Starting fresh

Posted by Derek Cornish
Jan 12, 2007 at 11:19 PM

Steve,

Looking over this thread, I thought it was striking how few people emphasized outlining. It was mentioned in passing (Brainstorm, IdeaMason, MindManger, Inspiration) but never really highlighted.

Maybe this just reflects our general pessimism about the likelihood of getting a Windows (the Mac is a different matter) outliner to rival Grandview, or maybe our hopes are pinned (eventually) on IdeaMason.

I’ve recently been using Brainstorm and PocketThinker a lot more than previously. I still find the lack of a proper editable “aerial” view a major defect, but in other respects it’s growing on me. As for PocketThinker, it’s quirky, still doesn’t work properly with Outlook (one of its advertised features), but is surpisingly nimble - and cheap. I like using it a lot more than Inspiration - or, for that matter, NoteMap.

Hard to say why though. I think it is the very plain interface, and its use of opml, which is essentially plain text with a markup language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML). This makes it quite a novelty for Windows outliners, AFAIK. Brainstorm doesn’t use a markup language, but its files seem to have a similarly simple structure, which make indexing, searching, and displaying results an easier proposition.

Derek