Looking for ways to use DevonNote for outlining, I find the 3 paragraphs below in the “DN how-to stuff”. But the info seems to refer to a different (older?) version of DN. I can’t edit the URL or Path columns, and I don’t get any checkboxes when I active “Show State”, only a column for flagging items. There’s no horizontal split in my version (2.2) either.
Any suggestions on how to use DN for simple outlining much appareciated.
(Taken from “how-to” notes)
"DEVONnote is also a (very) simple outliner. Choose “View > Show State” and the icon in front of all documents and groups will change into a checkbox that can be used freely for any purpose, for example for organising to-do lists or for marking documents as interesting.
"In addition, add or remove columns by using “View > Columns > …”. The columns “Path”, “URL” and “Comment” are editable and resizable and are therefore especially useful for both bookmark management and outlining.
“Choose “View > Sort > Unsorted” to be able to arrange items on your own or choose “View > Sort > by State” to sort items according to their outline state (checked/unchecked/mixed). In addition, you might want to choose “View > Horizontal Split” if you prefer a horizontal separation of browser windows.”
Not sure what you mean by outlining, but the TextEdit engine DEVONthink and many Mac programs use, can create an outline of sorts. Get the Ruler to be visible in an RTF document (Format:Ruler:Show Ruler). Using the Lists pull down on the Ruler, set your first item in the outline to 1. Hit enter and then tab. Type a word. Set the second level to a. Hit enter and tab again, type another word and set the third level to i. Now by using tabs and shift-tabs, you will have a three level outline and the numbers or letters will work as in any Harvard-style Outline. If needed, you could create a forth level in the same way. You could save the basic outline as a template so that you would not have to set the levels each time.
I’m aware of this feature, but it’s rather clumsy for a lengthy outline.
I use outlining to get a basic organization for an article before I actually start writing it and include brief notes under some of the items. As I go along I frequently have to rearrange items. With standard word-processor/text-processor outlining this means copying and pasting, which can become very confusing.
With special outlining apps each level/item is a separate unit and you can move them around by drag-and-drop. In DevonNote or DevonThink the setup would be more or less like notes inside folders.
I’ve been trying to use the 3-pane view but not getting the results I want because I can’t edit columns, change headers, etc. Maybe I just need to experiment some more.
This “how-to stuff” is not in the help files. When I first purchased DevonNote a few years ago it came with several items in the sidebar, including some links to webcams and a folder called “DevonNote how-to stuff” (or something to that effect; I may have changed the name). I kept some of those items and deleted others.
Inside the DN how-to stuff folder is a file called “General overview” and 3 subfolders: Overview, Quick Start, Links. The whole thing is set up like a wiki, so you can use it like an ordinary folder with subfolders & text files, or navigate via the links in the different notes.
One of the items in the Quick Start folder is a note called “Outlining”, where those paragraphs came from. Somebody already pointed out one of the items that no longer exists in current versions of DevonNote, so there are probably other outdated items.
It doesn’t say which version it refers to, but the copyright notice on one of the pages is 2001-2008. I suppose these “introductory” items are no longer included in DevonNote.
