FreshOutline is a useful data manager that helps you to organize your data in tree-like style. You can define your own data structure for each tree and store notes, genealogical trees, to-do lists, contact data, etc. The advanced features are state dictionary, search utility, WYSIWYG print/preview of tree and data, and more.
Yes - 30 day timeout
Yes
- Partial User Interface restyling
- Some bugs fixed
Reviewing 2.1.0.19 Beta (Mar 5, 2008)
I'm sorry to see it still can't export text easily. I also once lost data to a corrupt FreshOutline database, so I'll go on using ActionOutline instead.
Reviewing 1.3 Build 143 Beta (Jul 5, 2005)
Some excellent new features and easier navigational options make this a great upgrade. Wow!
Reviewing 1.22 (Jun 2, 2005)
Good start!
For an outliner to be really useful, data entry must be really really easy. That means import of existing data (say, from XML, Vault, Treepad, images), export, mouse/ keyboard shortcuts to minimize the number of dialogs, and of course also sensible defaults.
- User should be able to define default type for new item (ie. Text)
- New items should optionally be date/time stamped
- hotkeys for date/time stamp
- Sorting of entries within a branch
- Favorites or bookmarks
- links should be hot links
The way I use a hierarchical note taker is every time something happens - a customer calls, I make a call, a decision is made, whatever - I add a log entry.
Since most hierarchical note takers make it cumbersome to add new entries quickly, I usually just have one entry per month:
Logs
Jan05
Feb05
Mar05
etc and just add text for each month. Ideally, I would like to add separate entries for every call, note I make etc. but it has to be easy.
Global shortcuts that work everywhere would be nice.
Also, we are getting to a point where hierarchical note takers need to be cross platform: I want to access those same notes whether I boot into Linux or Windows. I know not everybody uses Linux, but the number increases and notes are just too important to not have access to in one of my environments...
Reviewing 1.2 Beta 3 Build 84 (Nov 22, 2004)
This program does what it is designed to do very well, although I have to say I agree with the other review, a program like this should have some kind of compatibility built-in.
I will give it a 4 because of that.
Reviewing 1.2 Build 46 Beta (Oct 21, 2004)
I like the 'idea' of this program and I tried the previous versions, but I will not use it.. If I put data into it, I can't get it out the way I want.
I do tech support and the idea I could use this to help me with keeping my notes and tasks and special adendums is great, but the author doesn't allow it to be ported to notepad, Wordpad, Word... something other than his own proproetary format and it's not worth my time..
I wouldn't want to have all this information there and then decide to switch to something better and can't get it out because this program can't export to a text file.
It's my information and I want to be able to get it and use it the way I want to.
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