Outliner with flexible, sortable columns

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 11, 2007 at 02:17 PM

richardp wrote:
>I’m looking for a Windows-based outliner program that allows multiple columns, each
>of which can be sorted alphanumerically, by date, etc.

Richard,

I fear you are destined to be disappointed by the offerings in the PC world. What you describe sounds like the late great GrandView, an old DOS outliner, which, in my opinion, is the best PC software ever.

The problem is that all the programs in the Windows world that offer columns are not strictly speaking outliners, but are better classified as hierarchical freeform databases (also known as two-pane outliners). The difference being that with a single-pane outliner all content is stored and viewed in the outline; whereas, with a two-pane outliner the content is stored and viewed separate from the outline—really, the outline is just a categorization scheme. None of the single-pane outliners (NoteMap or Inspiration) has column capability. And not all the two-pane outliners offer columns, either. One suggestion for one that does and works pretty well is MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com). Another possibility, one that I’m not very familiar with, is Ariadne (I don’t know the URL)... perhaps someone else can weigh in on this.

Steve Z.