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Visual Outliner (new from the developer of Goal Enforcer)
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Posted by Jon Polish
Nov 12, 2018 at 01:07 PM
I might be missing it, but there appears to be no search.
And I agree - for what this program offers and with respect to its competitors, the price is ridiculous.
Jon
Posted by Stephen Diamond
Nov 13, 2018 at 09:45 PM
I, for one, don’t object to charging a premium price based partly on the strength of the underlying concept. The idea of making a brainstorming tool very compelling visually is, I think, sound. My favorite brainstorming tool was ADM, although I didn’t use many of the features when brainstorming. Its visual compellingness was actually decisive. Some of the VO themes even resemble ADM.
Unfortunately, this outliner also shares ADM’s major flaw, the absence of undo. Isn’t it obvious that a brainstorming tool should allow you to painlessly go back?
For me to use this product, it needs only two major features, but (based on memories with others, like MaxThink) undo may be hard to implement if it’s not there from the start. The other major feature is multiple selection. Incidentally, I wasn’t able to get contiguous selection to work. (Dragging the selection mark didn’t extend it but caused it to disappear.)
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 14, 2018 at 02:12 PM
Stephen, I still miss ADM. I agree about it being “very compelling visually”. ADM was attractive, and I liked that it didn’t look like a Windows program - it had its own character.
Daly
Stephen Diamond wrote:
I, for one, don’t object to charging a premium price based partly on the
>strength of the underlying concept. The idea of making a brainstorming
>tool very compelling visually is, I think, sound. My favorite
>brainstorming tool was ADM, although I didn’t use many of the features
>when brainstorming. Its visual compellingness was actually decisive.
>Some of the VO themes even resemble ADM.
>
>Unfortunately, this outliner also shares ADM’s major flaw, the absence
>of undo. Isn’t it obvious that a brainstorming tool should allow you to
>painlessly go back?
>
>For me to use this product, it needs only two major features, but (based
>on memories with others, like MaxThink) undo may be hard to implement if
>it’s not there from the start. The other major feature is multiple
>selection. Incidentally, I wasn’t able to get contiguous selection to
>work. (Dragging the selection mark didn’t extend it but caused it to
>disappear.)
Posted by washere
Nov 15, 2018 at 02:12 PM
+ PRICE:
- It’s his choice. At this level, for what it is,, it’s self harm. Needs to go viral(ish) on launch and this stops it. If halved, he’d sell more than double AND the larger userbase would bring in more sales, PR, etc.
I bought a top spec expensive ultrabook recently which came with Windows Home. Bought Windows Pro, usually triple digit price, for $7 and MS Office Pro license (lifetime, not annual 365 sub) for one pc for $10. Activated fine and phoned Microsoft, they said licenses were fine. One pricing has nothing to do with others, usually, but still what other software can i get for this price? That’s the question Hamlet.
Maybe I could spend this money on something else on my bucket list? I buy outliner software for double and triple digit prices, because they’re worth it. HyperPlan Pro for example is a bargain considering the complex coding and innovative UI. As are others. This is slightly overpriced but that’s his strategic decision. I still wish him luck for making new outliner software.
+ OPML
- It’s the best Tree Outliner Structure file format there is. I’ve tested nearly a thousand software in the last three years. Outliner, Visual Boards, Mind Maps, Folding Editors, IDEs, Note Takers, Stickies, Timeline, Databases, Memory clipboards, Tray note panels, fiction/manual writers, etc etc. I chose about 50 as the best across these genres. I further reduced the number to an elite 15 which form my ToolChain now.
The top 50/15 had to be able to i/o data to any of the others “while maintaining the tree data structure”. The only possibility that emerged over the last few years was OPML. Nothing came close. It’s the master key. I ended up writing a document which has many sections, telling me the steps to import/export from each of those 15 or 50 software to any other. Some steps need several apps/steps and some steps are specific in settings needed. For a few I had to create export templates in bonsai or pandoc etc. But I can quickly interchange structured tree data between any of the 15 or 50 by jumping to the section within that huge reference document I created. I don’t think anyone on earth has done anything similar. So I got to know a little about tree i/o between apps. OPML is often, but not always, the backbone. BUT:
- There are different OPML versions.
- Then there are numerous proprietary OPML versions by many devs.
- What to do? For maximum interchangeable data success amongst apps? Because often apps do not recognize each other OPML. Hence my huge reference document.
- My recommendation for devs is to:
- Use OPML Version 1, NOT Version 2
- Only use the two minimum tags, for node title/name and node text data.
- Tree Structure (nodes, sub node levels)? OPML is basically a simple cut down version of html. Levels are basically nested node tags inside each other. Nothing to do, no tags, just nesting.
However most devs use OPML version 2 and/or use other OPML properties tags when they just need to use the node title and node text tag. And as if not enough, some make their own propriety version and call it OPML. Not all, but still enough.
+ HOSTAGE?
- There’s truth to that. Some devs ignore calls for basic OPML version import and/or export to keep users in bondage. This is as stupid as over pricing. Imagine if MS Word or Photoshop did not have multiple import export formats. For example for years people asked the Cherrytree dev to enable OPML export. It’s not hard, it’s easier than other propriety formats already there, but he never did. Many left. Then Notecase Pro added Cherryteee import, so you could export it again as OPML or other formats. Now that is clever, and genuine and open spirited which leads to success. UVOutline, similar to this new offering, always refused OPML export despite many calls, till he made it abandonware. It’s rare, but there is something to this OPML denial to users in a few cases. Self harming, but occurs.
+ Visual Outliner becoming a success:
- NEEDS DUAL PANE, not just single. So each node can have INLINE DATA i.e. Node text data.
- You might say this is a single pane outliner. There is no contradiction. It can boot up as it does now as a single pane outliner. HOWEVER you should be able to change that in settings to boot as a dual pane outliner. MS Word, Photoshop and most other serious outliner software have many options most do not use. They are not visible but are there for those that need it. This can remain a single pane, but if some need it which in time will be over half the users, it should be there in settings to enable dual pane to see/edit node text data.
- The second pane, if enabled, would show in the middle between the left tree pane and the bucket list on the right.
- Multi Media data formats, images or tables etc, can be added gradually in time to the middle pane node inline data. Like Rightnote.
+ Verdict:
- Then as a dual pane which is easy to do considering the work he’s already done, it would easily be worth this price, even if he just added a basic middle pane for node text data. He’d like it himself if he tried it.
- He has an adequate if not good taste in UI/UX design, so I wish him all the best.
Posted by tightbeam
Nov 15, 2018 at 03:03 PM
washere: now that’s a quality post. Thanks for doing all that legwork and offering well-considered opinions and advice.