Single-pane outliners

Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 17, 2011 at 03:49 PM

Dr Andus wrote:

>I’ve
>been using Natara Bonsai (desktop version) for over 6 years and I’ve been extremely
>satisfied. It can be used as a single-pane outliner, but additional panes can be
>switched on or off (e.g. for file directory and notes). I always wondered why I haven’t
>heard more people raving about it. It might be because Natara have been marketing it as
>an accessory to the Palm app, which I think is a major marketing blunder, as the desktop
>version (Bonsai 5 Desktop Edition) is the star product in my
>view:
>http://www.natara.com/bonsai/Download.cfm

P.S. Another thing that probably puts people off are the screenshots on the Natara website, which all focus on the bells and whistles of the software (such as various GTD features), when in fact the outliner is the core product.

It’s got a highly customisable interface. I turn everything off (such as the other panes, columns, check boxes, status bars etc.) and use it as a pure outliner only. Key strengths are the ease of entering data, promoting, demoting and rearranging items and entire branches, collapsing and zooming in and out of branches (hoisting), filtering out levels of the hierarchy (e.g. looking at top 1, 2, 3, 4 levels only), and my most favourite feature, colour-coding items on the basis of the level in the hierarchy (which really helps with navigating massive outlines).