A pipe dream: bare bones research writer's outliner and word processor?

Posted by williaq
Sep 21, 2007 at 05:15 PM

More excellent feedback folks—here is what I’ve learned, for our general edification (I’m seeing that there is a whole, community of us clamoring for something like this—wow—hope I can contribute to our collective knowledge here). I’ve jotted notes below for the gang, and individuals:

All—
Of the things that I have looked into thus far, Lotus Smartsuite WordPro (9.7 is what I have, I thin) looks somewhat promising. One of the features it has is a custom view where one can have the outline view in one pane, and a synchronized “draft” view in the other (actually, there is a third pane as well, showing a microsopic multi-page view of the document). This is handy for watching the document develop as I work in the outline view. The standard Alt-arrow combination is what moves nodes around. Overall, the outlining seems okay—It is a bit quirky, however, though I’m fuzzy on specifics (so many software programs at once).

And also—due diligence—I came full circle and looked more closely at MS Word. After recording some macros to move nodes up, down, promote, demote, and assigning them to the traditional Alt-Arrow combinations, I might give this another try. Still hard on the eyes, and not as clean as Ecco, or tkoutline. Also, as my doc gets bigger, we’ll see how things slow down. For the short term, to minimize disruption (I have to actually get some stuff done, whatever tool I end up with, after all) I might give this (Word—reprised) a shot for my next project.

Sracer—
> thanks for the heads up on Listpro (will bear in mind);
> I tried to find ClarisWorks to give it a try—couldn’t find one—any leads?;
> If you manage any expansions of TKoutline, please count me in as very interested!

PPL—
> I had a look at SQL notes a bit ago—probably pilot-error, but I had a bit of trouble driving, trying generate outlines for my purposes—looks like a powerful program for sure; will probably look at that again, when my needs are for a more comprehensive PIM

Cassius—
> I did look into wordperfect—all I had was an old copy of 2000—it had outlining features, but I found it awkward and limited and quirky; again, this all might be pilot-related, I’m also trying to consider how intuitive or painful I find the interface given my (unfortunate, perhaps =]) MSWord background

Chris—
> I may toy with tkoutline to see if I can cause the output to include footnotes a-la-microsoft—there is a learning curve for me here though, as I’m more of a traditional c-programmer type, mostly for quick tools for work in days past, and I’m new to xml, and xslt (as far as xslt goes—embarrased—don’t even know what that means! (yet));

Steve—
> I just sent a note to the ndx cards developer to inquire re. footnotes. Will probably try the demo for myself if I can find time.

Keep thots coming as they occur.
—Will