Outliner program ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Fitzsimons
  • Start date Start date
J

John Fitzsimons

Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
...................(1) this
...................(2) that
...................(3) the other.
........................ ...(3a) more
............................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?

Regards, John.
 
John said:
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?

Regards, John.
Click to expand...

Notetaking programs:
http://www.pricelessware.org/thelist/org.htm#Organizer: Notes

Dick Kistler
 
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?
Click to expand...
Keynote

http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html
 
John said:
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?
Click to expand...

Ecco is what I use for outlines. It may not be as small as you'd like,
but it sure beats Word.

http://www.scaevola.com/eccobasics/
 
John said:
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?

Regards, John.
Click to expand...
TreePad is small (fits on a floppy together with data file)and quick.
http://www.treepad.com/
 
Mike said:
Keynote
http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html
Click to expand...

Keynote is not a real text outliner, it is a treeview organiser.
There are many such tree-view organisers which are called outline
editors.

The outline editor in PC-Tools, versions 5 and higher, that was a really
good text outline editor. (It is not freeware, it is 10 years old and
very difficult to find, and it will probably crash the computer if you
tried running it under windows.)

The outline view in MS Word is very similar and has even better
features, but unfortunately it can not save the result as clean text
files with the outline formatting preserved, which makes it useless for
people who do not want all the extra stuff in MS Word file format.
(my experience is with MS Word 97, later versions may work differently)

I have not tried Ecco enough to know how it works, but I know that it
may take some time to install, you may need to let it take an hour or so
during the install. It looks like the install routine has crashed, but
it is only taking very long time.
 
Roger Johansson said:
Keynote is not a real text outliner, it is a treeview organiser.
There are many such tree-view organisers which are called outline
editors.

The outline editor in PC-Tools, versions 5 and higher, that was a really
good text outline editor. (It is not freeware, it is 10 years old and
very difficult to find, and it will probably crash the computer if you
tried running it under windows.)

The outline view in MS Word is very similar and has even better
features, but unfortunately it can not save the result as clean text
files with the outline formatting preserved, which makes it useless for
people who do not want all the extra stuff in MS Word file format.
(my experience is with MS Word 97, later versions may work differently)

I have not tried Ecco enough to know how it works, but I know that it
may take some time to install, you may need to let it take an hour or so
during the install. It looks like the install routine has crashed, but
it is only taking very long time.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Ecco installer has the annoying feature that it searches
your hard drive for previous Ecco installations. It must look at
every file. This is the same for both 16 and 32 bit versions.
Other than that it is a good program, although more of a PIM
than an outliner.

Dick Kistler
 
Keynote is not a real text outliner, it is a treeview organiser.
There are many such tree-view organisers which are called outline
editors. [snip]
The outline view in MS Word is very similar and has even better
features, but unfortunately it can not save the result as clean text
files with the outline formatting preserved, which makes it useless for
people who do not want all the extra stuff in MS Word file format.
(my experience is with MS Word 97, later versions may work differently)
Click to expand...

This is interesting. I did not realise that there were text outliners that
did not use a treeview. These would be much more useful to me.

It would be interesting to find a modern one that worked in Windows. Given
the amount of effort put into the scores of regular text editors out there,
it should not be too much to ask.
 
Iain said:
This is interesting. I did not realise that there were text outliners that
did not use a treeview. These would be much more useful to me.

It would be interesting to find a modern one that worked in Windows. Given
the amount of effort put into the scores of regular text editors out there,
it should not be too much to ask.
Click to expand...

I have been looking for a plain text outline editor for many years, and
have not found any. I really liked the PC-Tools outline editor but
PC-Tools could not be used under windows so I had to abandon it when I
moved over from DOS to Windows.

It is surprising because it cannot be too hard to achieve.
I even tried to write one myself once, in rapidq basic, but I didn't
have the energy, and enough programming skills, to continue the project.

Such an editor would need buttons for promoting and demoting (PC-Tools
terminology) selected text chunks and sublevels. It should have the fast
buttons to show a selected number of levels, these buttons can be seen
in MS Word outline view. It should use tabs or spaces to indent text
lines, user options for tabs or spaces and the preferred number of
spaces for each tab.
It must be able to open outlined plain text files as well as creating
them, maybe converting tabs to-or-from spaces and cleaning up,
standardizing the file, making all white space consistent with the
preferred settings.

There are a few folding editors, which is a similar idea, but a folding
editor is not as easy and simple to use as an outline editor, and not
compatible with the plain text file format.
 
I have been looking for a plain text outline editor for many years,
and have not found any.
Click to expand...

Well please let us know when you do. Maybe this should be added to the
Freeware Wishlist?

http://home.att.net/~willowbrookemill/freewarewishlist.html
There are a few folding editors, which is a similar idea, but a
folding editor is not as easy and simple to use as an outline editor,
and not compatible with the plain text file format.
Click to expand...

Do you mean with a treeview, like Treepad? If so, I agree with the
limitations.
 
Iain said:
Well please let us know when you do. Maybe this should be added to the
Freeware Wishlist?

http://home.att.net/~willowbrookemill/freewarewishlist.html
Click to expand...

Yes, it should.
Do you mean with a treeview, like Treepad? If so, I agree with the
limitations.
Click to expand...

It is unclear if you ask about what a folding editor is.

A folding editor allows hiding of sections of text, each hidden section
is represented by a single text line when the section is closed, usually
used as a title/description of the content of the hidden section.

If it allows more than one level of folding it can be used in a similar
way to an outline text editor, but it does not give the clear visual
overview an outline editor gives.

Folding editors are sometimes used by programmers so subroutines can be
hidden to show a clear overview of the higher levels of programming.
 
The current version of the Freeware Wish List is here:

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/acf/FreewareWishList.htm
Yes, it should.
Click to expand...

I know there is some freeware that can do outlining.

Is "plain text outine editor" the request? Write the description and
I'll add it to the page.
It is unclear if you ask about what a folding editor is.

A folding editor allows hiding of sections of text, each hidden section
is represented by a single text line when the section is closed, usually
used as a title/description of the content of the hidden section.

If it allows more than one level of folding it can be used in a similar
way to an outline text editor, but it does not give the clear visual
overview an outline editor gives.

Folding editors are sometimes used by programmers so subroutines can be
hidden to show a clear overview of the higher levels of programming.
Click to expand...

Susan
 
John Fitzsimons said:
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?

Regards, John.
Click to expand...

I found this one the other day: http://www.quickoutliner.com/
 
Susan said:
Is "plain text outine editor" the request? Write the description and
I'll add it to the page.
Click to expand...

A plain text outline editor.
Like the outline view in MS Word, but for plain text file format.

Nowadays the expression "outline editor" is often used for treeview
collection systems like Keynote or Treepad, this is not what is wanted
here.

A plain text outline editor should work with plain text file format.
It should have functions for moving text blocks to the right and to the
left one step, using the Tab key and Shift-Tab.
User settings for using tabs or spaces to indent the text, settings for
number of spaces per tab.

It should have the possibility to quickly change the number of levels
shown, like it is done in MS Word for example, with buttons for
different levels.
It should be able to use fonts like Times New Roman and settings for
font size and background color, etc..

It should have a cleaning up routine which can be used when loading text
files. The cleaning up involves standardizing the tabs or spaces in the
whole or part of the document, setting the number of spaces used to
replace each tab, changing an irregular number of spaces into the number
the user wants to use to differentiate between different levels.

The outline editor in old PC-Tools from Central Point can also be used
as an example of what an outline editor looks like, if you can find it.

Extra functions like clickable url:s to start external clients would be
nice too.
 
John Fitzsimons said:
Hi,

I haven't used one of these programs but I think they are called
"outliners". What I want to be able to do is have a list like ;

Topic A
Topic B
Topic C

and then be able to click on any of those eg. B and see the sub
categories. Maybe even the sub sub categories ? Like this ;

Topic A
Topic B
..................(1) this
..................(2) that
..................(3) the other.
....................... ...(3a) more
...........................(3b) even more
Topic C

IIRC this can be done in things like "Word" but I wanted something
very small, quick, efficient, that will do the same thing.

What would people here suggest please ?

Regards, John.
Click to expand...



John, I think at one time *YOU* recommended TreePad to me and now I can
recommend it back to you. :-)
 
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:33:27 +1000, John Fitzsimons wrote:

[Chapterwise text folding program]

SciTe is on the way to your needs. Customizable text folding is on
the to-do-list. Up to the day this is done: You can use the Python
folding method on arbitrary text files. To prepare your text files
you have to insert tabs on each line. First text level means no
tab, second has one tab, and so on.

I recommend using the compact SC1 manifestation of SciTe:

http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTEDownload.html

Dokumentation is here:

http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTEDoc.html

If you want samples to manipulate the configuration files (maybe
to switch of coloring for Python) you should prefer the full
download, though.

HTH.
BeAr
 
A plain text outline editor should work with plain text file format.
It should have functions for moving text blocks to the right and to the
left one step, using the Tab key and Shift-Tab.
User settings for using tabs or spaces to indent the text, settings for
number of spaces per tab.
Click to expand...
[Snipped more wishes]

I think, SciTe does most (if not all) you wish in Python mode. Look inside
the original thread. I've replied there.

BeAr
 
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