OmniOutliner 4 is finally available

Posted by Hugh
Jan 16, 2014 at 06:50 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Nothing there actually
>improves the outlining function. Maybe they feel that’s all done, but of
>course they haven’t added cloning yet. I’d have liked to see
>improvements to inline notes.
> >Also, there is at least one major bug: The inspector pane does not open
>on my computer. I just get a slender bar that says “inspector” and
>nothing else.
> >I’ve got to say that I’m quite disappointed. Maybe I’ll change my
>opinion with more use, but I’m skeptical.
> >Steve Z.

It sounds as if I should revise my forecast that OO4 ‘will work as OmniGroup describes’…

But it’s the absence of cloning that I find really disappointing. In my view, there are all sorts of reasons why cloning is desirable in a modern outliner. For myself, I’m a ‘tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and then tell ‘em what you’ve told ‘em’ kind of writer, and so cloning is pretty important. I wrote as much in the OO forum yonks ago (I think, though I’m not certain, when we were still on OO2). But in my opinion even for common-or-garden, basic outlining cloning is helpful - for example when experimentally you’re moving a ‘node’ around, you may want to keep it in its old position for a bit, as well as in its new one. I’m persuaded that OG is composed of clever people who generally devise clever software, but even when they have other jobs to do and other apps to refresh, I find it difficult to understand why it would take them in excess of six years to find a way to make cloning work - in one of the applications that helped make their name - when lone-wolf developers such as the creator of TAO/Neo can do it far more quickly. Yet that appears to be the reality.

I’d like the OG to get past introducing this functionality, and start showing me features that I haven’t dreamed of yet. But no such luck. Perhaps in six years’ time?