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Writing Outliner turns into WordOutliner (beta)
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Posted by MadaboutDana
May 24, 2019 at 08:54 AM
I dunno, the idea of a simple static website generator is immensely appealing. There are a few around, but none that really work easily (with the possible exception of Publii, which is primarily for blogging). There are, of course, plenty of editors that interact nicely with WordPress or similar CMSs, but that’s not really static.
The main shortcoming of most static website generators is the lack of a built-in search function. If you’re going to generate a static website, it’s because you want to publish something. Unless it’s very short, you need to have some neat, convenient way for people to navigate around it. A sensible menu system is a good start - but nothing beats a good search engine.
This is something that one of the best of the Windows-based website design apps gets absolutely right: WebsiteX5, an Italian product that’s been going for a few years and has become extremely polished and sophisticated (does responsive, does comments/contact forms, does blogging, does members-only areas - and does search. The top-of-the-range product even does web shops. All built-in). In recent years, they’ve started offering in-app extras, which is slightly annoying, but the various editions are not unreasonably priced, and you can create a pretty darn good website. Best of all, you don’t need any back-end CMS; WebsiteX5 does everything for you, and you can host on pretty much any web server.
Unfortunately, it’s not available for Mac. Which is why I use Nicepage. More on WebsiteX5 here: https://www.websitex5.com/en/ (yes, in principle you can design a website in 5 steps. In practice, if you want a really nice one, you spend a bit more time ;o))
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Listerene
May 24, 2019 at 07:08 PM
Personally, I’m done with the clown who was developing this piece of junk. Clearly, the developer has no idea of what they are doing and I say that as not just a victim of their programming once but *multiple* times.
It was originally a very good idea and I kept giving it additional chances with each successive release, hoping that this would be the time that it didn’t fail while (mostly) taking my work with it. I was wrong each (and every) time.
Stay far (far) away from this is my advice.
Posted by tightbeam
May 24, 2019 at 08:19 PM
I tried a previous version of the software. It didn’t work well, mangled the appearance of Word, and took some doing to eradicate.
Now that Scrivener is available for Windows, at a reasonable price, I don’t see the market for this “Writing Outliner”, or whatever it’s now called, especially given its sketchy history. Maybe that’s why the developer decided to bolt on the “Word-to-web” functionality. But I don’t know of anyone, anywhere, who has ever stood up on a bus and said, “You know what, I’d really love to pay for something that would turn my Word document into a web site.” Perhaps I ride the wrong buses.
Posted by Anthony
Aug 8, 2019 at 04:59 PM
If someone is interested, Docxmanager (evolution of writingoutliner) has a trial:
https://docxmanager.com/download.html
(no affiliation, just curiosity)