Cloud Outliner 2 for OS X

Posted by Hugh
Jan 21, 2016 at 11:17 AM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I have OmniOutliner installed on both my MacBooks and on my iPad Air. I
>can’t say that I use it extensively, but I do use it. I haven’t
>experienced any crashes, but my outlines are not big, sprawling things.
>Building a simple outline on the iPad is pretty standard. It’s when you
>want to make use of the columns that it starts to feel a bit clunky,
>though I’m not sure there’s a way around that on a device like the iPad.
> >To me the main drawback is that they encourage you to use their
>proprietary sync-service, OmniSync. This is free, but it isn’t as simple
>as Dropbox or even iCloud. They say their service is better because the
>others are not set up to handle the package files used by OmniOutliner
>(and their other apps, OmniFocus, etc.).
> >All in all, I haven’t found it overly inviting to use OO, though I do
>for some specific outlines, where the features of OO are required, and
>it is perfectly functional for those purposes. For example, planning the
>events lined up for the historic site where I volunteer. The columns and
>inline notes are helpful for planning. Then, once the schedule is set, I
>can create a good-looking PDF of the schedule for distribution.
> >Steve Z.
> >

My main beef with OO is that it still, on Version 4 now, doesn’t offer “clones”. I seem to remember that you’ve criticised it on these grounds in the past, Steve; there’ve certainly been plenty of posts in the Omni forums calling for this feature. I too find the columns and inline notes helpful, but the absence of clones in my work outlining writing that “tells ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, tells ‘em and then tells ‘em what you’ve told ‘em” (i.e. it requires a degree of repetition) triggers extra work that software surely ought to be able to handle with ease. I seem to remember that a decade or so ago, Brainstorm offered clones!