LiquidText seems more for reading and studying, but still a very interesting collection of capabilities. Done by Georgia Tech, LiquidText was developed on Win7 touch screens, but will be available publically only on the iPad. Personally, I think I'd want a very big screen to work with this. Lots of videos available at the Georgia Tech site.

The article:
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/06/28/liquidtext.software.supports.active.reading.through.fingertip.manipulation.text

The site w/ videos:
http://liquidtext.net/

Seems like I may be a step closer to the iPad.

Cheers, Julie

Oh, that is fascinating! Thanks for posting this - it's why I love touchscreens, and also love what Apple have done with Numbers (which already allows a significant degree of freedom in manipulating objects). But I agree that this concept cries out for a larger screen (especially the two-handed gestures: Minority Report, anyone?). What a great development - that'll be straight onto my already CRIMPed out iPad... One of the enticing things about iOS is the many different paradigms people are experimenting with. I have a plethora of notebooks on my iPad (there are thousands out there), and some of them use really ingenious models which, even when flawed, give one plenty of food for thought. And plenty of opportunity to play, of course...

Cheers,
Bill

Bill,

What have you liked beynond Apple's numbers that you would recommend to other iPad owners? And, what would you not recommend?

--Ken

Sorry, Ken, just spotted this. Ah, don't get me started on the iPad, I've played with such a lot of stuff, and so much of it is really not very good, or could be really good but just doesn't quite have what it takes. But I'd be happy to share experiences. First off, before anything else, I'd have to agree with a recent review of the HP TouchPad which describes the iPad as primarily single-task-focused. Yes, it is - switching to and fro from one window to another is not particularly easy on the iPad, and can result in significant frustration if you're trying to write, do web research and consult multiple documents at the same time. Having said that, there are solutions, although none of them are perfect (which means it's ideal territory for CRIMPers, who don't look for "perfect"!). Here are a few of them:

(Just one important note: I'm fascinated by the very different perceptions of apps you'll encounter both in journalists' reviews, and in user reviews in the Apps Store. Some of the stuff that's been praised to the heavens -- e.g. sling Note, Student Pad -- I've found almost unusable. Other stuff -- e.g. the two Readdle apps mentioned below -- are scarcely mentioned, even though they are actually superior to many more popular apps. You've just gotta experiment: in the end, what appeals to you will depend on your preferred modus operandi. And some apps take time to win you over, e.g. Notebooks for iPad, which is now one of my staples).

---My favourite writing tools:
ThinkBook (text only, but superb outlining capability with bookmarks, tagging and a good search function)
Notebooks for iPad (very, very powerful - bit of a learning curve, but good Markdown support and can also import and store web pages and files. Marred only by lack of bookmarks/shortcuts -- which makes it difficult to switch quickly between the various elements in the vast amounts of data it can store)
OmniOutliner for iPad (almost brilliant, marred by lack of search function. Multi-column support in outlines very convenient. I keep hassling them about the search function! They are very nice and responsive, so I suspect it's only a question of time. Once it's got a search function, this will be top of the tree)
The full Apple suite (my favourite app still being Numbers)
WordWeb + Chambers Dictionary + Chambers Thesaurus (they all work together in a lovely ballet of interlocking interfaces - much better than they do on PC, in fact)
Documents To Go (alas, shortly to be rendered completely useless since being bought out by RIM; still one of the best for round-trip MS Office file editing)
Essay (very elegant interface, produces nice HTML pages: only flaw is a lack of search function)
Notability (deceptively powerful. Not my favourite, but actually very good and very versatile)
iAnnotate PDF (for annotating PDF files: ReaddleDocs and GoodReader do this, too, but iAnnotate has multiple tabs, so you can read/edit multiple PDFs simultaneously. The range of annotation options is truly awesome, too)

---Almost but not quite in my list:
Circus Ponies Notebook (very ingenious, but seriously flawed and ultimately very frustrating. Good for viewing stuff side by side, though)
Carbon Outliner (nice, but nowhere near as good as Notebooks for iPad, which also has strong privacy settings and can import Notes from iPhones)

---Data interchange
ReaddleDocs (by far the best: incorporates DropBox, GoogleDocs, IMAP mail, any WebDAV server, FTP etc., in a much friendlier interface than any other solution; vastly superior to AirShare)
DropBox (but not really required if you've got ReaddleDocs)
myPhoneDesktop (allows you to send clippings of text, images and URLs from your PC/Mac straight over to your iPad - neat, convenient)
Soonr (very powerful cross-platform solution with full-text search through a wide variety of file types. I've finished my trial, unfortunately, but I'm toying with using this for business exchanges. However, we generally use our own WebDAV servers for that, so I'm a little reluctant. Works beautifully on iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac etc. etc., but does cost you a monthly subscription)

---Browsing:
Terra (by the guys who make ReaddleDocs: such a good tabbed browser that Apple briefly banned it, because it's a damn sight too close to the new version of Safari that will appear in iOS 5. I actually wrote to Steve Jobs asking him to reinstate it! They did, but I have no idea if my e-mail had any influence on that decision...)
Opera Mini (also tabbed)
Knowtilus Basic (has split web page/notes option, also tabs: quite neat)
iChromy (basically Chrome for the iPad: tabbed, which is good, but occasionally mixes up web addresses (esp. IP addresses) with Google search requests! I use Chrome on all my PCs)

---Tasks/To Dos:
Wunderlist (synchronises across all my various machines and has free web server, too)
ActionNotes (not desperately practical, but for some reason I really like it!)
Awesome Note HD (ditto!)

---Blogging (significant weakness on iPad):
Blogsy

---Avoid (IMHO):
Documents Free
ACTPrinter
Moleskine (although I confess I use a screenshot of the famous Moleskine cover as the front (locked) screen for my iPad - silly, I know )
neu.Notes
Nodebook
Simple Outliner
Trunk Notes
Student Pad
Notes Plus (nice, but no search!)
Notekata (nice, but no search!)
Clockwork Notebook
Side by Side Pro (very disappointing)
sling Note Lite (ditto)

MadaboutDana wrote:

iAnnotate PDF (for annotating PDF files:
ReaddleDocs and GoodReader do this, too, but iAnnotate has multiple tabs, so you can
read/edit multiple PDFs simultaneously. The range of annotation options is truly
awesome, too)

I strongly recommend this application as well. Probably what I do most on my iPad besides browse and read email is read and annotate journal articles as pdf's. My iPad wouldn't be anywhere near as useful without it.

---Almost but not quite in my list:
Circus Ponies Notebook (very
ingenious, but seriously flawed and ultimately very frustrating. Good for viewing
stuff side by side, though)

I've been back and forth with the developer on this application. Its got a lot of features but it has been very buggy and the interface is tough to figure out. And its expensive for an iPad application. He insists its worth the price but as far as I can tell the vast majority of the more vocal users of their desktop app disagree. In any case IMO if you're going to charge $30 US for an iPad application it better work flawlessly from the start. In contrast, this application collapses frequently. It was getting panned in the iTunes reviews but instead of taking the feedback as a legitimate view point the developer insisted it was because they haven't done a good enough job of getting people with positive views to post reviews (I consider this to be a very bad sign).

There's potential there, though, and they're gradually fixing it, I think. The ratings get notably better with every version/bug fix.

---Avoid (IMHO):

Notes Plus (nice, but no search!)

I'm going to mildly disagree here. A search function would be nice but I haven't found a better application for taking handwritten notes.

I also note that you left out a News Readers category. Both of these sync with Google Reader:

Reeder: Very interesting, intuitive interface. Also has a desktop version.
Feedler: More standard. Very solid.

Tom S.

Yes, you're right. I generally read Google Reader stuff on my PC, but on the iPad I regularly use:
---BBC News (excellent!)
---Feedly (also excellent)
---Fluent News Reader (not bad, but not particularly great either)
---ProPublica (interesting, above all as a reflection of the stances of ethically motivated US journalists)
---Zite Personalized Magazine (almost as good as Feedly)

Notes Plus does seem to have quite a following - it's certainly a beautifully designed app. I realise my attitude to the search function appears inconsistent, but that's a function of the app. If you've got something (like Notes Plus, for instance) which invites you to load it up with notes/drawings/recordings etc. by offering folders, multiple different kinds of note etc., I think the search issue becomes significant, because the app is inviting you to use it as a serious info repository. If (as in the case of Essay) the app has no such pretensions, but simply serves as a useful platform for getting stuff written and out (e.g. for editing to another app/platform), I don't regard search as such an important 'missing' feature. What about OmniOutliner, I hear you say? Quite right - there's an app which certainly does claim to be a serious info repository, but doesn't offer search. Which is why I'm hassling the developer so much! Because I love the ideas behind OmniOutliner - for jotting down ideas very quickly, and yet with considerable flexibility, it's hard to beat. And unlike so many iOS note takers, it supports rich text as well. Actually, while I'm thinking about it, I'll just go and fire off another e-mail...

Cheers,
Bill

Tom S. wrote:

MadaboutDana wrote:
>iAnnotate PDF (for annotating PDF files:
>ReaddleDocs
and GoodReader do this, too, but iAnnotate has multiple tabs, so you can
>read/edit
multiple PDFs simultaneously. The range of annotation options is truly
>awesome,
too)

I strongly recommend this application as well. Probably what I do most on my
iPad besides browse and read email is read and annotate journal articles as pdf's. My
iPad wouldn't be anywhere near as useful without it.

The multi-tasking feature of iAnnotate does sound superior, but I would still like to put a word in for PDF Expert from Readdle (http://readdle.com/products/pdf_expert_ipad/ Pretty much the only reason I bought my iPad for was to be able to annotate PDFs away from my PC and desk. I started with GoodReader because it was the cheapest. It's not bad at all, however I wanted to be able to highlight not only the selected lines of text but any other part, therefore I bought PDF Expert, which had a freestyle highlight feature. PDF Expert is my preferred tool for annotation, though I still use GoodReader for some features that PDF Expert doesn't have, such as the ability to strip out all notes and email them as text.

Anything by Readdle tends to be well-conceived, to be honest.

Another app I forgot to mention is Save2PDF, which gives you a built-in PDF printer so you can save anything on your iPad as a PDF file. It's also got quite powerful file management/transfer capabilities, and allows you to make notes, too.

And my recent discovery WikiNodes, which is much more fun to use than any of the other Wikipedia browsers!

Bill,

No worries on the delayed response. I was out of town on vacation for a few days with my wife, so tech time was limited, as it should be (excepting my beloved Nikon D300 and lenses). I greatly appreciate all of your recommendations, and may indeed be purchasing a few of the apps. I was able to take advantage of the July 4 sale of a few apps that I wanted (Pocket Informant HD and Snapseed), so I am feeling a bit less pressure about buying an additional app or two. I am planning to read over your list in the next day or two, and will let you know what I end up purchasing.

Thanks again,

--Ken

Notebooks for iPad has certainly caught my attention, and I am now reading their manual. I am not certain how easy it will be to use in a cross-platform environment as a task manager, but I am giving it some consideration. And, I am also again considering GQueues as it seems to offer off-line use on mobile devices.

--Ken

Bill,

I hate to bother you with a few more questions, but how are you moving data off of the iPad for access on other devices? And what other programs are you using in conjunction with Notebooks? They seem to offer some import and export options, but I am not sure how the data looks when it is exported. And I am not sure how easy it is to round-trip data. I have skimmed the manual a few times, but it sounds like it would be easier for me to understand through actual use. Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

--Ken

I was thinking about this a bit more, and believe that I can refine my questions down to one essential one. Can Notebooks easily export information in a common file format like .txt, .csv, .doc, .xls or html? If I know that I can easily move an outline of text information into another program then I would be happy with the program.

--Ken

Sorry, Ken, only just caught sight of this, having been away on hols for a week or so.

I move data off my iPad in a wide variety of ways:

a) using the WebDAV interface with my servers here (our central data repository is a Synology NAS, which I can thoroughly recommend);
b) using DropBox (by far the most convenient way of doing things) - to interface with DropBox I use either the DropBox application or ReaddleDocs (the best solutions);
c) using Save2PDF, which allows me to save almost anything at all as a PDF file, to a wide variety of different servers (including WebDAV, Google Docs, MobileMe etc.).

NoteBooks synchronises natively with DropBox and MobileMe (notes are saved as HTML pages, embedded files are saved in their native format). It also allows you to save notes as PDF files, send them by e-mail, export them to iTunes, open them in other applications (such as ReaddleDocs), export them using SyncDocs, print them (using e.g. Save2PDF, which acts as a PDF "virtual printer") and so on.

So there's no shortage of options!

Cheers,
Bill

Hi Bill,

Reading your post here, as well as your recommendation of ThinkBook in another thread, makes me wonder if you are on commission with Apple! ;) I am still determining if there is an easy way to incorporate Carbonfin or Notebooks fo iPad into my use of Pocket Informant and Toodledo. I would like an outliner with multiple levels of subtasks that can also create checklists, and both of these programs offer unique takes on these needs. The real question is how easy or hard it wil be to introduce them into a mullti-OS workflow. I am assuming that I will also want to add a program like GoodReader, iAnnotate or Readdle to help with file management, but first things first.

I was going to also consider ThinkBook with these programs, but it seems to have garnered some critical reviews, and it does not offer the features that I am seeking. Reading iOS app reviews is quite interesting. Some authors seem to never have met an app that they did not like! I seriously wonder how much due diligence some of these reviewers exercise when they "review" these apps. A very close friend who has written a couple of iOS apps seemed to beleive that it was a "pay to play" system when it came to reviews. I'll probably end up buying both apps, but thankfully they are not expensive. Now if I could only get my Google Calendar to correctly share data with other programs!!!

--Ken

MadaboutDana wrote:

NoteBooks synchronises natively with DropBox and MobileMe
(notes are saved as HTML pages, embedded files are saved in their native format). It
also allows you to save notes as PDF files, send them by e-mail, export them to iTunes,
open them in other applications (such as ReaddleDocs), export them using SyncDocs,
print them (using e.g. Save2PDF, which acts as a PDF "virtual printer") and so on.

So
there's no shortage of options!

Bill,

Is there a way to export a "book" in Notebooks for iPad as a combined text or HTML document? I mean where all the text contained within a book is exported as a single text or HTML document that preserves the titles of the books and notes contained therein as sub-headings?

Dr Andus wrote:

Bill,

Is there a way to export a
"book" in Notebooks for iPad as a combined text or HTML document? I mean where all the
text contained within a book is exported as a single text or HTML document that
preserves the titles of the books and notes contained therein as sub-headings?

Bill is probably much more qualified to answer this question, but I thought I saw something in the manual that talks about combining notes in a book. I know that things can be broken into separate notes, but I cannot remember if you can go in the other direction. I had very high hopes for Notebooks, but its learning curve is a bit steeper than I had expected, and my time has been extremely limited these past few months. So far, I have been spending what little free time I have with CarbonFin, Toodledo and Pocket Informant. I am hoping to come back to Notebooks when my schedule permits.

Good luck,

--Ken

Ken wrote:

Bill is probably much more qualified to
answer this question, but I thought I saw something in the manual that talks about
combining notes in a book. I know that things can be broken into separate notes, but I
cannot remember if you can go in the other direction. I had very high hopes for
Notebooks, but its learning curve is a bit steeper than I had expected, and my time has
been extremely limited these past few months. So far, I have been spending what little
free time I have with CarbonFin, Toodledo and Pocket Informant. I am hoping to come
back to Notebooks when my schedule permits.

I'm very impressed with Notebooks for iPad and it would be almost perfect, were it not for this "little" problem of exporting. I'm still waiting for a response from the developer, so there might be a solution to this. It is excellent for capturing notes and slotting them into categories. I have spent hours developing a 4 level hierarchy (essentially an outline of my PhD thesis), only to realise that Notebooks can only export each level of hierarchy as a separate folder containing the notes as text files. On top of that the folders contain all kinds of system files as well, so it's a real pain to extract the individual text files from the exported folders, and the hierarchy is lost as well. Yes, notes can be combined into a single text file, but only those at a particular hierarchy level, not across levels.

What I thought it would do (and what seemed logical to me) was that the export would combine all the books (the hierarchy levels) and the notes (the text files) into a single text document, where the hierarchy levels would be converted into headings, like the way Whizfolders does it. Maybe there is still a way to do this. But if not, it would mean that a writer could only work within one hierarchy level deep. That is still better than the native Notes app in iPad where there are no folders or tags at all, but rather limiting.

I'm still hoping there is a way around this.