A few months ago, a dozen or so regulars from OutlinerSoftware had this discussion on Google Wave. Unfortunately, Wave does not have any kind of print/export feature, so here is a copy of the first blip (which served as a summary). Those interested can participate in this wave.
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What is an outliner ? (or what are outliners ?)
1-pane, 2-pane, 3-pane, with or without custom fields displayed or not as columns, as pure outliners or as full-featured PIM... a first wave on outliners.
Outliner types are:
Pure 1-pane (with or without rich-text).
Examples: Inspiration outline view, Natara Bonsai, Notemap, StoryView, UV Outliner, Word outline mode
1-pane with custom fields (or attributes).
Examples: B-liner (?), TreeSheets (?)
1-pane with custom fields displayed as columns in the outline.
Examples: ADM, EccoPro, Excel outline mode, InfoQube, ListPro
Pure 2-pane (Simple tree-view in 1st pane, 2nd pane for rich text):
Examples: Jot+, MindSystems Amode, MyBase, NoteCase Pro, Surfulater, Treepad, WhizFolders
2-pane with custom fields.
Examples: MyInfo, UltraRecall Pro
3-pane.
Examples: Evernote, Normfall Manager, Sycon IDEA!, Zoot, most e-mail programs
Hybrid 1-pane / 2-pane (works as both 1-pane and 2-pane).
Examples: InfoQube, MaxThink (?)
Visual Representation
MindMapping: FreeMind, iMindMap, Inspiration, MindManager, MindGenius, MindPad, MindView, VisualMind, Xmind
Dynamic: ConnectedText, MindRaider, PersonalBrain
With PIM features.
Examples: do Organizer, EccoPro, InfoQube, InfoSelect, PersonalBrain, UltraRecall Pro
With automation / agents.
Examples: EccoPro, InfoQube, Notecase Pro, Zoot
With Cloning (i.e. multiple parents) (same item may appear in several locations)
Examples: ADM, Brainstorm, MyInfo, Notecase Pro, Surfulater, UltraRecall, PersonalBrain, InfoQube
With Tagging (item can be labeled with several keywords)
Examples: Evernote, Surfulater, UltraRecall
Oriented towards:
Text, itself can be sub-divided into specialized types for:
Writing
Examples: MaxThink, PageFour, Scrivener, StoryView, SuperNoteCard
Capturing
Examples: Brainstorm
Organizing
Examples: Brainstorm. MaxThink
Numbers (hierarchy database)
Examples: B-liner, Excel outline mode, MindPad, InfoQube
Dates (Tasks/Projects/Schedules)
Examples: Achieve Planner, ListPro, MyLifeOrganized
Documents, i.e. organising data files that are already there
Examples: InfoRapid Cardfile System, X2net OneStore
Rich Note-taking
Examples: Evernote, OneNote
Web collection
Examples: Evernote, ScrapBook (Firefox add-in), Surfulater, Web Research
Publishing (web or other)
Examples: InfoHesiveEP, WebIdeaTree
Miscellaneous Information snippets, usually captured from the clipboard
Examples: ClipCache, ClipMate
Behaviour
Static: you create an outline, and it will always appear that way
Examples: Brainstorm, Excel outline mode, WikidPad, Word outline mode
Dynamic: display options allows you to arrange parts through:
Filtering
Examples: EccoPro, InfoQube, Opal, Surfulater
Hoisting
Examples: Opal, UltraRecall Pro, InfoQube
Sorting
Examples: EccoPro, InfoQube, Surfulater
Comments