Hierarchical outliner with the most complete writing tools?

Posted by Glen Coulthard
Jun 14, 2009 at 06:59 AM

I’m sure everyone has their favorites, and I’m no exception

. Personally, I have owned (or have contributed to) the following products over the past decade (which is scary when I look at the list):

- TreePad Business (http://www.treepad.com) - then upgraded to Enterprise
- NeoMem (http://www.neomem.org) - open source, but not developed anymore; great in its day
- My Notes Keeper (http://www.mynoteskeeper.com) - developed in China
- Milenix MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com) - developed in Bulgaria
- SQLNotes/InfoQube (http://sites.google.com/site/infoqube/Home) - waiting for it to mature
- WjjSoft’s myBase (http://www.wjjsoft.com/) - just purchased yesterday for half-price on BitsDuJour

I no longer use TreePad or NeoMem, but keep them on my system because of archived data. I use My Notes Keeper (MNK) for most of my writing—I’m a textbook author and a professor who writes the odd research article. I use MNK because it has paragraph formatting, bullet/number formatting, and an actual Ruler bar to set indents! (Now, these features don’t always work the way I’d like, but it’s better than other products I’ve used.) I also like MNK because of its strong exporting features (to CHM, RTF, etc). I purchased MyInfo last year, however, because I was concerned that the developer of MNK was not actively developing the software—not very responsive to customers. MyInfo is much prettier and Petko, the developer, seems willing to meet the needs of his customers. Although I prefer working with MyInfo on a daily basis and with general information, I still use MNK for my writing tasks.

Unfortunately, not one of these products offers the “complete” package in my opinion. Right now, I have high hopes for InfoQube and the next version of myBase. I’m not putting anything mission critical into these programs yet, but I am learning what they can do. Also, I want to mention ConnectedText (http://www.connectedtext.com). I have transferred a lot of my work into this personal wiki and have used it to write a couple of research articles. It is an fantastic product, especially for the more technically-inclined, and the developer is amazingly responsive. However, it is a desktop wiki, as opposed to an outliner—different animals, but may be of interest.

Hope that helps,
Glen
British Columbia, Canada