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Outline 4D >>50% off sale<< (only $50)

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superboyac:
http://www.screenplay.com/p-77-outline-4d.aspx

Outline 4D has a 50% sale going on right, so the price goes down from $100 to $50.  Good deal if you ask me!  Pointed out here by 40hz, it might be my preferred tool for organizing just about any multi-layered idea/outline, but it's mainly intended for screenwriting I guess.

Dormouse:
For some reason, I'd never come across this one before. Maybe because I'd always preferred the idea of outliners with a minimum of 2 panes. But quite intriguing with the timeline feature,and I can see how it might be a good environment for actually writing.

But a strange and unusual program compared to others which mostly look and work in ways I am familiar with. Thanks also to Dr Andus for his reviews and comments.

Limited trial though,and it seems as if it can be complex and will take longer to get properly into trialling it, even for people who are faster than me. So probably best to decide to jump in or not.  :-\

dr_andus:
Outline 4D has a 50% sale going on right, so the price goes down from $100 to $50.  Good deal if you ask me!  Pointed out here by 40hz, it might be my preferred tool for organizing just about any multi-layered idea/outline, but it's mainly intended for screenwriting I guess.
-superboyac (September 18, 2014, 05:25 PM)
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Yes, that's the lowest price I've seen. Beware though that this software is no longer being developed and it's quite ancient. It's a repackaged version of StoryView, which was released in 1999, I think, and it hasn't seen many updates since then. Having said that, in many respects it's still the most full-featured single-pane outliner with inline notes out there. I don't know of another outliner that would have as many different options to visualise an outline (some examples here).

It's generally good for longer pieces of any kind of writing (5-10k words), not just screenwriting (although that's its marketing positioning).

For some reason, I'd never come across this one before. Maybe because I'd always preferred the idea of outliners with a minimum of 2 panes. But quite intriguing with the timeline feature,and I can see how it might be a good environment for actually writing.
-Dormouse (September 20, 2014, 07:05 AM)
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There are some distinct advantages to single-pane outliners for certain types of writing tasks, such as being able to see the text above and below the node that you're writing, while also seeing the rest of the outline.

However, I don't think the "Timeline View" feature works too well. If you're interested in "horizontal" outlining (writing in adjacent linked columns), as opposed to "vertical" outlining, then I'd recommend Gingko App for that, or even Freeplane. Here is my Gingko review/mini tutorial, if that's of interest.

Dormouse:
I've now had a closer look at O4D and played with it a bit.
I can now remember investigating it before and discounting it then on the basis of its age and abandonment. Now its quite a few years older, and longer abandoned - but much cheaper. And I have never been put of buying a program because it is no longer being developed, if it will do what I want now. Seems to use only a limited number of RTF features - no tables, no images - but it is quite a nice environment for writing and I find the timeline feature quite helpful, though I don't think I use it in the way that the writers expect. But then, I'm not a screenwriter.

My favourite writing environment remains TreeDBNotes - also largely frozen in time, but then virtually all outliners seem to be - but O4D seems to help more with keeping the mass of a really long text in the mind; or so I anticipate. But it doesn't help keep info, sources etc available in the way that Scrivener and TreeDB can. But very easy to use for the pure writing.

While I was looking around, I also found that Aeon Timeline had finally made its way to Windows, so that was an extra, and unexpected, gain. :)

However, I don't think the "Timeline View" feature works too well. If you're interested in "horizontal" outlining (writing in adjacent linked columns), as opposed to "vertical" outlining, then I'd recommend Gingko App for that, or even Freeplane. Here is my Gingko review/mini tutorial, if that's of interest.
-dr_andus (September 20, 2014, 09:27 AM)
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I had a quick look at Gingko but anything that relies on web access will too often be inaccessible for me to rely on.
I have Freeplane, but never found myself using it that much. Has always felt a bit fiddly, but I've only felt I needed mindmaps every now and then and just use the program that seems to give the best presentation for what I have in mind at the time.

Also looked at the rest of your workflow and ConnectedText. But CT seems to be too much keyboard for me to cope with, and, for some reason, I've never tended to get on well with wikis. I will probably go on relying on Evernote, OneNote and TreeDB for these functions (and SearchEverything). And I can see that I will just do more and more in Evernote. It requires no thought, allows me to do virtually everything with the mouse, is easy to dump everything into it and I could organise it if I wanted to.

dr_andus:
And I have never been put of buying a program because it is no longer being developed, if it will do what I want now.
-Dormouse (September 21, 2014, 05:06 AM)
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Sure, it's still a very capable program, I just mentioned it as people may rightly expect it to be developed for that sort of money. Other than a couple of bugs here and there (which can crash the app), and the need to bypass UAC and run it in XP mode, it works generally fine on my Win7, 64bit PC. I make sure to save regularly, so never lost any content.

Seems to use only a limited number of RTF features - no tables, no images-Dormouse (September 21, 2014, 05:06 AM)
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Also, when you open the RTF export in MS Word, the headings are not automatically recognised. For this reason it's a good idea to set up a template with different formatting for each level of heading in O4D, and then in MS Word you can use the "find text with similar formatting" tool and apply the heading levels manually.

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