Up-to-date outliner rating matrix?

Posted by David Fass
Jun 26, 2008 at 11:29 AM

Hi. I’m in the preliminary stages of writing a book, and I’ve been using a hodge-podge of tools to keep track of story elements, plot points, characters, and other assorted cruft. I’d like to find a nice outlining/note tool that I can use for all these bookkeeping tasks, one that makes navigation and structural-modification very easy. I have tested Jot+, TreePad, and ActionOutline, and I found disappointments with each of those. (I already have StoryView, which is an outlining tool geared toward scene manipulation, but not for assembling loose ideas.)

I saw mentioned on this forum Ultra Recall and WhizFolders, and I plan to test those next, but this is all fairly time-consuming. So I wonder: Has anyone on this group compiled a matrix of modern outlining tools, perhaps rating each one? It seems like everyone here has one or two favorites, but it’s very hard to figure out which would be best for my needs, and there are very few software reviews out there on the web. So, again, is there some objective comparison of the different tools available (written within the past 2 years, hopefully)? Thanks very much. —Dave