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Text outliner/organiser/editor
Dormouse:
Ultra Recall will allow for the first - Show Combined Text for Multiple Selections - but may not meet your second criteria.-ashwken (April 03, 2008, 11:19 AM)
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Right on both counts. And the price for the Professional version is a bit stiff for what is a tiny part of the program's functionality.
Ideally, I'd be able to add little yellow stickies too that would stick to the bit of the document I put them on.-Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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And it effectively does this with its note function. :)
It doesn't seem the cleanest designed or most elegant program, and has an older MSOffice type interface, and has FAR more functions than I want out of it (I can't see me giving up OneNote OR Evernote), but it does do this job when none of the programs I expected to do it have been able to.
And $99 does seem a lot of money. >:(
But, I notice that it has been on Bitsdujour a few times with a 62% discount. :)
I'd certainly buy it at that price - and will probably wait for it to happen again. 8)
Thanks a lot. :up:
PPLandry:
As you said, SQLNotes could be used for this. Basically, create a new grid and start entering your outline. Whenever you want to add body text, simply enter it (or drag/drop) in the HTML pane. You can get a combined view by doing an HTML Export (settings mode). You can export the bodies with the outline or without (i.e. just the combined bodies). You can add a tag column to the grid to easily tag outline items (or use the properties pane to do the same thing). You can then search/filter on tags (or date for a toilet paper like view)
Improvements to come (as soon as someone requests it)
1- Toggle between sub-items and body content: often one starts by putting content in the outline (as sub-items) to make the creation process more fluid. With this feature, one-click could move the content from the outline to the item body and back (both use HTML so simple formatting will be preserved)
2- HTML pane to show a combined view of all items enabling editing while preserving the outline. See this thread on outlinersoftware for details: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/680
3- View the body as a sub-item: Body (entered in the HTML pane) could be shown as the first sub-item of an item.
Armando:
Why do I not want to use Word? Well, it is just too slow and big and cumbersome for something that is fundamentally simple. I don't need all the formatting and collaborating etc etc functions for this task. I've given up actually typing in Word for the same reason. It's like going out to play tennis in an overcoat and waterproof. That's the first reason.
-Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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OK, I didn’t know you didn’t want to use word… But, regarding slowness etc., I wonder what are your computer specs like because on my computers (even on my other more than 6 years old laptop) MS Word 2003 is never really slow... and I have some pretty damn big documents going well over 600 pages, with tables, pictures, etc. Of all the word processors available Word 2003 (NOT 2007) is the one that handles huge documents the most gracefully. It’s not perfect, but I found others to be slower. And regarding formatting etc., I don’t care too much if Word has all kinds of options I rarely use; they’re just there and I generally don’t use them, and if I do happen to need them, I’m usually quite happy they’re there -- eg : one feature that I use A LOT in my own papers is the “comments” feature. I can’t imagine that a writer could live without some ways of inserting notes in his/her writing (and I see that this is one of the features you’re looking for).
(BTW PageFour is a great software. But the feature set wasn’t enough for me to justify buying it. There are also software that are better at Outlining IMO.)
I think the basic problem is that Word confounds the use of headings with the idea of outlining. -Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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You’re right, but only 3/4 right in a way ;) since you can easily have “headings” that won’t be shown in the outline/map — the “only” problem is that I don’t think that you’d be able to have "outline headings" that would be invisible in the actual document.
Ideally, I'd be able to add little yellow stickies too that would stick to the bit of the document I put them on. And tagging (and the ability to select and cut and paste by tag would be good - something I've not yet managed in OneNote) + the usual highlighting and comments options. But just the fast simple bit would do.-Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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Yes. Like I said In MS Word, for other organizing purpose I use notes (comments) abundantly. And I there’s one thing that I love about the way comment are managed in words and NOT in other word Processors : you can have them in the “reviewing pane” at the bottom of the window (and not in bubbles in the margin…. yuk)
I don't find the document map especially helpful because you can't do anything with it except look and navigate around the document. -Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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Yes. But, as you know, you just need to switch between Outline view and Print view when you need to move stuff around. It’s not exactly as smooth as in an outliner (I’m always afraid that bits of texts won’t follow the sections moves…) but it works pretty well.
I do use OO - and maybe I ought to try how well it does outlining, but somehow I doubt if it will be better.-Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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IMO OO.org’s outlining is not bad at all. It’s just not as good as Word’s…
The reason I want to see the bodytext alone while I am working is that is what the final copy will look like. I will just be confused by having headings appear inside paragraphs. And really this is a task I want to be able to focus my concentration on without distractions on the screen.-Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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That’s a good point. I confess that I’ve just “learned” to live with the “should be invisible” headings in my texts! But it would certainly be more convenient to be able to make them disappear when they’re not necessary. SQLnotes would probably allow to hide or see the actual “item titles”(or even hide some levels) and just see the what’s in the body or the HtmlPane in the html export. I just haven’t tried… yet. (But I’ll keep discussion about SQLnotes features etc. for the SQLnotes thread… ;) )
I'm not convinced that OneNote will be better for this than Word. Possibly just different advantages and disadvantages. -Dormouse (April 03, 2008, 01:02 PM)
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I’ve tried using OneNote and I still wonder what “everybody” loves so much about it. True : its interface is very pleasing, it works well with tablet PCs, it can be used for many other things other than just writing documents, etc.
I’ve really tried using and liking it, but I dislike the way it stores the data, and I find it way more complicated to use than Word for big document structures — all these sections, section groups, pages, etc. wow : flat view, anybody ? where’s that feature? How do you get that “unified view” of all the data in a notebook? I also find it much less powerful than other solutions for storing, structuring and filtering all kinds of data. A lot of people that I respect tremendously here in DC swear by it though… so it must be VERY good for certain people. I probably didn’t try to use it for the right stuff.
Ultra Recall will allow for the first - Show Combined Text for Multiple Selections - but may not meet your second criteria.
-ashwken (April 03, 2008, 11:19 AM)
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When I tested Ultra Recall a while ago, I was interested in that feature too (Show Combined Text for Multiple Selections) and it was a big deception. Not too sexy formatting wise, and I hated the whole process of importing my documents in Ultra recall. Also, exporting the unified view, if I recall correctly (ahem) was also not an easy task. I think I never succeeded! Other Ultra Recall longtime users could probably say more though…
I think Ultra Recall was one of the last thing I tried before coming back to Word… (and Outlook for my task, calendar, etc.!)
Too bad Ecco Pro died ten years ago. It was the greatest note and outliner app ever. Why no one ever coded something similar I'll never know.
-zridling (April 03, 2008, 09:35 AM)
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I personally prefer SQLNotes by far. And, following Pierre’s (PPLandry) post , I’ll end by saying that SQLNotes will probably be what I’ll be using for the kind of task you’re describing — it could potentially do everything that Word does, but with much better Outlining, great tagging, and the possibility to indefinitely reorganize, clone, split, etc. information. I’m just waiting for the coming MS word integration and the 3 features Pierre just presented ! :)) (Pierre… ; Here’s the request you're looking for ;) ) Of course, only after trying to use SQLnotes to structure long documents in real life situations will I be able to say for sure whether it’s my preferred solution… (I already use SQLnotes for very different tasks… But for a long document, I’d currently miss the “unified view feature” — yes it’d probably be possible to export as html, but… I sometimes need that view as I work and play with the structure.
(PS … And there’s one thing that I find hard to find in any Outliner but that’s sooooo convenient when I write in Word : zoom Out/zoom in.)
Dormouse:
create a new grid and start entering your outline. Whenever you want to add body text, simply enter it (or drag/drop) in the HTML pane. -PPLandry (April 03, 2008, 05:50 PM)
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Yes, this worked fine.
You can get a combined view by doing an HTML Export (settings mode). You can export the bodies with the outline or without (i.e. just the combined bodies). You can add a tag column to the grid to easily tag outline items (or use the properties pane to do the same thing). You can then search/filter on tags (or date for a toilet paper like view)-PPLandry (April 03, 2008, 05:50 PM)
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I didn't manage this. Didn't work out the HTML Export (settings mode); I'm sure it will be easy enough when I get into the available info/forums etc.
I promise I have every intention of giving some serious time to getting into SQLnotes at some point. It still feels a bit big for this task, and I'd also want to change the grid positions, colours etc. I might wait for developments on the Word front. It certainly feels as if SQLnotes will be very useful once I understand it (and even better once it is fully developed).
All the extra suggested features seemed good.
Dormouse:
Armando - I did write a detailed response, but it disappeared when I carelessly brushed against a key that closed the browser. I determined then to decide on a text editor (with autosave & outlining) that I'd use for most letters, posts, reports etc before I started on it again.
Went back through those I'd already looked at and also some I hadn't tried before. I discovered that TreeDBNotes (free version) is nicely configurable as an editor AND has the facility to do what I wanted in the first place - a two pane outliner/text editor with a hierarchical outline tree on the left and a text pane on the right. With the ability to see all the text from selected nodes together - either in the text pane or another. And the ability to re-order the tree using drag and drop. :D :D :D
Also noticed that the Pro version had been on GAOTD last year ;D
I'll get back to the response soon.
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