David Dunham wrote:

I do wonder why they mix Windows
outline gadgets (left pane) and Mac outline gadgets (right pane).

Well, they don't; the icons you refer to as Mac, are actually the original ones used in Windows outliners, as far as I know. In fact, they are still used in most OPML related outliners.

I agree that it does look rather weird, but I guess it's a way of avoiding any confusion between the two hierarchies (left and right).

alx

Graham -

Thanks for casting an eye over my description of problems with Zoot file-linking. There are so many ways to do (roughly) the same thing in Zoot that it is not always clear which action will achieve what result. The sync-ing with Windows folders does work neatly, though.

I have been usiing Infoselect for a few months now, instead of Zoot.

I used IS for many years when it was a little DOS post-it notes type of program - but very versatile. I re-installed it a few months ago, but can't remember whether I got it to run under XP. In any case I doubt whether it would be much better than a simple Windows two-pane note-taker nowadays. I haven't tried out the IS/Windows version you use, mainly because they don't seem to have a trial version. I like to see what I am getting. It's clear, though, that it has become a much more powerful program. As others have mentioned in this forum, MS-OneNote (the 2007 version) is also looking pretty enticing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_OneNote

Most of my activities are text-based, however. Although we used a lot of photos, tables, graphs, etc. for the last project, I'm not planning another one like that. So while I have looked at other software (e.g., Ultra Recall), RTF and ability to store images internally haven't been priorities. Given my modest requirements Zoot remains a very powerful HQ for information-management - hence my continuing exploration of its linking abilities. I do hanker after an integrated outliner for its editor-pane, however, so even for text-work it has its limitations for my purposes.

Like others here I regularly do the rounds of competing software (CRIMP twinge: IdeaMason looks interesting), but the more often I come back to Zoot and use it again the more I admire it. There is something positively virtuous about its focus on the text...

Derek

Derek

I haven't tried out the IS/Windows version you use, mainly because they don't seem to have a trial version. I
like to see what I am getting. It's clear, though, that it has become a much more powerful program. As others have >mentioned in this forum,

This is a real problem as they expect you to buy the program, and then ask for your money back, if you don't like it. Existing users had to pay for the next version to be allowed to participate in the beta testing of it. The beta serial number being good for the final release. However, the final release has been out for some time now, is two versions on from the last beta, and IS haven't informed any of their beta testers that it is out. The beta auto update just tells you that you are running the latest version, which you are not.

Given my modest requirements Zoot remains a very powerful HQ for information-management - hence my continuing >exploration of its linking abilities.

Working with text there is nothing modest about Zoot's abiities, as I said in my last response, I don't think anything comes close to Zoot for raw power.

Graham

Graham -

>Given my modest requirements

I should have been clearer; I meant "modest" in relation to graphics. I absolutely agree about Zoot's power.

By the way, to my chagrin I found on searching Zoot's archives that I had asked an almost identical question last year about which kinds of file-links/shortcuts are searchable in Zoot. In addition to those created by folder sync-ing, those created by dragging and dropping file names from a file manager on to the Zooter are also searchable.

I realized tonight that both types of file-link have a special file-link icon in the item subject-line. If I had been paying attention to these icons I would have spotted the difference more quickly.

Derek

Derek,

> >Given my modest requirements

I should have been clearer; I meant
"modest" in relation to graphics. I absolutely agree about Zoot's power.

I understand :-)

Graham

Another two-pane PIM with outlining in the right pane is Ovation Outliner, at

http://www.thinkertools.com/NewFiles/ovationProductPage.html .

It appears that developmentceased in 2001.

Another two-pane PIM with outlining in the right pane is TaoNotes at

http://www.taonotes.com/ .

Compendium TA also seems th have this ability at
http://www.compendiumdev.co.uk/compendium-ta/default.php .

Cassius wrote:

Another two-pane PIM with outlining in the right pane is TaoNotes

Not to be confused with TAO, a complex but single-pane Mac outliner

The leading Windows product that can contain "outlines of outlines" is Microsoft OneNote. The top level outlining controls in OneNote 2007 (beta 2) are modest, but considerably improved over OneNote 2003. It is actually possible in OneNote to create outlines of outlines of outlines: ordinary "one-pane" outlining in a 'notes container,' hierarchical organization of those notes containers; and finally the hierarchical organization into subpage, page, section, section group (to any degree), and notebook. The presence of MS OneNote in the market is the avowed reason that at least one developer of a Mac product with outlining of outlining, Circus Ponies NoteBook, admits it will not port to Windows. This at least suggests they don't have something beyond what's available on Windows.

At least when adjustments are made for size, outlining has seemed more popular on the Macintosh, as noted in this thread. My theory - just a speculative guess, really - is that outlining's popularity on the computer depends a lot on the ability to use drag and drop. It took Windows a few iterations to get drag and drop really smooth. And the mouse has traditionally been more important on the Mac; the Apple II, I think, introduced it.

Seeming to refute this theory, however, is another observation - "Mind Mapping" is considerably more developed on Windows than on the Mac. But then, mind maps are very easy drag targets. So the Windows lag in elegant drag and drop editing might have encouraged the development of the mind mapping alternative on Windows.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

The presence of MS OneNote in the market is the avowed reason
that at least one developer of a Mac product with outlining of outlining, Circus
Ponies NoteBook, admits it will not port to Windows. This at least suggests they don't
have something beyond what's available on Windows.

I've never spoken with Circus Ponies, but I'd guess the real reason is they leverage so many Mac-specific technologies that it would be a major rewrite to bring it to Windows. And then to have to compete with Microsoft after all that work? While neglecting their Mac customer base (because it's a rewrite that would have a different code base)?

I don't know a really good cross-platform success story in this area. Certainly Dyno Notepad didn't reach anything near the success of its Mac counterpart.

My theory - just a speculative guess, really - is that outlining's popularity
on the computer depends a lot on the ability to use drag and drop.

You wouldn't know it based on the requests I got for more keyboard support during the development of Opal...

Cassius -

Thanks for the links to TaoNotes and Ovation. It's encouraging to find these. I'll take a look.

Derek

Stephen -

Funnily enough I was playing around with the idea this evening of how useful it would be to be able to re-model Zoot's item-grid as a hierarchical tree instead of a list - as well as providing the notes-editor with outlining capabilities (something I have wanted for a long time.

Essentially this would give Zoot "outlines of outlines of outlines". Although there is the danger of adding features for features sake, users could continue to use the editor for simple notes, and the item-grid for simple lists of items. As you point out in relation to OneNote, such features offer the user many options for organizing and manipulating data.

Derek

One cavaet regarding Ovation: It hasn't been updated in five years. I suspect development has ceased.

Steve Z.

Derek Cornish wrote:

Cassius -

Thanks for the links to TaoNotes and Ovation. It's encouraging to find
these. I'll take a look.

Derek

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

The presence of MS OneNote in the market is the avowed reason
that at least one developer of a Mac product with outlining of outlining, Circus
Ponies NoteBook, admits it will not port to Windows. This at least suggests they don't
have something beyond what's available on Windows.

I agree with your observation that OneNote scares off developers of competing outlining products for the Windows platform. It has always been this way in so many areas of software -- Ecco for instance was killed only a year after the debut of Outlook because NetManage saw the writing on the wall.

However, your conclusion about Circus Ponies NoteBook not having anything beyond what OneNote offers, feature-wise, is not correct. The two products use entirely different metaphors. NoteBook is a pure outlining app, whereas OneNote is an "arrange boxes on the page" app, where some of the boxes may contain outlines. The former product is highly structured, the latter is more loosely structured, and they would appeal to different users. This sounds like a minor distinction, but it isn't. OneNote isn't really suitable for the type of collapse/expand outlining most of us outliner fanatics do (unless one restricts oneself to a single box), because as you expand and collapse outline items, you may need more or less space further on down the page, causing other boxes to shift around, or requiring you to use the "add space" tool. I may not have explained this clearly, but the distinctions between OneNote and traditional outliners are pretty obvious after using OneNote for a while. Circus Ponies Notebook (and its sister product, Aquaminds NoteTaker) is also a more mature product, feature-wise, having been actively developed for a lot longer (since the NeXT days).

I don't even consider the two products to be aimed at the same target market, really. The closest OneNote competitor on the Mac is a product called ZenGobi Curio, which uses a similar "boxes on the page" freeform notetaking concept.

That said, there's probably no question that OneNote's shadow has a chilling effect on outline software developers for Windows. It's hard to explain to average customers how your product is different, except by targeting specific vertical markets as NoteMap has done.

At least when adjustments are
made for size, outlining has seemed more popular on the Macintosh, as noted in this
thread. My theory - just a speculative guess, really - is that outlining's popularity
on the computer depends a lot on the ability to use drag and drop. It took Windows a few
iterations to get drag and drop really smooth. And the mouse has traditionally been
more important on the Mac; the Apple II, I think, introduced it.

There certainly is more good outlining software right now for OS X. I think it has more to do with the type of users who gravitate towards the platform (writers, university researchers, etc.) but also with the fact that no single leader has emerged, capable of crushing the competition. Vibrant competition gets more users introduced to outlining, willing to explore what software is out there. All the competitors have different spins on what an outliner should be, and that's a good thing in my view. It's great to compare Opal, OmniOutliner, and TAO (unrelated to the Windows TAO) for example, seeing where each developer chose to concentrate resources.

Steve -

Once I'd downloaded it I realised that I had trialled it about 2-3 years ago. Although it looks like a two-pane outliner with single-pane outlining in the rhs "notes" pane, the lhs pane isn't in fact a conventional tree pane. Instead it is used for storing "tags" - bookmarks and so on.

As you say, it looks abandoned - as though it stalled sometime in its early development.

Derek

Once I’d downloaded it I realised that I had trialled it about 2-3 years ago.

Whoops! Should have mentioned the name - Ovation Outliner.

Here's another, free, 2-pane PIM that appears to have a tree-type outliner in the right pane. Also produces flow charts.

TeeTree at http://www.steema.com/products/teetree/office/features.html .

Thanks Cassius. I've been looking for a simple flowcharter for a project I'm doing. I'll check it out.

Derek

So, this thread seems to point to some action after all as regards outlines of outlines, which is encouraging; but few with powerful enough editing pane outlining. Still it's good to see that the concept is being actively developed. It may be that the development of outlining and "lists of lists" tools for Palms and PPCs, which is leading to a corresponding growth of more powerful outlining tools on the desktop, will continue to spur this tendency. Alternatively, OneNote 2007 may kill it all off....

Even though their current outlining features need developing further, both Liquid Story Binder (for fiction) and IdeaMason (for non-fiction) show the importance of trying to integrate outlining, aka plotting or argument-development, within comprehensive writing environments.

Tighter integration between programs is becoming another option, as the discussion of Ultra Recall and Word showed (and, elsewhere on the forum, that of Whizfolders with information-management programs).

It's only a personal preference, but since I think of outlining as idea manipulation (hardly an original observation :-)), I'd still like to see it as an integral part of an information-management program rather than "tacked on" so to speak.

Derek

Chris Thompson wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

However, your conclusion about Circus Ponies NoteBook not
having anything beyond what OneNote offers, feature-wise, is not correct. The two
products use entirely different metaphors. NoteBook is a pure outlining app,
whereas OneNote is an "arrange boxes on the page" app, where some of the boxes may
contain outlines.

The way I look at it, the ability to have various containers on the page is a feature. If NoteBook lacks this feature, it remains true that NoteBook offers nothing _beyond_ what OneNote offers. OneNote does not require you to arrange boxes on the page; it simply provides that capability. The user is free to limit his pages to a single big box, or a single small box, for that matter. NoteBokk doesn't get to claim more features by calling the absence of a feature a feature.


The former product is highly structured, the latter is more

loosely structured, and they would appeal to different users. This sounds like a
minor distinction, but it isn't. OneNote isn't really suitable for the type of
collapse/expand outlining most of us outliner fanatics do (unless one restricts
oneself to a single box), because as you expand and collapse outline items, you may
need more or less space further on down the page, causing other boxes to shift around,
or requiring you to use the "add space" tool.

You seem to be making the case that multiple boxes imposes limitations on structuring. Even though the user is bound to use them, I think this point could conceivably have been valid - in the past. Where OneNote's format imposed limitations on structuring, it could be argued that its willingness to countenance these limits portends a development trajectory limiting its outlining power.

So what would you say if I told you that OneNote 2007 has eliminated the need to use "add extra space," and the ability to expand and contract headings works with complete smoothness? That expand and contract has even been added to the outliner toolbar available within MS OneNote? Because this happens to be the case.


I may not have explained this clearly, but

the distinctions between OneNote and traditional outliners are pretty obvious
after using OneNote for a while. Circus Ponies Notebook (and its sister product,
Aquaminds NoteTaker) is also a more mature product, feature-wise, having been
actively developed for a lot longer (since the NeXT days).

I'm not sure if you are using "sister product" in an idiosyncratic sense or you are unaware of the history. The two products emerged from a rift in a former partnership. Enmity runs deep, if one reviews the CircusPonies boards, although the former partners may deny it. What this tangled history means for the products' developmental maturity--which hopefully runs higher than some of the developers' personal maturity--is something else. From what I know of the products, I would tentatively disagree about their comparative maturity, which shouldn't be measured in years, unless maybe man-years applied, adjusted for competence. From what I've seen, I would not even compare the competence of CircusPonies with the Microsoft programmers who developed OneNote.

I don't even consider the
two products to be aimed at the same target market, really. The closest OneNote
competitor on the Mac is a product called ZenGobi Curio, which uses a similar "boxes on
the page" freeform notetaking concept.

Well, you are taking one feature, which seems particularly important or salient to you for reasons I don't completely understand, and making it the final measured of similarity, for no good reason that I can discern. If you want to know where the product is directed, one should probably look at who the marketing is directed toward. Both OneNote and the NoteBook/NoteTaker twins seem to be marketed toward mobile professionals. OneNote more so, with an emphasis on the tablet PC. The Mac products try to be more all-encompassing, with their talk of "digital lifestyle," but the main distinct group targeted (particularly AquaMinds NoteTaker) is the "knowledge worker" that OneNote tries to appeal to.

From what I've seen of OneNote users, they are not generally inclined to do much moving of note containers around on the page. They do like the ability to write anywhere one the page, to combine drawing with writing, and to move freely between outlining, paragraphs, and tables. Curio makes much more of moving notes around than OneNote, and it has a very distinct marketing and feature focus on project management. It would probably be in a better position to compete on Windows, because of its distinct program management niche, as a simpler program than Microsoft Project. NoteBook and NoteTaker would slam right into OneNote and lose, not because of MS's marketing muscle but because they aren't nearly as good. Just my opinion...