Back in April I bought a MacBook for my personal use. I had been a long time PC user, but some of the applications I had seen recently for Mac OS had made me envious -- particularly DevonThink and Scrivener. So I took the plunge, and have bought several applications -- a whole new domain for my CRIMP fever. And I have tested many more.

Overall I am very happy and impressed with my MacBook. It starts up fast and turns off even faster. It returns from sleep mode in a snap. I also like the integration of many of the applications. The fact that I can print a PDF into many of the information managers is very advantageous.

So, as an environment, the MacBook is great. However, I haven't been as impressed with the software as I expected to be. They are all competent, but I really haven't seen much that is not available in the PC world.

That is, until now. Curio 5.0 is a really exceptional application. In its "idea space" approach it is a little like OneNote -- that is, you have a page on which you can combine several different types of elements. However, one of the item types that you can insert into any page is a pretty sophisticated mind map, also incorporated full-fledged project management functions.

The other important element type you can add to an idea space is an outline box. You can also add a text box or URL or even live web pages.

I'm still exploring the features of Curio, but I feel I've finally found the perfect planning application for me -- no, it isn't a database, and can't serve that function. But Curio is the perfect place for brainstorming, then expending on those ideas with whatever material you need! At $149 for the pro version, Curio isn't cheap, but it is less expensive than most mind mappers in the PC realm, and it does more.

It's definitely worth a look, even if it is just to nurse your CRIMP desire.

http://www.zengobi.com/

Steve Z.

Beat me to it, Steve!

I endorse all you've written. In the period of little over a year since I bought my MacBook, Curio has come a long way. By the nature of things, some of the tools it's provided for the manipulation of data in its "idea space" - such as the mind map - have previously been quite basic. (Perhaps that's why it seems to have lacked profile.) But they're progressing to the point where they may start to challenge the specialist tools that, as you say, can cost a lot more.

For me, trying to see how the paid-for mind-mappers for the Mac stack up, an upgrade to from Curio 4 to to Curio 5 looks much the better-value option, now its mind-maps and outline lists are expandable and collapsible (they also import and export OPML).

Database-wise, files can be dragged and dropped into Curio from a recognised database with a non-proprietary format such as Eaglefiler or (I hope) the impending DevonThink 2.

H

Could you please explain, why are you so excited about those "mind maps"?
Every and any notetaking software that has a tree has basically "mind maps". The only difference is that instead of all children being below its parent, half of them are on the right and another half on the left.

Not excited as such, but I do think they can be a useful tool.

Two reasons. One, with many mind-map programmes but not all, initially you can just splat the screen with ideas, before you start drawing the relationships between them. This accords with my understanding of the recommended ways to brain-storm - first think of all possibilities, then arrange and critique them. (Right-brain/left-brain theories?) Making a list when outlining, even if unindented, immediately implies a hierarchy, which you may not want at that stage.

Two, some people visualise and understand pictures better than text, at least in the early stages. I think I'm one of those.

The ideal mind-map application IMO is one where an easily-manipulable map can be transformed quickly into an easily-manipulable outline, and back again. So you get the best of both worlds.

H

1. Simple, just create directory "Screen", which would hold your not yet assigned relationships, and then drag drop to another directory creating relationships ...
2. those coloured ovals with text inside are not much different from the text in the tree alone ;-)

But I like the coloured ovals... ;) More to the point, so might others to whom I try to communicate concepts and ideas. (Whether they, or I, like them enough for me to spend, say, US $249 on NovaMind Platinum, is of course another matter...)

H

quant wrote:

Could you please explain, why are you so excited about those "mind maps"?
Every and
any notetaking software that has a tree has basically "mind maps". The only
difference is that instead of all children being below its parent, half of them are on
the right and another half on the left.

I have some ambivalence toward mind maps myself. For me, large mind maps (or diagrams) start to lose meaning. However, I do find that slapping together a diagram is a good way to start a project, because it creates organization of ideas without necessarily creating a hierarchy. Let's face it, even a straight list is a hierarchy, as what comes first seems to have the most prominence (think of the list of actors in the cast of a movie).

Also, you can add other visual cues to a mind map that you can't in an outline. For instance, say you are planning an marketing campaign and one of your headings is "advertising" and another is "target audiences." With a mind map you can use an arrow or a line to connect which ads are targeted at which audiences. You'd need a columned outline to get the same idea across... and then it wouldn't be as visual.

Nevertheless, mind maps are restricting, and that is why I'm excited by Curio 5.0. With Curio, I can build a small mind map to get started, then use outlines to add detail to each of the major nodes. For me, it is the best of both worlds.

Steve Z.

Part of what looks so promising about Curio is that it is like a giant whiteboard on your screen. Not only can you generate text boxes, collapsible outlines, collapsible mind maps, various kinds of links, and connecting lines and arrows, but you can also put up information like photographs, videos, graphs, and so on that are drawn from material stored elsewhere on the computer. (And you can draw on it.) Want a photograph of something on your Curio whiteboard? Just grab it and put it there.

Many of the leading OS X information managers (such as Eaglefiler and Together) store information in non-proprietary formats (such as rtf, jpg, and pdf) that can be easily accessed by other programs. (Together, for example, can create a pdf of a website page that even captures background images linked via cascading style sheets [a challenge for most programs and print procedures].)

You can put a pdf file on your Curio whiteboard and annotate and draw on it. Since universities are increasing using pdf handouts (rather than paper), Curio has addressed the desires of students and others to be able to put pdf files onscreen, and annotate on them, however they want. This is similar to highlighting a text book and writing in the margins.

Version 5 addresses several shortcomings of Version 4, but I found that even Version 4 helped me sort out a couple of large-scale creative projects. I especially enjoyed the ability to throw boxes of text on the screen that addressed issues in other parts of the screen, and in at least one case I was able to see that the project as I had originally envisioned it had problems that were unsolvable without a complete rethinking. In another case I was able to pinpoint issues that helped me to drastically rework a collaborative project, and then do that reworking in Scrivener.

In sum, I think that Curio is a great place to think through creative projects, and, if necessary, share that information. And because OS X (Leopard in particular) offers so much ease of information sharing between programs, it is then easy to do work in whatever software program is best suited to that purpose. Curio can be an extremely useful module for a personal working system.

Randall Shinn

The folks at Zengobi have added a short tutorial (or what they are calling a tutorini) about a very powerful feature of Curio 5.0: The spread PDF feature. Take a look:

http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/

The tutorial is on the bottom of the page linked to above.

Steve Z.

I'm using mind maps more than in past - for me the advantage they give over a conventional tree is an ability to place items in different formats, using different map types, and this can make it easier to see relationships between items.

Visual depictions of information in various kinds of mind maps/diagrams may help to increase understanding or ability to hold a "big picture" view in one's mind.

Daly

quant wrote:

1. Simple, just create directory "Screen", which would hold your not yet assigned
relationships, and then drag drop to another directory creating relationships
...
2. those coloured ovals with text inside are not much different from the text in
the tree alone ;-)

Stephen, just looked at the product web site, and Curio brings out the CRIMPing instinct.

CRIMP appears to be a well conceptualized program elegantly executed.

Now all I need is a Mac!

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Back in April I bought a MacBook for my personal use. I had been a long time PC user, but
some of the applications I had seen recently for Mac OS had made me envious --
particularly DevonThink and Scrivener. So I took the plunge, and have bought several
applications -- a whole new domain for my CRIMP fever. And I have tested many
more.

Overall I am very happy and impressed with my MacBook. It starts up fast and
turns off even faster. It returns from sleep mode in a snap. I also like the integration
of many of the applications. The fact that I can print a PDF into many of the information
managers is very advantageous.

So, as an environment, the MacBook is great.
However, I haven't been as impressed with the software as I expected to be. They are all
competent, but I really haven't seen much that is not available in the PC world.

That
is, until now. Curio 5.0 is a really exceptional application. In its "idea space"
approach it is a little like OneNote -- that is, you have a page on which you can combine
several different types of elements. However, one of the item types that you can
insert into any page is a pretty sophisticated mind map, also incorporated
full-fledged project management functions.

The other important element type you
can add to an idea space is an outline box. You can also add a text box or URL or even live
web pages.

I'm still exploring the features of Curio, but I feel I've finally found
the perfect planning application for me -- no, it isn't a database, and can't serve
that function. But Curio is the perfect place for brainstorming, then expending on
those ideas with whatever material you need! At $149 for the pro version, Curio isn't
cheap, but it is less expensive than most mind mappers in the PC realm, and it does
more.

It's definitely worth a look, even if it is just to nurse your CRIMP
desire.

http://www.zengobi.com/

Steve Z.

Steve,

I tried Curio and really was impressed with it's abilities. I just don't know what I would use it for that would justify the price.

But I had not known about the spread PDF feature, really nice. I may have to give the product another look.

Vince

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

The folks at Zengobi have added a short tutorial (or what they are calling a tutorini)
about a very powerful feature of Curio 5.0: The spread PDF feature. Take a
look:

Captain CowPie wrote:

Steve,

I tried Curio and really was impressed with it's abilities. I just don't know
what I would use it for that would justify the price.


Vince

As Steve says, Curio is an exceptional application. The way I think about is as a very large virtual whiteboard on to which you can place all kinds of digital items - with the added advantage that you can also start to project-manage their use as well. Virtually whatever you could do on a real - but huge - whiteboard, you can do with Curio. You can start to trace spatial/mindmap-type relationships between items, you can just park them, you can transform them in various ways, or you can pretty them up and put together a presentation. I can imagine the software being useful in, say, an ad agency.

I use it at the throw-stuff-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks stage of writing, especially if visuals are involved. I probably wouldn't use it in putting together a precise argument or polemic because there the tools of a traditional text outliner would be more valuable, nor would I use it in "late-stage" outlining of any kind, because it won't give you an OPML or Word-type outline you can export elsewhere. But for for free-form creative doodling, it's terrific.

And it's in active development.

H

To clarify - of course Curio does export OPML, as I say in an earlier post, but from items appropriate to the purpose - that is, mind-maps and text-outlines. You can't export the contents of an entire "idea-space" or whiteboard as an outline, nor would you probably want to because it's likely to be made up of many qualitatively-different elements with disparate links.

H