Whizfolders Deluxe

Posted by Derek Cornish
Jul 12, 2007 at 11:58 PM

Matt,

It’s always very interesting to read about how other people are using the software discussed in this forum. I think Whizfolders has a lot of potential for writers. It’s more a question of how much it can be made to do and whether it can be made to fit comfortably in with one’s ways of working.

As you say many outlining tasks can probably be done in two-pane outliners like Whizfolders just about as well as in single-pane ones. In some ways I think it is a question of how much outlining one wants to do or, perhaps, how far along one is with one’s thinking and drafting. For example, I still do my outlining largely in Grandview. I also use Grandview as a place for developing the outline into a semi-draft, putting relevant thoughts and so on under appropriate headings and sub-headings throughout the outline, and developing the argument. When I’ve got a well-established and very detailed outline - the beginnings of a rough draft really - I move things out of GV section by section.

I have recently taken to switching to a text editor at this point. First I used EditPad, but now I use NoteTab Pro because it has a very simple outline view - more a combination of table-of-contents and file navigator - and a few additional features. I reproduce the bare essentials of my detailed outline in this (just the basic headings as a table-of-contents) and build up the draft in self-contained modules, using GV (and Zoot) as resources. I find this the least distracting way of doing things.

Currently Zoot figures mainly as an initial and continuing repository of haphazardly entered notes and ideas, though I also reproduce my major outline categories and logic in it once they become clear in my head. How much and where Zoot figures in the workflow also depends on how big the project is and how far along I am in getting a grip on things.

It seems to me that we are working in very similar ways, it’s just the software that is different. That’s why I’m interested in Whizfolders. Clearly I could do a lot of what I now do in WF - certainly the Notetab stage of things, and moving to Word’s outline format for the inevitable final phase of things would be much easier. I think I’d miss GV for the earlier detailed outlining, however, and Notetab for its simplicity. I know I’d miss Zoot :-).

Derek