Franz,

Simple outliner, but I wouldn't spurn a general writing environment if it contained an adequate outliner, for example, Word if it had unlimited levels and hoist.

The more I find I can't use Inspiration the more its feature set appeals to me. But it seems to have an aging infrastructure that goes unrepaired. We both had installation problems that shouldn't happen. Tech support refuses to acknowledge blatant bugs. But worst, it has a file size limit of 16MB.

Franz Grieser wrote:

@Stephen: There seems to be confusion about what you are really looking
for. Is it a "simple" outlining tool (such as Inspiration, UV Outliner)
or a full-featured writing environment (Word, Scrivener, Sente).

Re Inspiration: Installation simply did not finish correctly. There is
an Insp9IE.exe on my hard drive but it won't start.

MadaboutDana,

I didn't interpret Franz to be recommending the full-featured writing environment alternative.

If I were to use a two-pane app, Scrivener would need be my choice. In fact, I strated out using it. It has to do with styles of work: I prefer continuing rather than writing in disjointed parts that I later assemble like a puzzle.

Scrivener really is nothing like an adequate one-pane outliner, and it doesn't really pretend to be. (It isn't apparent to me how you can even hide the second pane.) The tree pane is too constricted, body text can't be entered there, and worst of all, the undo command doesn't even work in the tree pane!

MadaboutDana wrote:

Franz is quite right. And of course you can turn Scrivener into a simple
one-pane outliner if you want to (using the appropriate Workspace
setup). But with all the bells and whistles in the background if you
should need them...

Franz Grieser wrote:
@Stephen: There seems to be confusion about what you are really looking
>for. Is it a "simple" outlining tool (such as Inspiration, UV Outliner)
>or a full-featured writing environment (Word, Scrivener, Sente).
>
>Re Inspiration: Installation simply did not finish correctly. There is
>an Insp9IE.exe on my hard drive but it won't start.
>
>

MadaboutDana,

I didn't interpret Franz to be recommending the full-featured writing environment alternative.

If I were to use a two-pane app, Scrivener would need be my choice. In fact, I strated out using it. It has to do with styles of work: I prefer continuing rather than writing in disjointed parts that I later assemble like a puzzle.

Scrivener really is nothing like an adequate one-pane outliner, and it doesn't really pretend to be. (It isn't apparent to me how you can even hide the second pane.) The tree pane is too constricted, body text can't be entered there, and worst of all, the undo command doesn't even work in the tree pane!

MadaboutDana wrote:

Franz is quite right. And of course you can turn Scrivener into a simple
one-pane outliner if you want to (using the appropriate Workspace
setup). But with all the bells and whistles in the background if you
should need them...

Franz Grieser wrote:
@Stephen: There seems to be confusion about what you are really looking
>for. Is it a "simple" outlining tool (such as Inspiration, UV Outliner)
>or a full-featured writing environment (Word, Scrivener, Sente).
>
>Re Inspiration: Installation simply did not finish correctly. There is
>an Insp9IE.exe on my hard drive but it won't start.
>
>

I don't disparage two-pane outliners. Obviously, people generally find them more useful. If I were writing a "highly structured text," I would probably choose one. But fore me a book is basically an extended essay.

22111 wrote:

But using 1-pane outliners for heavy work is beyond me.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

I haven't found any provision for a distinction between headings and text. Did I miss it?

Hi Stephen,

In InfoQube v110, you can now identify items as being heading or normal text. This is used by both Outline Styles and Labels.
It is also used by the new style-based copy outline feature, which combines 1st pane items and sub-items with 2nd pane content to create a "print-ready" compound document.

This should make it an excellent writing environment, even for long documents, as it combines the best features of 1-pane and 2-pane ouliners.

Release notes here:
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4311

Documentation here (in process of being written):
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4335

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

I don't understand. Could you attach a how-to description for creating text within the first pane or link to where the procedure is described? (I'm OK personally with the process being obscure, but I don't understand why something this basic would be.)

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
> I haven't found any provision for a distinction between headings and
text. Did I miss it?

Hi Stephen,

In InfoQube v110, you can now identify items as being heading or normal
text. This is used by both Outline Styles and Labels.
It is also used by the new style-based copy outline feature, which
combines 1st pane items and sub-items with 2nd pane content to create a
"print-ready" compound document.

This should make it an excellent writing environment, even for long
documents, as it combines the best features of 1-pane and 2-pane
ouliners.

Release notes here:
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4311

Documentation here (in process of being written):
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4335

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

Stephen Diamond wrote:

I don't understand. Could you attach a how-to description for creating text within the first pane or link to where the procedure is described?

Hi Stephen,

I started writing the documentation. Currently, it is brief, in a step-by-step fashion. More to come in the next few days

https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4335

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

The procedure described creates a printed outline with a topic/text distinction. But not, as far as I can tell, to actually compose the outline with that distinction showing. (That is, the equivalent of Word's body text or Inspiration's inline notes.

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

Stephen Diamond wrote:
> I don't understand. Could you attach a how-to description for creating
text within the first pane or link to where the procedure is described?

Hi Stephen,

I started writing the documentation. Currently, it is brief, in a
step-by-step fashion. More to come in the next few days

https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4335

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

Stephen Diamond wrote:

The procedure described creates a printed outline with a topic/text distinction. But not, as far as I can tell, to actually compose the outline with that distinction showing.
That is, the equivalent of Word's body text or Inspiration's inline notes.

I updated the documentation, hopefully making this clearer.
Still the best way to picture this, is downloading IQ, open the Welcome to InfoQube IQBase (File > Welcome to InfoQube) and open the Reviews outline

https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4335

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

Paul,

Your revised instructions include, "When writing you document, you are free to put content in a hierarchy or items and / or in the Doc pane."

That would seem to say that when writing your document, you cannot enter the notes as body text _within_ the hierarchy.

Stephen Diamond wrote:

Your revised instructions include, "When writing you document, you are free to put content in a hierarchy or items and / or in the Doc pane."
That would seem to say that when writing your document, you cannot enter the notes as body text _within_ the hierarchy.

Thanks for spotting that type. It now reads "in a hierarchy OF items and / or in the Doc pane"

So the answer is yes, the body can be in sub-items and / or in the Doc pane

So the answer is yes, the body can be in sub-items and / or in the Doc pane.

But I want it to be in the outline pane but *not* as an item. (Like in Word, Inspiration, and UV.) InfoQube gets the distinction imposed by styles as a separate stage. This would seem a rather clumsy workaround for my purposes.

Not much has changed. In 2012, Steve Zeoli published a review of OneNote and leading contenders. Although his criteria weren't identical to mine (for example, Steve didn't see inline text as a core feature) his set of core outliners (what to call them: I would use the old term, "outline processors," as a subset of the generic category "outliners.") His selections were OneNote, Inspiration, UV Outliner [what does "UV" stand for], and Natara Bonsai are identical with mine, with the exception of Bonsai. (And I would substitute Word of OneNote.) Most significantly, Inspiration receive an A; all the competitors got Cs. In essence, Inspiration is the only choice on Windows if you want these functions.

But Inspiration is absurdly buggy for a mature product. So, what does UV lack. Two features: any numbering scheme whatsoever; any implementation of mark and gather (such as minimally multiple

UV is an emulation on Windows of OmniOutliner (Mac). I'm sure Omni has customizable labels, so that might be coming in UV. I'm less sure if it has mark and gather in any form.

[On the Mac of old there were two reigning outline processors: More and Acta. More emphasized power; Acta ease of use, fluidity. Operationally, I thought the most important distinction was that More had mark and gather. UV seems to be in the mold of Acta, with a dash of InControl.]

By way of further background, my go-to outline processor has for several years been NoteMap. It had a feature set similar to Inspiration. It had a minimal implementation of body text but a better implementation of mark and gather than Inspiration. But only nine levels. If I wanted more, I used Brainstorm.

I'm not really a CRIMPer. I can't share the enthusiasm for products that usually fall by the wayside. I was enthused by ndxNotes and ADM. Both had excellent basic outliners, with the glaring deficiency of no undo in ADM. (Excellent brainstorming experience. Is there any way to get a copy and run it on Windows 10? I'm "registered" through ADM 3, but 2 was my favorite.) I'm just looking for something that's "good enough," which is surprisingly hard to find.

Stephen Diamond wrote:

But I want it to be in the outline pane but *not* as an item. (Like in Word, Inspiration, and UV.)
InfoQube gets the distinction imposed by styles as a separate stage. This would seem a rather clumsy workaround for my purposes.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean... the outline pane contains items
You don't need to turn on outline styles if you don't want to. It just help to see the structure of the document
An item is nothing more than a paragraph. When you move an item, you move a paragraph

So, if it's what you want, you can put all the content in the outline pane of course

Pierre

Unlikely. UV Outliner hasn't been updated since 2012, and its forum is off-line. The developer now works for this company:

https://www.ivpn.net

UV Outliner still works fine, but it doesn't seem like it will ever get further updates.

Stephen Diamond wrote:

UV is an emulation on Windows of OmniOutliner (Mac). I'm sure Omni has
customizable labels, so that might be coming in UV.

Stephen, unless I am mistaken, UV Outliner has not been developed for several years, and might be considered abandonware. It is too bad. I like that it has columns, and appears to be a pleasant application to use. I wish it would come back to life. With addition of the fearures you mentioned, and a couple of others, it would be quite good.

And yes, it also reminds me of InControl.

Daly

Stephen Diamond wrote:

Not much has changed. In 2012, Steve Zeoli published a review of OneNote
and leading contenders. Although his criteria weren't identical to mine
(for example, Steve didn't see inline text as a core feature) his set of
core outliners (what to call them: I would use the old term, "outline
processors," as a subset of the generic category "outliners.") His
selections were OneNote, Inspiration, UV Outliner [what does "UV" stand
for], and Natara Bonsai are identical with mine, with the exception of
Bonsai. (And I would substitute Word of OneNote.) Most significantly,
Inspiration receive an A; all the competitors got Cs. In essence,
Inspiration is the only choice on Windows if you want these functions.

But Inspiration is absurdly buggy for a mature product. So, what does UV
lack. Two features: any numbering scheme whatsoever; any implementation
of mark and gather (such as minimally multiple

UV is an emulation on Windows of OmniOutliner (Mac). I'm sure Omni has
customizable labels, so that might be coming in UV. I'm less sure if it
has mark and gather in any form.

[On the Mac of old there were two reigning outline processors: More and
Acta. More emphasized power; Acta ease of use, fluidity. Operationally,
I thought the most important distinction was that More had mark and
gather. UV seems to be in the mold of Acta, with a dash of InControl.]

Pierre,

I'm trying to understand what's difficult to understand. Are you familiar with Microsoft Word's outline view, where you can enter text either as body text or as a heading?

Stephen Diamond wrote:

I'm trying to understand what's difficult to understand. Are you familiar with Microsoft Word's outline view, where you can enter text either as body text or as a heading?

Is MS Word a one-pane outliner ? Good question... I believe this has been discussed here in the past.

If you want a word processor that you can expand / collapse sections, IQ is probably not the tool for you. Why not use Word if that's what you want ?

Items (i.e. parapraphs) are at the core of IQ, so much so that through filtering and meta-data, you can filter sections out and use and re-use items in different documents.

InfoQube is a great tool to write, but it is **not** a word processor, in the conventional sense of the term.

Pierre

A recent comment on the IQ forum:
source: https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4311#comment-20575

[quote]
IQ has just graduated from the BEST Information Manager to the BEST Composition Outliner and is well on the way to being the BEST Writing Environment of any kind!!
[/quote]

satis wrote:

You've been commenting about this type of outliner for maybe 15 years
Stephen, so you're probably aware of the best current alternatives -
especially if you read this forum!

Is it possible OP that perhaps the issue is that you are looking to get something from software that software cannot provide? If you are doing creative work or serious problem solving, it's GOING to be uncomfortable. Yes, tools can help ease that discomfort, but I feel like you are looking for some kind of tool nirvana that you aren't going to get.

Perhaps you are wildly productive and prolific in your work... but if not, perhaps you are just using CRIMPing as an excuse to escape the hard work of knuckling down and just doing the work with something that's adequate? Sometimes you cannot adapt the tools to your workflow, and must adapt your workflow to your tools...

Also, it still sounds like org-mode would let you do what you want.

If you want a word processor that you can expand / collapse sections, IQ is probably not the tool for you. Why not use Word if that’s what you want ?

insufficient number of topic levels; no hoist.

Is it possible OP that perhaps the issue is that you are looking to get something from software that software cannot provide?

Is it possible that this comment is irritatingly silly?

I'm just looking for two or three missing features.

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/organon-1

Use organon with OpenOffice, not LibreOffice as LO has changed & dev has not time to update for a couple of years
https://github.com/XRoemer/Organon/issues

https://github.com/XRoemer/Organon/tree/master/Screenshots

This thread is not weird or crazy or unusual, a 20 level multi-level numbering outline instead of 9 would be a minimum good start for many academic disciplines and manual/report writers. Many professionals see the limited features of "Outline View" in MS Word as a joke and the lack of it in OpenOffie & LibreOFfice as unacceptable:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Outline_view
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38093
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68167&redirected_from=fdo

LibreOffice's Writer (Word Processor) Navigator floating panel can be docked as a left column. LibreOffice Impress (presentation maker) also has Navigator with multi levels outline.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Libreoffice+Navigator&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr-xym_NGpI

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Libre+Office+navigator