Dear outliners,
I got an M1 MacBook Air -my 2ed Mac after 10 years from my first 2011 Mac mini-
Please I want software recommendations

I am considering
Devonthink
Tinderbox
Vellum

Thank you all

It is only possible to recommend apps based on an individuals needs and preferences. However, I recently moved from Evernote to DevonThink and while the process of migrating my notes was very painful (took almost a week), I'm happy with DT and recommend it. But I basically just use it to archive stuff and search for stuff, I don't much care for it as a note taking app. I think there are a lot of better options out there, though if you use an app that stores notes in external files, DT can index them and search them as well. This is true of Obsidian which you might consider as an alternative to Tinderbox. (I don't use Obsidian, I use Roam Research, but it doesn't offer this kind of integration with DT.)

Completely agree. When I used DT it became purely a repository for large numbers of files on which I could more easily search and find correspondences. But it was a clunky note-taking app. If you want cross-platform access with iOS it has its iOS app, but the functionality is limited on iOS, which still makes it the one-eyed king compared to Tinderbox (which I find powerful, and nearly impenetrable, and therefore rather useless for my needs).

The only Vellum app I know for Mac is an ebook-creation app.

So I think you probably need to explain what you're intending to do, and perhaps what made you land on those apps.

Thanks to Luhmann and satis for input,
I am interested in personal information managers, outliners, and books writing and formatting apps.
I know about some Mac software, but I am sure I am missing a lot.
also any special Mac apps -you feel useful for your workflow- is welcomed

I just bought Curio 16 yesterday. It's good when you want to easy organisational information stuff with more text than graphs.

Had to decide between OmniGraffle and Curio, but Omni was more expensive and does look to be more about real diagrams and not for larger textual information display.

Scrivener, Mellel, Nota Bene or Nisus Writer are four writing tools/word processors if you want to get away from MS WORD and Apples Pages.

You're asking a probably too-broad question, especially for this forum. Vellum, for example is designed as a sophisticated tool for ebook creation, and is really outside the scope of the kinds of discussions here. Apps like Devonthink shine as 'shoebox' apps, not as good writing or notetaking tools.

So you're asking about three different kinds of apps. I'd recommend delving into the included apps and researching reviews of replacements when you hit pain points. LOTS of articles out there that compare apps, from which you can do research, like this

https://zapier.com/blog/best-note-taking-app-for-mac/

For notetaking you could always start with the included Notes app (which is so good some people migrated to it from EverNote) and Pages, and see what you think you're missing. Pages has advanced layout options to create ebooks.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202066

Personally I use Ulysses ($49.99/yr subscription) for most medium- and longform writing. It outputs text, HTML, PDF and DocX, as well as to blogs like Medium and Wordpress. But for pure writing there are good free to cheap text or Markdown tools, with differing abilities, from CotEditor or Typora (free) to IA Writer ($30) to Bear ($15/yr), to Highland 2 or Scrivener (both around $50). If you're writing a book for a publishing house you'll have no option but use Word, as the markup and versioning is both industry standard and without peer. (Some writers can write in Word; most of the rest just import their writing into it as a last step before sending it to their agent/publisher.)

For now I'm using my purchased upgrade of UpNote ($20) as a replacement for Apple Notes, but I'm not sure I'll stick with it as for my needs it doesn't do too much more, while being rough around the edges compared to other notes apps I've used.

For writing apps you need to look at Ulysses and Scrivener, I think. Ulysses is more versatile, but is a subscription model. Scrivener is more project-oriented and a one-time purchase.

For notes, well if you find something you like let me know. There are so many options. DT is certainly powerful, but I agree with those who have said it isn't very attractive to write notes in. For that you might try Craft, which is gaining new features all the time and it feels more like a wordprocessor (at least to me), so it is nice to write in.

For outlines, I personally like the online outliners better than OmniOutliner... Dynalist and Workflowy being two strong ones. Although if you get Tinderbox, it is an excellent outliner and you may not need another one.

Steve Z.

I use Devonthink heavily. From a brief look at Curio 16 I see it's got some good refinements. In the past I've had scrolling issues on some "figures," what Curio calls objects like text boxes.

Those issues seem to be all resolved. Curio is very nice.

Traditional word processors (or text editors) still have my vote for how to compose.

Except for Word. For some reason, Word has that _je ne sais crap_ that manages to send me in search of something else to use.

That's a personal failing on my part. Word is a fine product. I guess.

I also use Ulysses and highly recommend it. I prefer it to Scrivener personally, but some people are the other way around...

If you want to try a bunch of new software you might enjoy getting a SetApp subscription:

https://setapp.com/

It isn't worth it for me because I had already purchased many of these apps individually before I learned about it, but it might be a good fit for you.

OmniOutliner is very good. If you're also looking to go mobile it is the most powerful outliner you can get. Yes it has some quirks; styling; but once you learn how it works it's superb. One of my most used apps.

Contrary to popular opinion MS Word is also very good if you learn how to use it. I can write and create fully formatted docs faster in Word than any markdown app (the styles feature is awesome). I've created fully formatted books in Word that have been used by publishers. It also has the longest backward compatibility of any app I know. I can still open Word docs created in the 1990's and everything is there and fully formatted.

Devonthink as others have mentioned is a great repository. It's Finder on steroids. I used it for many years, dumped it and went back to it. It is probably the best place to put all your stuff and be able to find it effortlessly.

Tinderbox is great, but has a massive learning curve. It is best for textual analysis rather than writing. I never liked the rtf styling in the app. To utilise its full feature set you'll need to learn its scripting function.

A week or two ago I spent about 10 minutes experimenting with OO styles. It's worth learning how they work.

Styles seemed buggy at first, but that was due to assumptions I made that were wrong.

Simon wrote:

OmniOutliner is very good. If you're also looking to go mobile it is the
most powerful outliner you can get. Yes it has some quirks; styling; but
once you learn how it works it's superb. One of my most used apps.

OmniOutliner Styles are powerful, but very clumsy and a little buggy. I use a simple but custom style for my notes with main headings bolded but everything in the same font and size, but for no reason whatsoever I periodically find some child nodes are formatted in italics and I have to open up the Inspector to delete unwanted style attributes.

That said, I really appreciate being able to easily customize my fonts, sizes and backgrounds. I'm very sensitive to the fonts used by apps and hate being stuck with something (or a limited number of options) chosen by a developer.

Thanks to all for suggestions,
I got devonthink and I like it (PDF web capture is great!)
I already have Scrivener
regarding outliners, I think I will go back to use dynalist (omni outliner is costly)
curio looks complex and I am confused with its yearly subscription model
I think I will get vellum and tinderbox later

if you know/use a Mac app in any category (mainly productivity) and you find it indispensable/like it please recommend
Regards

satis wrote:

For now I'm using my purchased upgrade of UpNote ($20) as a replacement
for Apple Notes, but I'm not sure I'll stick with it as for my needs it
doesn't do too much more, while being rough around the edges compared to
other notes apps I've used.

Thank you @satis for the reminder of UpNote. I have been searching for an app that would act as a front end to Apple's Notes app. UpNote does a nice job with features that make notetaking a better experience than Apple Notes. I tried UpNote when it was first released and I am glad that the developers have made it into the great app it is. By the way, I saw that the app was available on the macOS app store for a discounted price for a limited time. There was no hesitation for me in pushing the "pay" button. :) Cheers! :)

I got omnioutliner, nice app. it remind me of visual outliner of windows, but is more polished.

Agreed re OmniOutliner. I run my life off outlines, and I still haven't found any competitor that's remotely as powerful and polished.

curio looks complex and I am confused with its yearly subscription model

Starting Point: Imagine that you have an infinite whiteboard. Imagine that you can add anything you want onto that board. Imagine that you can arrange the contents in anyway that you want. Imagine that you can make links among the content items.

When this is something you want to do, then Curio offers perhaps the best starting point.

You buy it. You have free upgrades for one year. Curio still works after the one year, but you get no further upgrades unless you pay again.

At this point I think any Mac app that is siloed is going to be relatively niche no matter how good it is. For me it's imperative to be able to access and create/edit on iOS, and a lot of people who work in the Windows world will at the very least least want web access and syncing.

If you're able to stay entirely within the borders of macOS then Curio is a good option.