end in an asterisk. This would probably be the most powerful solution.

3. I think you could probably achieve the desired result using folding in some text editors. There are different types of folding available, but I believe some text editors support arbitrary folding, whereby you could manually fold each group of lines that begins with an asterisked line.

4. Perhaps you could use Org Mode, in such a way that you would create our basic outline using tabs, but then you would add preceding asterisks (or double or triple asterisks) for the lines you want to highlight. (I'm not sure about this, as I don't currently have Org Mode installed.)

5. FWIW, on a Mac you could do something similar in Tinderbox (my current favorite), except that the asterisked lines wouldn't be collected in a hierarchical way, but simply as a flat list.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

Good luck,

Lucas

Lucas wrote:

2. You could use InfoQube and then use filters (or use some other
outlining system that supports filtering). If you take some time to
master InfoQube, I'm sure you could create a workable filtering system,
such as simply filtering to only show lines that end in an asterisk.
This would probably be the most powerful solution.

I second that (of course !)
InfoQube has many views and filtering to really help focus on just what you need.
Using an * to mark nodes could work, but using a yes/no field and showing it in the outline (as a column) would certainly be simpler when comes the time to focus on these special nodes.

showing A and C on the same overview level although they are not on the same outliner hierarchy level

In IQ, if you don't show context parents, it is easy to show items that are not at the same outliner hierarchy level

HTH !

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer
http://www.infoqube.biz

I've updated the documentation on Grid Display Modes. Details here:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/261

HTH !

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer
http://www.infoqube.biz