Why isn't notetaking software better?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 25, 2006 at 02:22 AM

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