Searching for Add Ons to my App Inventory

Sascha

Dear Zettlers,

I am putting together a test battery with the following aims:

1. Since my clients come from a very diverse background of Apps and Workflows (the most extreme case might be a finance manager from Abu Dabi Investment Authority asking to help with a Zettelkasten-esque collaboration tool to organise presentations) I have to keep my eye on all kinds of apps and behaviors. So, I like to expose myself to quite many apps to have a feel for each app and its unique nudges and design quirks.
2. Slowly, I accumulate design patterns for knowledge bases (of which the Zettelkasten is a type) and since they cannot be developed without their implementations in mind, I do research on how apps seem to make decisions. (Some of them will be presented soon. Article is already written and just has to go through Christian's quality control)
3. I tried to make Obsidian work as a catch-the-rest app, since I don't like to abuse my Zettelkasten (for example: Keeping client files), I miss a touch of complexity in Things 3, my second brain is too simple (managed with TaskPaper) also, and I miss some organisational features in the iA Writer. So, I will try a pure One-Thing-Well approach.

There three types of apps that I will test:

1. Apps that give me both organisational power to manage skripts, client files and has a nice interface. Bear is so far my favorite based on its clean interface. But it doesn't have a typewriter mode which is quite surprising.
2. Apps that are writing forcers. The Cold Turkey Writer is here my favorite and the single app that I have on my list.
3. Story Writing, both short and long stories. No favorite yet.

These are the apps on my list:

Do you have any suggestions? Did I miss any good candidate?

c4lvorias

You can add outliner apps like Logseq or Roam. They have a different logic that has its own fans. Plus Tana. I don't think Tanarians really are Zettlers but it has also its own category.

Amontillado

I'm having fun with OmniOutliner.

OmniOutliner is a powerful app, but probably became marginalized when OmniGroup let it go many years without significant development. OmniOutliner 6 is in public beta, so there are finally signs of life.

Because you can focus on any topic or subtopic, hiding everything else, you can have more than an outline in an OmniOutliner (OO) file. I'm experimenting with OO's Javascript automation.

OO lets you add columns for extra fields on every item in the outline.

First, I add a cross reference column.

Then, I add a Research topic at the end of my outline.

I write the outline as I normally would, adding keywords for things of interest in the cross reference column.

Notes about stuff go as child items in the Research topic, also with keywords in the cross reference column.

Now, when I'm writing, I can click on an outline row and run my Javascript.

That hides everything in the outline except the row I selected and its child rows, exactly like OO's focus feature.

Plus, the Javascript also adds everything from the Research folder matching any of the keywords found in all of the selected outline rows.

Basically, click on a chapter, see the chapter and its scenes in the outline plus any notes that relate.

Sascha

@Amontillado I played with the OmniOutliner a bit. The column feature is very intriguing. However, I like the output, but not the input. It feels clunky. I am used to Bike. It is so smooth and by far the best outliner I ever used.

How would you compare them?

Amontillado

Hi, Sascha. In Bike, you can just type and create an outline, promoting and demoting items with single keystrokes.

In OmniOutliner, you can just type and create an outline, promoting and demoting items with single keystrokes.

In other words, no difference, but I think I can understand where the perception comes from.

There are quirks once you go beyond simple outlines. They are containable quirks, but they are there.

The weakest feature in OmniOutliner is the way row styles work. Very arcane and undocumented.

But, it will do some cool things, too.

I like being able to do things like export an OmniOutliner file as a CSV which will load without modification into Aeon Timeline, picking up OO columns for dates, participants, and other attributes.

The Javascript automation is really nice. I think OmniFocus started out as Javascript running in OmniOutliner.

Without doubt, the consensus is that OmniOutliner is cumbersome and I admit I had to make my peace with it. At the end of that journey, it does nice things for me that I don't think any other outliner would do. Apps like Obsidian or Notion will, but I think OmniOutliner is actually less fussy.