Too many text editors, text storage, outliners out there

fcchuan - 10:40am Oct 30, 2007 PST

I have a big rant about having too many text editors/text storage methods.

Does anyone else feel that there are already too many ways to take notes? I mean, when I want to make notes, or summarise a paper, I have to mentally weigh the advantages and disadvantages of taking notes using different applications.

Leopard itself has Stickies, TexEdit, and now Mail.app wants to do it too. iLife brings Pages. Office brings Word: and the MacBU has been emphasising its note-taking ability in the last version.

Then there are highly regarded outliners like OmniOutliner, Mori, Acta, CircusPonies NoteBook. Other one-trick ponies like Voodoopad, SubthaEdit, Missing Sync's notebook. Text "storage" areas like DevonThink, and Notebook.

Then there are the more garden-variety text editors like TextWrangler, Tex-Edit Plus, TexMate.

There's also graphical mind-mapping software like Novamind.

I'm annoyed that when I'm in OmniOutliner, I can't draw tables (use Pages or Word instead). I can take a screenshot of a table from Word/Pages, but then I have a save a separate file.

I'm annoyed that I can't draw arrows between points or scribble on the sheet (use Keynote, or PowerPoint, or mindmap software).

I'm annoyed that when I want to draw tables, I have to consider whether it's going to be a big big one, in which case, Excel or Numbers may handle better than Word or Pages.

I'm annoyed that NoteBook allows highlighting directly, in different colours. As does Word. While OmniOutliner allows it by changing some styles (for each colour), and using hotkeys. But Pages doesn't.

I"m annoyed that if I'm using Pages, and want to link between ideas, I yearn for the flexibility of VoodooPad.

But when I use VoodooPad, I love the sketch feature, love the linking. But the outlining is rudimentary.

I'm annoyed that if I want to mentally learn, and revise something, I have to copy from whatever format, into iFlash—which only supports plaintext.

I'm annoyed that I couldn't annotate PDF content easily until Skim arrived. And then the changes are saved in a non-standard format. And Preview saves in a standard format, allows highlighting, but only in yellow. And most annotations are unremovable. PDFPen is better in that annotations are editable, but highlights (in multiple colours) are still not. The big mutha: Acrobat Professional has editable highlighting, but only in yellow.

I'm annoyed that text I want to sync to the Palm, must live in Missing Sync or Sohonotes. And if I create a fancy document with "rich text", photos etc, that I have to convert it to text before sending it to the Palm.

I'm annoyed now, that applications like PowerPoint (and now Numbers) have a 2nd job as a cheap desktop publishing app. How many people have seen PowerPoint being recruited to create a mega-sized presentation poster. And having used Numbers, I'm wonder now whether it is a solid way to create gorgeous handouts containing text and photos, even without a spreadsheet on it. Or would Keynote be better…

I find my easiest text storage area, is writing at the end of the day in Journlr, or Matt Neuburg's Diary, since my needs at that time are low, all I need is text, and the application takes care of the filing.

Once upon a time, we talked about document-centric computing. I think Mac OS X has contributed a bit, through window-to-front-when-clicked, as opposed to the entire application. And also through a very robust text management offered to Cocoa that at least makes copy-paste, and import between applications quite reliable. And applications inherit high end features like rotating graphics, shadows and so on.

However, we used to think about concepts of using containers, like in OpenDoc. OpenDoc had no chance, when grafted on top of System 7. And would probably still not work now. But I miss that idea. I wish I could have a blank slate. With best-of-breed outlining in a corner, containing an link to a table. That contains data that updates in a graph. With an editable equation that resembles the best of what TeX can create, but editable in place. With a hyperlink to a 2nd page. Searchable by Spotlight, but can be tagged in a manner found in EagleFiler. Or incorporated into a database like Sohonotes.

Of course all in open formats, and exchangeable to the world, and which has a print mode like the one in Numbers. Unfortunately, I feel bad requesting features from developers—"add this feature like that application has". I wish that each application could just incorporate the unique features... of each other.

Apologies in advance if I've underestimated a feature of one of the above applications.