View Full Version : OmniOutliner 3 Screenshots
Just saw this over in the MacAchaia... apparently OmniOutliner 3 should be in public beta in a couple weeks. There's a blurb over at MacNN about it and some screenshots on a blog. It looks awesome, I've used OmniOutliner 2 from time to time... should use it more often, it's a nice utility.
http://www.macnn.com/news/27097
http://www.mindflayer.net/weblog/2004/11/omnioutliner_3.html
MacAchaia thread:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=186001887631
SonOfSylvanus
2004-12-02, 16:54
Jeez. Looks complicated. I hope its easy to use. I use 2.26 all the time. Hope they give a nice 'n' cheap student upgrade price too.
I think it looks incredible. Looks like a more robust feature set and a really polished interface as well. Omni will be getting some patronage from me in the near future.
Sweet mother of popsicles! Do I smell the rotting corpse of OpenDoc rising from the grave (http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/nimages/tog_041129_outliner31_lg.jpg)?
torifile
2004-12-02, 21:22
Sweet mother of popsicles! Do I smell the rotting corpse of OpenDoc rising from the grave (http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/nimages/tog_041129_outliner31_lg.jpg)?
Care to elaborate on your post? (Not the "sweet mother of popsicles" part, the OpenDoc part). TIA.
torifile
2004-12-02, 21:29
Care to elaborate on your post? (Not the "sweet mother of popsicles" part, the OpenDoc part). TIA.
Nevermind.
"Seek and ye shall find" sayeth the mighty google.
shatteringglass
2004-12-02, 21:59
I'm so used to the simple interface of OmniOutliner 2, I don't know if I'll upgrade or need the new features. This looks like a word processor.
They're just showing off. :D
OO2 can do some pretty complex things as well, once you get into it. This just looks like they amped it up a bit is all. I'm sure you can still use it as a bare bones basic app if you really want. ;)
Public Beta (4) now available!
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7420
And OO3 Pro (beta 5) is now available (http://omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/beta/pro/).
torifile
2004-12-09, 21:32
And OO3 Pro (beta 5) is now available (http://omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/beta/pro/).
I'm a software whore.
Beta 6 now available, expires the 20th of January... guessing GM will be within a week or two of that.
Also a new beta for OW 5.1 is out.
http://www.omnigroup.com/
(check towards the bottom)
Final version now available, as is Omniweb 5.1 final. Get em while they're hot!
Got 'em. Using OOPro on a project as we speak ;)
Nice. I can't afford it just now, but I'll be plunking down about $130 worth of upgrades to Omni within a few weeks. More than happy to help them out, given the quality of their stuff.
Yeah, I'm a bit confused about the palette inconsistencies (just visually) between outliner and graffle though. Wonder what they will settle on?
Graffle has the smooth gloss titlebars, and a blue magnetic field animation when rearranging pallets, just before they snap together. And beads for close buttons.
But Outline is just flat gray shaded titlebars and no effect and inset beads.
Identical would be nice. Goes a long way to feeling really professional and solid.
I suspect they might opt to go with Outliner's new widgets for the next minor revision of Graffle.
Makes sense.
Well, I just finished my storyboards and outline for my project, sent em off as PDFs. I love these apps. Too bad Omni won't make a spreadsheet and basic word processor :D
Just starting using OO 3 beta for a huge website redesign, very nice. Also gave OG a go very nice. Last time I bought a license was a while back for OmniDiskSweeper. Time I invested a little more into Omni :)
Isn't OmniDiskSweeper the only un-updated app they still have? Wonder what else they could offer to it.
I suspect that in time, Apple will offer something like it as part of the Disk Utility app or similar Apple-supplied functionality. Thus OmniDiskSweeper will likely go away at some point (rather than undergoing a major overhaul with new functionality). I wouldn't be surprised though, if Omni released a robust Word Processor or email client at some point. Would fit right in with their current offerings.
Thanks Omni, I just landed a 4 grand gig thanks to some nice storyboards/diagrams I was able to make, whereas had I done it the hard way in Illustrator, I'd still be on the first page. ;)
Thanks Omni, I just landed a 4 grand gig thanks to some nice storyboards/diagrams I was able to make, whereas had I done it the hard way in Illustrator, I'd still be on the first page. ;)
Congrats man! :)
Got it, bought it, loving it.
I'm beginning to think I should have been more organised and bought a bundle though, because I'm going to buy OmniGraffle at some point, and I already own licenses for OmniWeb and OmniOutliner.
Sigh.
Now I have to do the actual work :D GULP
Um..
I just switched from PB to iBook and the bundled OmniOutliner was lost in the transition. I think this would be a great time to check out Omni's competition (if there is any) before I pay for OO. So what other outliners are there? I was happy with OO2, so I think I am not going to be needing more features.
edit: Another thing. I'm looking at OO3 website. It says the "Folded editing" feature is only in the Pro version. What's this feature? I initially thought it was the same thing than in OO2 (where you can fold away subsections of the document) but surely that's so integral to an outliner they can't take it out from the "basic" version... so is "Folded editing" just that opening and closing the sections is done automatically?
edit: Another thing. I'm looking at OO3 website. It says the "Folded editing" feature is only in the Pro version. What's this feature?
If memory serves, it's their terminology for only displaying the first line of an entry unless it's active (to reduce clutter, and make structure more obvious).
Both OO3 versions have the disclose/hide triangle things you refer to.
View: Row Text
You may choose to show all of the text in every row of your outline, or to collapse ("fold") rows you are not currently editing. "Folded" rows will only show the first line of their text.
(Followed by an ellipsis. Expands by clicking the row's text)
I think I'll get either OO3 or OO3 Pro, and OG3. The edu prices are $25, $50 and $40 respectively. Now it's just about if the Pro is worth $25 more than the regular.
The only thing I'm sure will be useful in Pro is the enhanced inline notes.
Speech recording, I'm not sure what this is good for. Do any of you use basic speech record for anything, in OO3 or elsewhere?
Named styles, sections, templates.. dunno. What I did with OO2 was pretty basic and functional. What do you use sections for anyway? Aren't they just another level of the outline?
The only thing I'm sure will be useful in Pro is the enhanced inline notes.
Speech recording, I'm not sure what this is good for. Do any of you use basic speech record for anything, in OO3 or elsewhere?
Taking lecture notes.
Named styles, sections, templates.. dunno. What I did with OO2 was pretty basic and functional. What do you use sections for anyway? Aren't they just another level of the outline?
Sections are good for navigation between large functional sections of your notes — they make navigating around large outlines substantially easier.
-S
torifile
2005-02-12, 10:10
I use the sections to keep my notes separated by day. As staph said, it makes it super easy to focus only on that days notes without having to have a separate file. I also use the styles to make the outline look nice and give me visual cues about what I'm looking at. It's a very useful thing to have.
staph, I'm curious about the audio recording. I tried using it but it seemed to stop if I clicked around in the window and there was no way to restart it. Am I missing something?
Taking lecture notes.You talk (or mumble) aloud on the lecture? Or you have a microphone to pick up the lecturer's voice? :confused:
I downloaded OO3 and Pro both, and tried out these features. After setting the iBook's internal mike level to max I could actually hear what I was saying, and a little music from the background. The bad news is, two times of about eight tries I got a "record" box where there is no Quicktime slider, and when I try to launch it in QT, QT tells me it does not understand this .mov. Hard to see how you can use a feature like that to work when it fails catastrophically 1/4 of the time.Sections are good for navigation between large functional sections of your notes — they make navigating around large outlines substantially easier.On the other hand, if you have an outline that hasn't been crafted sections in mind, they just look silly, since you don't manually designate sections but OO just calls all top level items "sections". Unless I'm missing something.
Inline notes and folded editing look cool but I now think they have problems. Folded editing should not affect both notes and items, there should be separate settings. If I keep notes inline, I'll definitely want to fold them, but I don't want to fold the outline items under any circumstances. They are at most two or three lines, and it's silly to fold them. Anything longer than that I put into notes.
staph, I'm curious about the audio recording. I tried using it but it seemed to stop if I clicked around in the window and there was no way to restart it. Am I missing something?
Not sure… it works fine for me upon cursory testing (it's the summer break here, so I haven't been doing much lecture/seminar note-taking). As far as I can tell, it works both while I'm typing/fiddling in OO3, and when I switch to other application.
You talk (or mumble) aloud on the lecture? Or you have a microphone to pick up the lecturer's voice? :confused:
No, just the laptop's built-in mic.
I downloaded OO3 and Pro both, and tried out these features. After setting the iBook's internal mike level to max I could actually hear what I was saying, and a little music from the background.
There's a usually music on in your lectures? I knew I went to the wrong university.
The iBook's internal mic is definitely good enough to record lectures (you'll have to put up with the sounds of your own typing — it's not that hard). As I said above, I haven't actually had a chance to field-test OO3's recording in an actual lecture, but it works just fine for me sitting in my bedroom. The sound quality is predictably pretty shithouse, but it's usable.
In the past I've just used one of the variety audio-capture utilities out there, like Audio-in or that sound-editing application which comes with the iBooks.
The bad news is, two times of about eight tries I got a "record" box where there is no Quicktime slider, and when I try to launch it in QT, QT tells me it does not understand this .mov. Hard to see how you can use a feature like that to work when it fails catastrophically 1/4 of the time.
This wasn't on the betas, was it? Have you tried reporting the problem to the developers (they're quite responsive)?
On the other hand, if you have an outline that hasn't been crafted sections in mind, they just look silly, since you don't manually designate sections but OO just calls all top level items "sections". Unless I'm missing something.
Well, thinking structurally isn't necessarily intuitive. Your top level items should be top level items for a reason… at any rate it's certainly helpful once you get used to it.
Inline notes and folded editing look cool but I now think they have problems. Folded editing should not affect both notes and items, there should be separate settings. If I keep notes inline, I'll definitely want to fold them, but I don't want to fold the outline items under any circumstances. They are at most two or three lines, and it's silly to fold them. Anything longer than that I put into notes.
Email Omni and make a suggestion!
You put most of your content into comments? I only ever use the comments for inserting extraneous information (e.g. the original French quotation for a comment I've made on a book so I can go back and check it with a dictionary, that sort of thing)
Well, thinking structurally isn't necessarily intuitive. Your top level items should be top level items for a reason…My todo list has in the neighborhood of 50 entries - all top level items. I don't want to make an artificial section structure for them; it would be useless, and worse; it would inhibit the entries moving freely to priority order. I don't care if an item is "personal" or "work", if it's highest priority, it must be dealt with first.
And it makes no sense to have 50 sections. :\
You put most of your content into comments? I only ever use the comments for inserting extraneous information (e.g. the original French quotation for a comment I've made on a book so I can go back and check it with a dictionary, that sort of thing)I didn't say "most". I have very big notes associated with some entries. Again using my todo as an example, I could have an entry in there: "Buy a book". Sub entries "Decide on which book" and "Find lowest price". The notes of those two entries would then contain ponderings about which book I should buy and how much it costs where. They could easily span 20 rows. How should I put it? Only if it is a "task" that can be "completed" I put it as an outline entry. The rest goes into notes. So I don't use outline entries that have no checkbox, only checkboxed ones. If a box is checked on an entry, it's over and done with.
I noticed some new glitches.
White text in "whole document" results in invisible file attachment names.
Inline images really, really should be scaled to fit their column. It's not much use seeing the left upper corner or a picture.
Finally, I think applying styles needs a bit of work.
Mail sent to Omni.
OO3 is a good product, at the very least it'll do what OO2 did and I would buy on that basis alone, but I really want to like and appreciate the Pro version. "Finding" OO2 on my Powerbook was a revelation for me. :)
After the first, automatic "Sorry we're busy with 3.0 launch and it might take some time to answer", I got real mail from Omni engineers in a few days. Most of the things I noticed, they are already working on.
Today I managed to crash OO3 while doing additional experiments. The automatic crash report popped up and though it said only Mail is supported, it got the report through Thunderbird no problem. I got an answer from an engineer in a matter or minutes (!) and I hear that particular crash is supposedly already fixed in 3.0.1.
All in all, this is one of the best, if not the best company I've ever dealt with. I brought my OO3Pro license. OmniGraffle is cool but I'll wait till I actually need it.
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