Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

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

<< < (3/4) > >>

superboyac:
Man, I've been able to use Outline 4D in "production" now for a bit...I am loving it, holy cow!  I'm using it as my basic project manager, and it's working out perfectly.  I'm very amazed actually...all those outliners, PM tools, etc., I've tried (and lord knows I've tried them all) and this is the one that is hyper-intuitive for me.

You know what the secret to me is?  I think it's the fact that I can print it and it basically looks just like what I'm doing on the screen.  That's been a HUGE complaint of mine over the years as I've tried project management tools.  They look great on the screen, but printing or exporting is a huge pain and the end product I ended up taking to meetings and such looked awful compared to the meticulous effort I spent organizing the items and making them look good.  And it's an excellent outliner to boot.  Fantastic tool.  This and Scapple have blown me away this year as far as actual productivity goes.  Maybe I just think like a writer or something...they're both meant for screenwriting, lol!   I've never written anything!!  Just goes to show...something, I don't know.  ;D

IainB:
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).

40hz:
^I think a lot of it depends on how structured your usual thought process is. 4D is usually my first choice whenever I'm taking on a new project since I'm a list maker and schema creator by nature. If you think in terms of (for lack of a better term) outline structure (I do!) 4D can be used for many things beyond just writing. What it doesn't do well is act as a junk drawer for snippets and things you grab from other sources. Or obviously lend itself to the 'free association' or 'serendip' thought processes. Although it can. At least IMO.

Fortunately, there are other tools designed to do exactly that.

I personally don't find OneNote's paradigm or approach all that useful. Probably because I don't really 'grok' it. But that's me. ;D

IainB:
^^ Yes, I quite agree. 4D is a great tool, though I personally would probably not use it for a project outline as I would (usually) get stuck into MS Project (or similar) for that sort of work - i.e., a critical path analysis Gantt/PERT tool.
MS OneNote certainly wouldn't be my first choice for that sort of work (project outlining), for similar reasons as you give.
The constraints I saw in 4D:
"...relatively rather constrained (by its technology) for other uses - e.g., not being able to usefully capture forms of input data other than text. ...) ... not sufficiently comprehensive (at least, not for my needs)"

--- End quote ---
- had little bearing on its fitness-for-purpose as a rather nifty writing tool (whatever you were wanting to write, structured or unstructured).

I would wish that OneNote had such features as 4D integrated into it. I liked it so much that I nearly bought the thing last March "just in case" I might be able to make good use of it later.   :-[

dr_andus:
Man, I've been able to use Outline 4D in "production" now for a bit...I am loving it, holy cow!  I'm using it as my basic project manager, and it's working out perfectly.
-superboyac (November 19, 2014, 04:27 PM)
--- End quote ---

Are you referring to the outline view or the timeline view (or both)?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page