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General Software Discussion / Re: Outline 4D >>50% off sale<< (only $50)
« Last post by IainB on November 19, 2014, 07:26 PM »Out of interest, I ran a quick trial of the Write Brothers software Outline 4D in March 2014, and came to the conclusion that it was a potentially very useful tool for writers.
However, as it was well-designed to focus on its purpose as a tool to aid the writing process, it was thus relatively rather constrained (by its technology) for other uses - e.g., not being able to usefully capture forms of input data other than text.
So, if one wanted to use it as a general-purpose tool for PIM or note-making, it was probably not sufficiently comprehensive (at least, not for my needs).
The timeline idea seemed pretty nifty - for writers. I was considering getting it for just that (timeline) as it had potential use as an analysis tool for mapping the actors involved and the sequence of correspondence and actions in a complex legal case, but then I discovered that that was where its technology constrained it, so I abandoned the idea and used MS OneNote instead, which latter effectively cost me next to nothing and enabled OLE and integration with MS Office, etc. (which better met my peculiar requirements).
Otherwise, it seemed well-designed for its purpose. The Write Brothers software includes what looked like some other rather good software for writing/scripting (in the sense of scripts for plays/films/TV).
However, as it was well-designed to focus on its purpose as a tool to aid the writing process, it was thus relatively rather constrained (by its technology) for other uses - e.g., not being able to usefully capture forms of input data other than text.
So, if one wanted to use it as a general-purpose tool for PIM or note-making, it was probably not sufficiently comprehensive (at least, not for my needs).
The timeline idea seemed pretty nifty - for writers. I was considering getting it for just that (timeline) as it had potential use as an analysis tool for mapping the actors involved and the sequence of correspondence and actions in a complex legal case, but then I discovered that that was where its technology constrained it, so I abandoned the idea and used MS OneNote instead, which latter effectively cost me next to nothing and enabled OLE and integration with MS Office, etc. (which better met my peculiar requirements).
Otherwise, it seemed well-designed for its purpose. The Write Brothers software includes what looked like some other rather good software for writing/scripting (in the sense of scripts for plays/films/TV).
Here in the states we would call that a sleeper - It doesn't look like much, until the light turns green...and then it's too late. I'm a huge fan of Sleepers. 
