Mad Money Machine

by Paul Douglas Boyer

Still searching for the perfect outliner

I’ve been using outliner software since the 80’s. What’s it do? It helps you keep lists. Nested lists as outlines.  Like this:

  1. Things to buy
    1. Milk
    2. Eggs
    3. Fish
    4. Backup software
  2. Things to do Today
    1. Wash car
    2. Mow lawn
    3. Go to the store
  3. Books to get from the Library
    1. Index Funds
    2. The Revolution
    3. The Left, the Right, and the State
So? What’s so special about making a list, you say? Isn’t it just a few lines of text with numbers out front? NO! Outliner software has additional functions that I find essential to managing my lists. They are:
  1. Ability to move items up, down, left, or right with a KEYSTROKE
    1. Other text editors would require you to cut and past the text somewhere else
    2. I don’t want to even have to use a mouse to move items. Just Shift-Up Arrow.
  2. Ability to collapse or expand parent items with a KEYSTROKE
    1. Makes managing long lists easier
    2. I have an outline list with 750 items in it. It is like a database of actions.
  3. Automatic renumbering
    1. yeah, even most text editors do this
  4. Sync with Mac, PC, iPhone and the Web.
    1. I’m using Natara’s Bonsai outliner on the PC now
      1.  I used it to sync with my Palm Treo, but I have an iPhone now and it doesn’t do that
      2. It does not sync with the Web or the Mac
    2. Why doesn’t Google Docs have outline functionality? It would be KILLER.
  5. Ability to put notes within an item.
    1. So you can have a single line for the thing, and the note underneath it with details

I’ve found Mac outliners, web outliners, iPhone outliners, PC outliners and some combinations of these but I cannot think of one that does three and certainly not all four. Yes, if I could find one I would trade Federal Reserve Notes for it!  I will keep checking http://www.outlinersoftware.com/ for ideas.

I like Bonsai on the PC. I like OmniFocus for the Mac. I like Google Docs for the web (even though it does not do outlines). I have not found a really great web-based outliner. The iPhone outliners don’t seem to show enough rows of data on their screens; I’d need to see more than a half dozen things at once.

Is anyone out there developing such an application? Please email me and let me know, otherwise I may have to write them myself!

Wed, January 7 2009 » Blog, Tips

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