Derek,

I agree with your assessment. In my opinion, it is actually a misnomer to even call them two-pane outliners. They are hierarchical, free-form databases. In this task, many of them excel. UltraRecall, MyInfo, probably ADM would be among those that add useful features for managing this data beyond the simple hierarchy. I think these programs actually inhibit outlining as a creative tool because they are cumbersome to use and isolate each piece of work in a discrete box. The few single-pane outliners are definitely more deft at reorganizing your work and provide the holistic view that is crucial for smooth writing, but they lack an database functionality. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I still believe that GrandView was the only program that provided a powerful, single-pane outliner and powerful database functions. It baffles me that no one has yet to replicate GV in the Windows environment.

Steve Z.


Derek Cornish wrote:

Reading Cassius's "From Jot+ to ???" got me thinking more generally about notetaking
programs, so I thought I had better start a new thread. I'd like to jump in with some
general comments about what, for better or worse, have become known as "two-pane
outliners" - essentially note-taking programs the titles of which are displayed in
the form of a hierarchical tree in one pane, with the corresponding notes in the other
one.

There are so many of these programs - e.g., MyInfo, WhizFolders, Treepad,
Jot+, etc., etc.,etc. - that it is difficult to differentiate between them - in part,
no doubt, because they make use of many commonly-available "bolt-on" elements. When
considered alongside free programs like KeyNote
(http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html or similarly free
word-processors like RoughDraft (http://www.salsbury.f2s.com/rd.htm it is
often hard to see (1) what value is being added by the commercial products; and (2) and
how different they all really are from one another.

Last month I carried out another
glum trawl through some of the better-known programs to see what was happening. The
answer seems to be "not much". It's true that one can occasionally point to useful
differences: MyInfo's .HEAD import feature is one example, and WhizFolders'
upcoming "copy universal link feature" (see the thread on "Whizfolders and
graphical front ends" back in July) promises to be very helpful, and may temporarily
differentiate it from the other clones.

Overall, though, I have been rather
disappointed with these programs. This is probably a bit unfair. After all, I already
use Zoot, a free-form database program that covers many of the PIM or note-taking and
note-organizing features that I need. If I weren't using Zoot I might be looking for
one of the two-pane notetakers, although I'd probably plump for something more like
MyBase or UltraRecall. As the main defect of Zoot is its lack of a rich text editor, the
new Whizfolders, with its promised universal links is the only one that directly adds
much value to what I already have.

Even so, the sector does look rather moribund.
What is really wrong (IMO) with all these two-pane notetakers is the lack of a decent
single-pane outlining facility within the notes pane of the software. Suggestions
and calls for such an obvious feature fall upon deaf ears in software forums, and one
has to conclude that this is mainly because there is no easy way of implementing it with
available rich text editors. The only notes programs I know of that have such a feature
are ndxCards, MS OneNote and InfoSelect. Given the drawbacks of two of them -
InfoSelect (lack of a demo; high upgrading price) and ndxCards (oddly archaic
interface, to my mind) - that leaves MS poised to sweep the general two-pane
note-taking field with its new version, even though its outlining features so far are
rudimentary.

What has gone wrong with this software sector? Or am I just
experiencing one of those jaded plateaux that are to be expected when in the grip of
longterm CRIMP...?

Derek

Derek