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coolphage · Jul 9, 2003, 08:44 PM

I thought i would ask the question one more time. Any students out there that have found a great note taking application? Thanks

natan · Jul 9, 2003, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:
I thought i would ask the question one more time. Any students out there that have found a great note taking application? Thanks

OmniOutliner.

cpac · Jul 9, 2003, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by natan:
OmniOutliner.

agreed. best way to go.

midwinter · Jul 9, 2003, 11:37 PM

I like a nice Parker Jotter pen and regular 8.5x11 legal pads. And then individual file folders for each class.

WinsOBoogi · Jul 9, 2003, 11:50 PM

Originally posted by natan:
OmniOutliner.

OOOOOOO...

Gunna try this out!!!!

natan · Jul 10, 2003, 02:15 AM

Originally posted by midwinter:
I like a nice Parker Jotter pen and regular 8.5x11 legal pads. And then individual file folders for each class.

But then publishing your notes online takes a lot of effort, archiving them takes up too much physical space, you can't search all your notes for phrases in a few seconds, it takes a lot of effort to reorganize your notes, and writing that fast hurts the wrist.

SwarmyCurve · Jul 10, 2003, 02:37 AM

OmniOutliner is another OmniGroup triumph

You better like it!

Powaqqatsi · Jul 10, 2003, 04:58 AM

Originally posted by natan:
But then publishing your notes online takes a lot of effort, archiving them takes up too much physical space, you can't search all your notes for phrases in a few seconds, it takes a lot of effort to reorganize your notes, and writing that fast hurts the wrist.

Yeah and you have to print them afterwards if you want to learn them... Don't tell me you can learn from reading that stuff on a computer monitor.

Just use pen and paper, much easier and you pay more attention.

Mac Guru · Jul 10, 2003, 09:14 AM

How bout not taking notes

I havn't taken notes in years... I memorize everything by hearing. In comes in handy and best of all saves paper

Mac Guru

Phanguye · Jul 10, 2003, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by Mac Guru:
How bout not taking notes I havn't taken notes in years... I memorize everything by hearing. In comes in handy and best of all saves paper

Mac Guru

i take notes... then never look at them again... futile I know

schalliol · Jul 10, 2003, 09:39 AM

Newton 2100's notepad.

coolphage · Jul 10, 2003, 11:22 AM

Sounds like Omnioutliner might be the way to go. has anyone tried Circus Ponies Notebook or any of the other notepads out there. Thanks for the input so far.

nick

Sage · Jul 10, 2003, 12:41 PM

I take notes by hand, but my penmanship is so bad that I can't read them later.

How pointless!

cpac · Jul 10, 2003, 01:05 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:
Sounds like Omnioutliner might be the way to go. has anyone tried Circus Ponies Notebook or any of the other notepads out there. Thanks for the input so far.

nick

I've looked at most of the other options and they just seemed too complex.

BUT depending on your needs they might be a better idea. OO currently is missing features some find critical (though I'm sure they'll be implemented in the next major version). Those features are ability to have images in line, and the ability to have hot clickable web and file links.

OO's really got the basics covered, and I can't really imagine actually using all the extra bells and whistles some of the other note-pad applications come with.

Axo1ot1 · Jul 10, 2003, 02:35 PM

Pen and paper is really good.

tikki · Jul 10, 2003, 03:25 PM

OmniOutliner.

coolphage · Jul 10, 2003, 03:51 PM

This would be for the pen and paper people.
Would you use pen and paper over a laptop? I really dont see the reason for using pen and paper if you have a laptop. I dont think I am missing something. Am I?
I have taken notes for years on paper. I can hardly read what i write and loose the notebooks after im done with them. So i never have a record of what i learned, for when I forget. It just seems very logical to use the 12" for taking notes in class.

Any idea of when omnioutliner will be updated cpac?
Thanks
Nick

SomeToast · Jul 10, 2003, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:
I have taken notes for years on paper. I can hardly read what i write and loose the notebooks after im done with them.

You should take your notes in a spiral-bound notebook instead of on loose-leaf paper. The loose pages are much easier to lose. If you have a problem with losing pages, switching from loose-leaf could be the answer.

This post brought to you by "lose," "loose" and the number three.

MrBS · Jul 10, 2003, 04:28 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:
This would be for the pen and paper people.
Would you use pen and paper over a laptop? I really dont see the reason for using pen and paper if you have a laptop. I dont think I am missing something. Am I?

Because apparently, having words on a piece of paper as opposed to a screen are essential in reading them...? ?

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Yeah and you have to print them afterwards if you want to learn them... Don't tell me you can learn from reading that stuff on a computer monitor.

Originally posted by coolphage:

Any idea of when omnioutliner will be updated cpac?
Thanks
Nick

I doubt it will be out by the start of next school year, but 2.1 probably has everything you need for note-taking.

~BS

ratlater · Jul 10, 2003, 04:31 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:
Any idea of when omnioutliner will be updated cpac?

They are working on a major revision, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. If you are buying a 12" powerbook, I think OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle will come with the computer for free. I use OmniOutliner at work and school all the time. It rocks being able to export your notes to html for studying and sharing with others. Great program all around.

-matt

cpac · Jul 10, 2003, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by coolphage:

Any idea of when omnioutliner will be updated cpac?

No idea, though my hope would be "soon."

Rickster or Tim or Greg or anybody else care to comment?

There are a number of improvements just itching to be implemented:

- ability to set default font, etc. for notes
- hot-clickable file/web links
- ability to store multimedia in an outline (although links might be acceptable as a substitute)
- customizeable/dockable info palate segments (ala OmniGraffle 3)
- any other wonderful features OmniGroup thinks up.

The beauty of OO is its simplicity though, so even if these features take another year to come out, you still have what I consider the best note-taking tool out there.

(and for you pen and paper folks, it would be completely *insane* to take law school notes on anything other than a computer - you have to go back through later and edit/condense them into an outline - without drag & drop/copy & paste (not to mention speed improvements)this would be a nightmare project).

darkhawk64 · Jul 10, 2003, 08:33 PM

I use OO for note taking in class on my 12" PB, but one thing that I want Omni to beef up is the speed. Once I get a bunch of stuff in there, that app seems to crawl and also seems to bring the system to a crawl. Anyone have any experiences with its speed and its resource use (or maybe just advise for me in my quest for speed)? Thanks!
jared

PS- don't think I dislike OO. It's very good, and I wouldn't use anything else for my notes.

ratlater · Jul 10, 2003, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
No idea, though my hope would be "soon."

Rickster or Tim or Greg or anybody else care to comment?

There are a number of improvements just itching to be implemented:

- ability to set default font, etc. for notes
- hot-clickable file/web links
- ability to store multimedia in an outline (although links might be acceptable as a substitute)
- customizeable/dockable info palate segments (ala OmniGraffle 3)
- any other wonderful features OmniGroup thinks up.

The beauty of OO is its simplicity though, so even if these features take another year to come out, you still have what I consider the best note-taking tool out there.

(and for you pen and paper folks, it would be completely *insane* to take law school notes on anything other than a computer - you have to go back through later and edit/condense them into an outline - without drag & drop/copy & paste (not to mention speed improvements)this would be a nightmare project).

One new feature I would really like is a way to sync concurrent files. For instance if I have an outline file on my laptop and desktop, it would be awesome to be able to edit each and have the files be able to re-sync and merge.

-matt

cpac · Jul 10, 2003, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by darkhawk64:
Once I get a bunch of stuff in there, that app seems to crawl and also seems to bring the system to a crawl.

Weird. I don't get that at all (and I'm on a TiBook 500Mhz w/ 512

cpac · Jul 10, 2003, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by ratlater:
One new feature I would really like is a way to sync concurrent files. For instance if I have an outline file on my laptop and desktop, it would be awesome to be able to edit each and have the files be able to re-sync and merge.

-matt

That'd be a bit difficult - how do you decide which outline controls if, say you delete an item in one outline, and make it longer in another?

It'd have to become a complete black-lining program...

parsec_kadets · Jul 11, 2003, 01:45 PM

Take a look at FileMerge, which is installed as part of the dev tools. It should be exactly like that.

As for taking notes, convincing your professor to publish the notes beforehand (in a class where PowerPoint slides are used) is the absolute best. If you must, you can print them before class and jot down any additional notes in the margins.

natan · Jul 11, 2003, 10:03 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
No idea, though my hope would be "soon."

Rickster or Tim or Greg or anybody else care to comment?

There are a number of improvements just itching to be implemented:

- ability to set default font, etc. for notes
- hot-clickable file/web links
- ability to store multimedia in an outline (although links might be acceptable as a substitute)
- customizeable/dockable info palate segments (ala OmniGraffle 3)
- any other wonderful features OmniGroup thinks up.

The beauty of OO is its simplicity though, so even if these features take another year to come out, you still have what I consider the best note-taking tool out there.

(and for you pen and paper folks, it would be completely *insane* to take law school notes on anything other than a computer - you have to go back through later and edit/condense them into an outline - without drag & drop/copy & paste (not to mention speed improvements)this would be a nightmare project).

A feature that I really want is some sort of Wiki-like navigation (links that I can insert into an outliner file that link to another), and some sort of directory wide searching/linking system. Since all my outliner files are organized into folders by semester and class, it would be really useful to have a directory wide searching function (like BBEdit has had for years). Currently, I use grep to do this, but it's messy because the outliner files are not stored in plain text.

ngrundy · Jul 11, 2003, 11:10 PM

Another vote for OmniOutliner here. Why a laptop and not paper, well my writing sucks, i'm a computing student not an arts student *ducks the tomatos* and I can type faster than i can write by hand.

rytc · Jul 15, 2003, 07:39 AM

Originally posted by Phanguye:
i take notes... then never look at them again... futile I know

But the act of writing the notes should help to memorise the information

jaxxe · Jul 15, 2003, 01:48 PM

Tinderbox is cool... but pricey...