NoteBook vs. NoteTaker

On 9/8/04 4:12 PM, "Jolin M Warren" <JolinWarrenOakandApple.org> wrote:

> So, what do others think? Am I missing some feature that would be
> important over time (I've only been using these programmes for two
> days now).

I chose NoteBook for basically the same reasons that you mention. I'm very
satisfied with it as a snippet keeper; I also use it for organizing some
ideas, but not for outlines - I use Inspiration for them.
 
Kirk
 
        My latest book: How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
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On or about 9/8/04 7:12 AM, thus spake "Jolin M Warren"
<JolinWarrenOakandApple.org>:

> This is a paraphrased version of an email I composed to Matt Neuburg
> (the snippet-keeper king!)

It's nice to be king of *something*, I guess... :)

> Matt suggested that it might be interesting for TidBITS Talk.

Thanks, Jolin, for moving this over to TidBITS Talk. I could have just
answered your email directly, but my answer would not have been helpful
because, aside from an initial tryout, I've never used NoteBook.

Note too that this comparison has arisen here before, 14 months ago, under a
thread of the same name:

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1989>

> Basically, I find myself in need of a snippet keeper. There are two
> primary reasons: (i) I have random bits of information stored in a
> multitude of ways so they are not always easy to find; and (ii) for
> some books I read, I want a place to take notes in.

I use NoteTaker for the latter, but not the former. For truly random bits -
real snippets - I use something else (typically iData). I use NoteTaker for
*structured* note-taking; basically I use it wherever I would have used MORE
in the past, though it is in some ways a bit more powerful thanks to its
linking features, the ability to include images and even other documents,
etc.

I should also mention that at present there is a kind of drum-roll going on
in the outlining community as we await the final emergence of TAO. I don't
review betas, and I don't even like to talk about them, but this program
looks to be the first truly great outliner on Mac OS X, one that really
understands and emulates what was great about MORE:

<http://blue-beach-systems.com/Products/Software/TAO/>

> NoteTaker
> Disadvantages:
> -Index has no context, not nearly as good as NoteBook's

Very true, and absolutely maddening. To some extent you can work around this
by doing a search, but only to some extent.

> I think that the first two NoteBook advantages are the most important
> for me. I want to be able to find snippets of information easily, so
> an effective index is very important.

Indeed, perhaps the reason I don't use NoteTaker for snippets is that its
indexing is so bad!

> display web pages). The main other aspect causing me to prefer
> NoteBook is that I find its method of entering text and moving about
> better -- I can't really describe why, though, in the details I just
> prefer it. Based on the release notes, they also seem to be
> attempting to match MORE's outline features (though there is still no
> clone capability).

This is the section of Jolin's note that really struck me, because my
experience is exactly the opposite. The one time I tried NoteBook, I found
its outline navigation to be poor. Maybe it's improved! NoteTaker's
entry/navigation is not 100% perfect or up to MORE's, but it is extensive,
and very, very, very good. Anyway I've gotten used to it, enough so to be
almost as fast with it as with MORE.

In any case I look forward to seeing more discussion on this topic here. m.

--
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I've used both fairly extensively. I remain a NoteTaker user, but I'm
very attracted to NoteBook for its seeming simplicity and polish.
(Including various items on your list as far as when the application
comes to the front, number of clicks to use services, ease of
navigation, &c.) I have on a couple occasions painstakingly moved my
NoteTaker files into NoteBook for the 30 day demo just to see how it
works for me.

It works pretty well. Just not well enough.

Firstly, NoteTaker is more feature-packed (or feature-ridden, depending
on your point of view). It has an excellent To-Do list function (which
also effectively journals competed items), supports easier export to
PDF and RTF, and seems to have far superior handling of pasting in
outline-style data.

As for the index lacking context, I suppose that's just a matter of
taste as to whether an index ought to have context. (It does support
linking from the index to the main file.) You can use the "Highlight
and Summarize" feature as a sort of όber-find command to pull entries
(the whole entry, so you have context) as a series of outlined links on
a new page. I use this feature extensively for collecting notes when
I'm studying in school.

Lastly, since I use multiple notebooks stored in many task-oriented
locations (School Docs, Projects, Work, General) on many disks (iDisk,
keychain drive, and the hard drives of my multiple Macs), having the
libraries tab is useful. Same goes for the layout section in the drawer
when I want to navigate through a large notebook without having to use
the index.

NoteTaker has a somewhat steep learning curve to get the most out of
it. It's meager documentation doesn't help. Now that I've become
accustomed to it, I can overlook its lack of intuitiveness and get my
work done, but it was not a painless road to get there. NoteBook is far
simpler to grasp and quicker to get started with, but FWIW, NoteTaker
is nearly as easy to learn insofar as its basic functions, but its more
advanced features take some tinkering.

As for DevonThink, its lack of any sort of to-do list was a deal
breaker for me, as was its inability to store or link to files other
than its officially supported file types.

--Nik

Unless NoteTaker changed it, I believe that the Content Page is still
limited to a two-level hierarchy. Also, I am not sure why embedded
webpages are considered an advantage but to each his own. A word of
warning in NoteBook: I have trashed a notebook by embedding media
frames in the Divider Cells (the cells that are the titles of Divider
Pages). I think media frames are really meant to be embedded into an
outline.

Cooperatively,

Eric H. Durbrow, Ph.D. eric.durbrowcomcast.net • Personal:
http://home.comcast.net/~eric.durbrow/index.html • Visit www.care2.com

On Sep 9, 2004, at 10:09 AM, Nik wrote:
> NoteTaker is more feature-packed (or feature-ridden, depending on your
> point of view). It has an excellent To-Do list function (which also
> effectively journals competed items),

Does NoteTaker keep a record of the Date when a To-Do item is marked completed?

On Sep 10, 2004, at 7:38 AM, Albert Gedraitis wrote:

> On Sep 9, 2004, at 10:09 AM, Nik wrote:
>> NoteTaker is more feature-packed (or feature-ridden, depending on
>> your point of view). It has an excellent To-Do list function (which
>> also effectively journals competed items),
>
> Does NoteTaker keep a record of the Date when a To-Do item is marked
> completed?

Effectively, yes, albeit not in the fashion you might expect.

What it does is create a new To-Do page every time you open a notebook
with a To-Do section. The page will have a header of today's date, and
will contain all the To-Do items from the last To-Do page/day that were
not checked off. Thus, to find the completion date of a To-Do item, you
need only find its completed instance, and it will be on the page
corresponding to when it was completed.

It sounds kind of complicated (and it is) but in practice it's really
quite easy. Just create a To-Do section and then keep closing Notetaker
and advancing the date by a day at a time. That will take care of it.

You can also check modification time for the entry to get the date/time
it was checked off, assuming no subsequent modification has taken
place.

> > -Index has no context, not nearly as good as NoteBook's
>
> Very true, and absolutely maddening. To some extent you can work
> around this by doing a search, but only to some extent.
>
> > I think that the first two NoteBook advantages are the most important
> > for me. I want to be able to find snippets of information easily, so
> > an effective index is very important.
>
> Indeed, perhaps the reason I don't use NoteTaker for snippets is that
> its indexing is so bad!

I don't quite understand why people keep saying this about NoteTaker.
In the most recent version, if you press the option key while hovering
over an index entry page number, you get a two line summary in a box
that hovers over the page only as long as you hold the option key down.
  If you press the option and shift key you see the entire entry that
contains the reference, all without leaving the index page. It's quite
powerful and useful. True, older versions of NoteTaker were miserable
indexing but no more. Am I missing something?

Rick

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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E-mail: rwa1cornell.edu | Tel: (607) 255-3376 | FAX: (607) 254-4780
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I noticed when setting up my demo license that the last time I reviewed NoteBook was May, 2003. Taking a second look, I'm more impressed than I was before, and will probably set up a couple more demos for my two older boys to test and consider. The help documents area very useful as a tutorial.

I would say the impression I am left with, after going through the help items, is that this would be THE killer wiki/collaborative project tool for small groups, homeschool families, educators, small offices IF it functioned in that manner with Rendezvous and sharing capabilities. It seems like the ideal tool for something of that kind. I can envision all sorts of projects for which we would use this if it were capable of handling multiple users. When I think how our family currently uses our Macs with iCal, iPhoto, iTunes, Address book sharing, and what not, I wonder if that kind of capability could be added to NoteBook?

What I wouldn't give for a notes manager/outliner that could allow other users/groups to add content, but keep it identified so that I could look at each user's contributions separately or combine them in arbitrary ways!

Jeffrey

On or about 9/13/04 11:51 AM, thus spake "Rick Allmendinger"
<rwa1cornell.edu>:

>>> -Index has no context, not nearly as good as NoteBook's
>>
>> Very true, and absolutely maddening. To some extent you can work
>> around this by doing a search, but only to some extent.
>>
>>> I think that the first two NoteBook advantages are the most important
>>> for me. I want to be able to find snippets of information easily, so
>>> an effective index is very important.
>>
>> Indeed, perhaps the reason I don't use NoteTaker for snippets is that
>> its indexing is so bad!
>
> I don't quite understand why people keep saying this about NoteTaker.
> In the most recent version, if you press the option key while hovering
> over an index entry page number, you get a two line summary in a box
> that hovers over the page only as long as you hold the option key down.
> If you press the option and shift key you see the entire entry that
> contains the reference, all without leaving the index page. It's quite
> powerful and useful. True, older versions of NoteTaker were miserable
> indexing but no more. Am I missing something?

No, and clearly I am, since I reported this brilliant aspect of NoteTaker
links in TidBITS...

http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07584

...yet I did not make the connection with the index. Nevertheless, the fact
remains that if the same word appears in several items on one page, the
index lists only one of them, so it's still not functioning as a useful
concordance for me. To top it off, when you do a "highlight and summarize",
which does a global find and copies the found items to a special summary
page, the copies are not links. I am a great NoteTaker fan, but when I try
to use it for keeping snippets, they just get lost. So I don't use it for
that. I use it for hierarchical documents and note-taking.

m.

--
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pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
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At 8:39 on 14-9-04, Matt Neuburg wrote:
> Nevertheless, the fact
> remains that if the same word appears in several items on one page, the
> index lists only one of them, so it's still not functioning as a useful
> concordance for me. To top it off, when you do a "highlight and summarize",
> which does a global find and copies the found items to a special summary
> page, the copies are not links.

While I hadn't noticed the Option-hover to display context in the
index, Matt sums up some of the problems still inherent in
NoteTaker's index for me. Additionally, I would prefer to see the
context for all occurrences of the word all at once (as in NoteBook).
On a related item, I find it maddening that if a word appears in two
(or more) consecutive pages, the index only has a link to the the
first page. For instance, the link will be labelled '2-3', but no
matter where in this text one clicks, it is only possible to go to
page 2. If, however, a word appears on pages 2 and 4, then two
separate links are listed in the index: '2', '4'. This is better
because now it's possible to go to the word on page four.

All in all, the combination of what Matt has pointed out and these
related issues make NoteTaker's index a very frustrating experience
for me.

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

On 09-Sep-2004 14:09:00 GMT Matt Neuburg wrote:

NoteTaker's entry/navigation is not 100% perfect or up to MORE's, but it is extensive, and very, very, very good.

Although I daily use NoteTaker and like it very much, I cannot agree.

NoteTaker offers only three ways to enter entries and they are misnamed: - one is called 'new entry'; in fact it splits the entry at the insertion point and inserts the second half under the original entry ('split to sibling under' would be a better name) - one is called 'new entry above'; in fact it splits the entry at the insertion point and inserts the first half above the original entry ('split to sibling above' would be a better name) - finally, there is a keyboard shortcut (but no menu option) to add a child entry (somewhat inconsistently this does not split the item!)

I miss menu options and, especially, keyboard shortcuts to - add a sibling under - add a sibling above - add an aunt (under) - split an entry and insert the second half as a child of the original item

Furthermore, despite that in the preferences I have opted for 'tab key indents the entry' the tab key inserts a tab. This means that there is no keyboard shortcut to promote an entry. So, in order to promote an entry, instead of simply hitting the tab, I must use the mouse to move the cursor to the control icon of the entry, click there (and be careful not to change its (open/collapsed state) and hit the tab key (or else drag the item). Besides, I fail to see the logic of using option-up and option-down to move an entry, option-left and option-right to move the cursor and tab and shift-tab to move an entry.

Unfortunately alternatives such as Omni Outliner hardly do better.

Having said this, I'd like to add that there is one feature of NoteTaker's outliner that I like very much and use often: paste as outline.

On or about 9/15/04 8:27 AM, thus spake "Arno Wouters"
<Arno.Woutersknoware.nl>:

> On 09-Sep-2004 14:09:00 GMT Matt Neuburg wrote:
>
>> NoteTaker's entry/navigation is not 100% perfect or up to MORE's, but it is
>> extensive, and very, very, very good.
>
> Although I daily use NoteTaker and like it very much, I cannot agree.
> NoteTaker offers only three ways to enter entries and they are misnamed:
> - one is called 'new entry'; in fact it splits the entry at the insertion
> point and inserts the second half under the original entry ('split to sibling
> under' would be a better name)

To make a new entry no matter what, hit the Enter key - *not* the Return
key! I have my prefs set to make all new entries multi-line, so the Return
key wouldn't do here. This use of the Enter key is actually the most
important move in NoteTaker, for obvious reasons.

> - one is called 'new entry above'; in fact it splits the entry at the
> insertion point and inserts the first half above the original entry ('split to
> sibling above' would be a better name)
> - finally, there is a keyboard shortcut (but no menu option) to add a child
> entry (somewhat inconsistently this does not split the item!)

It is not inconsistent. I use Control-Enter for this. So Enter makes a new
sibling without splitting, and Control-Enter makes a new child without
splitting. It is very important that there be a way both to create a new
down-sibling no matter what and there be a way to create a new child no
matter what. NoteTaker here is actually *better* than MORE, which always
does one or the other when you hit Return, but does not let you choose
which.

> I miss menu options and, especially, keyboard shortcuts to
> - add a sibling under

Hit Enter.
  
> - add a sibling above

Hit Command-Enter. This is actually a split, though, so if you are editing
the item already, hit Command-Up arrow first to bring the insertion point to
the start of the entry. I regard that fact that this is a split as
inconsistent.
  
> - add an aunt (under)
> - split an entry and insert the second half as a child of the original item

I don't understand these, since it is easy to move an item after creating
it. I think the above kinds of creation are all that is needed. However,
what NoteTaker *is* missing is MORE's demote, which turns all an item's
subsequent siblings into its children (and the reverse, promote, which turns
all an item's children into its siblings). These moves are crucial for
bringing things into the desired relationship in just a couple of steps.

> Furthermore, despite that in the preferences I have opted for 'tab key indents
> the entry' the tab key inserts a tab. This means that there is no keyboard
> shortcut to promote an entry. So, in order to promote an entry, instead of
> simply hitting the tab, I must use the mouse to move the cursor to the control
> icon of the entry, click there (and be careful not to change its
> (open/collapsed state) and hit the tab key (or else drag the item).

Something is very wrong here. I have to guess that you have *not* opted for
'tab key indents entry'. I have, and the tab key *does* indent the entry,
and shift-tab promotes it. If, on the other hand, you have opted for 'tab
key inserts a tab', then option-Tab indents and shift-option-Tab promotes.
You **NEVER** need the mouse for this. I don't know why you're having
trouble with this basic feature. I suggest you throw away your prefs and see
if that cleans things out.

> Besides, I
> fail to see the logic of using option-up and option-down to move an entry,
> option-left and option-right to move the cursor and tab and shift-tab to move
> an entry.

If you don't like it, change it. All menu keyboard shortcuts are
user-customizable in NoteTaker.

> Unfortunately alternatives such as Omni Outliner hardly do better.

Absolutely. They seem not to "get" outliners at all. I almost *never* use
OmniOutliner.

Let me add that Arno and I are not being nit-picky here. This stuff is
difficult to communicate to a non-believer, but I assure you, it is what
outlining is all about. This is part of what I mean when I say that a
developer does or does not "get" outliners.

Only MORE handles all this sort of thing quickly, cleanly, and consistently.
That is why I keep returning to it when I really want to get work done.
(Another part of MORE's clarity, which Arno implies but does not state
explicit above, is the distinction between editing the content of an item
and doing something to the item's position in the outline as a whole.) As
I've said, TAO is coming and looks very promising.

m.

--
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At 15/9/04 10:23 -0700, Matt Neuburg wrote:

>On or about 9/15/04 8:27 AM, thus spake "Arno Wouters"
><Arno.Woutersknoware.nl>:
>
>> On 09-Sep-2004 14:09:00 GMT Matt Neuburg wrote:
>>
>>> NoteTaker's entry/navigation is not 100% perfect or up to
>>>MORE's, but it is
>>> extensive, and very, very, very good.
>>
> > Although I daily use NoteTaker and like it very much, I cannot agree.
>>[followed by a complaint that the menu items and keyboard commands
>>labeled 'new entry' (command-return) and 'new entry above'
>>(command-enter) split the entry rather than adding a new one. Arno
>>also complained that the 'add a child' function (control-return) is
>>not in the menu and suggested that tthis behaviour is inconsistent
>
>[...]
>
>Enter makes a new sibling without splitting, and Control-Enter makes
>a new child without splitting.

Thanks Matt for explaining these undocumented keyboard commands! It
will make outlining with NoteTaker much more pleasurable to me!

>It is very important that there be a way both to create a
>newdown-sibling no matter what and there be a way to create a new
>child nomatter what.

Sure, that was why I was complaining. Now that I know of the
undocumented key strokes I still think that if a menu item is called
'new entry' it should add a new entry rather then split the old one.
I also think that adding is more important than splitting and that
this difference should be reflected in the menu.

Furthermore, apparently we have:

command-return: splits (under)
command-enter: splits (above)
control-return: adds a child
enter: adds a sibling (under)
control-enter: adds a child

this doesn't look very consistent.

>>[Arno added that he missed some functions, including:]
>
>> - add an aunt (under)
>> - split an entry and insert the second half as a child of the original item
>
>I don't understand these, since it is easy to move an item after creating
>it.

It quite often occurs that I have a list like this

TidBITS http://www.tidbits.com/
      short description of the site
      latest visit
About This Particular Outliner http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml
      short description of the site
      latest visit

and want to change it into a list like this:

TidBBITS
       http://www.tidbits.com/
      short description of the site
      latest visit
About This Particular Outliner
       http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml
      short description of the site
      latest visit

in order to do this I have to put the cursor between the name and the
url, hit command-return (control-return adds but does not split!),
move the cursor to the control icon of the item with the url, click
and hit the tab (as I said despite that my preferences are set to
'tab indents entry' the tab inserts a tab). I would be much more
easier to have one key stroke for this.

By the way it also occurs frequently that I want to combine an entry
with its first child and again (as far as I know!) there is no
keystroke or menu-command for this.

'Add an aunt under' would be useful if you are entering a list like

A
   1
   2
   3

and want to add B.

But in this case you are right that it is nearly just as ease to
create the item with command-return (or command-enter) and 'promote'
it with shift-tab before typing the B.

> > Furthermore, despite that in the preferences I have opted for
>'tab key indents
> > the entry' the tab key inserts a tab.
>
>Something is very wrong here. I have to guess that you have *not* opted for
>'tab key indents entry'. I have, and the tab key *does* indent the entry,
>and shift-tab promotes it. If, on the other hand, you have opted for 'tab
>key inserts a tab', then option-Tab indents and shift-option-Tab promotes.
>You **NEVER** need the mouse for this. I don't know why you're having
>trouble with this basic feature. I suggest you throw away your prefs and see
>if that cleans things out.

I have reported the problem to AquaMinds months ago, two times, but
they have not responded.

> > Besides, I
> > fail to see the logic of using option-up and option-down to move an entry,
>> option-left and option-right to move the cursor and tab and
>>shift-tab to move
>> an entry.
>
>If you don't like it, change it. All menu keyboard shortcuts are
>user-customizable in NoteTaker.

Fair enough!

> > Unfortunately alternatives such as Omni Outliner hardly do better.
>
>Absolutely. They seem not to "get" outliners at all. I almost *never* use
>OmniOutliner.

Glad to hear! Most people I meet are satisfied with Omni Outliner and
think that it is crazy to start classic for such an old fashioned
program like MORE that doesn't even have columns (actually, MORE is
the only reason why I still keep classic on my computer).
Fortunately, about two moths ago I discovered FO (which is now called
TAO) and it is really great.

Best wishes,

Arno.
--
Arno Wouters, Utrecht, The Netherlands (Europe).
E-mail: Arno.Woutersknoware.nl
WWW: <http://www.knoware.nl/users/arnow/>.

At 15/9/04 10:23 -0700, Matt Neuburg wrote:

>On or about 9/15/04 8:27 AM, thus spake "Arno Wouters"
><Arno.Woutersknoware.nl>:
> > Furthermore, despite that in the preferences I have opted for
>'tab key indents
> > the entry' the tab key inserts a tab.
>
>Something is very wrong here. I have to guess that you have *not* opted for
>'tab key indents entry'. I have, and the tab key *does* indent the entry,
>and shift-tab promotes it. If, on the other hand, you have opted for 'tab
>key inserts a tab', then option-Tab indents and shift-option-Tab promotes.
>You **NEVER** need the mouse for this. I don't know why you're having
>trouble with this basic feature. I suggest you throw away your prefs and see
>if that cleans things out.

Throwing away the preferences does not help and, as said, I reported
this problem long ago to Aquaminds without receiving a response.
However, inspired by Matt's answer, I consulted the NoteTaker faq
once more and there is the answer: "NoteTaker only inserts a TAB stop
when the Ruler is active". Deactivating the ruler did indeed solve
the problem. It does, however, create another one (admittedly a
lesser one): the ruler is the only place were you can define named
styles (the menu only allows you to apply already named styles, but
not to add ones). This is not well thought out.

Anyway, Matt, I thank you very much for your response, as a result of
which outlining with NoteTaker is now much more agreeable to me.

Arno.
--
Arno Wouters, Utrecht, The Netherlands (Europe).
E-mail: Arno.Woutersknoware.nl
WWW: <http://www.knoware.nl/users/arnow/>.

At 8:34 on 16-9-04, Matt Neuburg wrote:
> However, what NoteTaker *is* missing is MORE's demote, which turns
> all an item's subsequent siblings into its children (and the
> reverse, promote, which turns all an item's children into its
> siblings).

Going back to the comparison aspect of this discussion, NoteBook does
include these commands (in the 'Cell' menu, '[Un]Indent Siblings'):
option-tab & option-shift-tab.

Another outlining feature that seems better in NoteBook is that it
has 'Join' as well as 'Split'. NoteTaker, for some reason, only has
'Split'. I know that one can join by copying and pasting, but that is
awkward.

In my original message on this topic, I wrote:
> Based on the release notes, they also seem to be attempting to
> match MORE's outline features (though there is still no clone
> capability).

I was pretty much referring to the above two features, plus one
other. In fact, the release notes state that this is specifically to
enhance NoteBook's MORE support:

> Additional "MORE" Outlining Support
>
> o Added the Cell -> Join command [...]
>
> o Added the Cell -> Indent Siblings and Cell -> Unindent Chidren
> commands. Indent Siblings (like MORE's Demote command) [...]
>
> o Added the "MORE" outline mode setting: if you have a cell
> selected, and that cell has children and is expanded, pressing
> Return creates a new cell (as usual) and makes that new cell a
> child of the selected cell, inserted before the cell's first child.

I can't say personally how useful all of this is yet, as I haven't
used either for a serious outline so far, but it seems like the
NoteBook developers are aware of the need for convenient ways of
manipulating an outline.

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

Most of this thread has focused on outline navigating and text entry
but what about versatility? It seems to me that OmniOutliner has the
advantage over NoteBook or NoteTaker. Here is what I can do using
OmniOutliner and third party Applescripts that work with it.

*** Write a research paper or book in OmniOutliner and output a draft
in LaTex for further work in TeXShop.

*** Keep notes on my iPod.

***Output to html (yes I know that NoteBook does this better)

***Output lecture notes to OminGrapple to generate mindmaps

***Output to KeyNote to create presentations and go from KeyNote to
OmniOutliner.

Can either NoteBook or NoteTaker do all of these so well?

Best regards,

Eric H. Durbrow, Ph.D. • eric.durbrowcomcast.net • Personal:
http://home.comcast.net/~eric.durbrow/index.html • Visit
www.theanimalrescuesite.com

On 21 Sep, 2004, at 07:37, Dr. Eric Durbrow Ph.D. wrote:

> Most of this thread has focused on outline navigating and text entry
> but what about versatility? It seems to me that OmniOutliner has the
> advantage over NoteBook or NoteTaker. Here is what I can do using
> OmniOutliner and third party Applescripts that work with it.
> ...
> ***Output lecture notes to OmniGraffle to generate mindmaps

Or import into Nova Mind for genuine Mind Maps.

George Wade