A historical list of outlining software
Last update: December 10th, 2020
This is a chronological overview of outlining software applications. I will be updating this list incrementally.
ThinkTank (Mac/PC, 1984-1987)
Summary
Released in June 1984, ThinkTank 128 was one the first electronic outlining applications and the precursor to MORE.
Screenshots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFp0Y1DukdQ
Platforms
Mac/PC
Lifetime
1984 - 1987
Features
- Expand / collapse items
- Drag and drop items to re-order
- Hoisting
More Reading
http://scripting.com/dwiner/outlinersProgramming.html
MORE (Mac, 1986)
Summary
Outliner with the ability to switch between the outline view, a tree chart view and a chart list view (which was suitable for presentations).
Platforms
Macintosh
Lifetime
1986
Features
- Hide / unhide subordinate items
- Drag and drop items to re-order
- Tree chart view
- Bullet chart view
- Hierarchy-level-specific text formatting
Screenshots
KAMAS ("CP/M"/DOS, 1984-1993)
Summary
The first outliner for the CP/M with basic keyboard driven outlining capabilities and an internal programming language. Probably the first outliner to introduce the convention of indenting out outdenting with tab and shift+tab respectively. The DOS version shipped without the internal programming language.
Screenshots
More Reading
https://web.archive.org/web/20020321122910/https://www.jlarue.com/outlinersredux.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAMAS_(program) http://archive.today/2020.05.31-144922/http://blog.fogus.me/2020/05/20/8-bit-spiritua/
Out-Think (DOS, 1986)
Summary
Simplified version of KAMAS without its programming facilities.
More Reading
https://archive.org/stream/PROFILES_Volume_4_Number_1_1986-07_Kaypro_Corp_US#page/n19/mode/2up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAMAS_(program)
PC-Outline (DOS, 1987)
Summary
An MSDOS text outliner program created by Brown Bag Software and a competitor to ThinkTank.
Screenshots
Platforms
MSDOS
Lifetime
? - 1987
Features
- Move items
- Mark / unmark items
- Copy / move marks
- Join / divide items
- Sort outline level
- Multi-window (up to 9, resizable)
- Printing options
More Reading
https://www.danielsays.com/ssg-dossw-pco334.html
GrandView (DOS, 1987-1990)
Summary
First outliner supporting color. GrandView combined features of a traditional outliner with a spreadsheet (columnar metadata).
Screenshots
Features
- Hide / unhide subordinate items
- Drag and drop items to re-order
- Hierarchy-level-specific text formatting
- Named ranges
More Reading
https://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/grandview/ https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue139/114_GrandView_20.php https://books.google.ch/books?id=Eq0wALnyM_MC&q=%22grandview%22+%22friend%22+outliner&pg=PA34&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=%22grandview%22%20%22friend%22%20outliner&f=false
Acta (Mac, 1986-1993)
Summary
Version 1.3 was bundled with Living Videotext's MORE in 1987 and Acta evolved into Opal.
Screenshots
More Reading
https://archive.vn/AGWFc http://archive.today/2020.12.08-073941/http://a-sharp.com/acta/
ECCO Pro (Windows, 1993-1997)
Summary
Ecco Pro was a personal information manager software based on an outliner, and supporting folders similar to spreadsheet columns that allow filtering and sorting of information based upon user defined criteria. It was seen to have an easier learning curve than GrandView. At the same time, its novel and complicated mix of features may have prevented it from gaining mainstream adoption.
Lifetime
1993-1997
Screenshots
Features
- Basic outliner functionality
- Tags
- Columns with meta data
- Clipping tool to add highlighted text to your outline
- Sync with PalmPilot
More Reading
http://archive.today/2020.12.09-052442/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/26/comment.guardianweeklytechnologysection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_Pro https://www.mind-mapping.org/index.php?title=ECCO_Pro http://archive.today/2020.12.09-060302/http://www.fredshack.com/docs/pim.html http://archive.today/2020.12.10-045221/https://medium.com/@rice.doug/ecco-pro-in-the-90s-outlook-not-so-good-a5542ee440d7 https://web.archive.org/web/20080205164526/http://www.thenakedpc.com/dan/pims/ecco.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080202162758/http://www.eccorocks.com/
Action Outline (Windows, 2000-2012)
Summary
Simple two-pane outliner for Windows with a tree-like file explorer pane combined with a document viewer pane.
Developer
Green Parrots Software
Screenshots
Features
- Basic outliner features
- Ability to minimize to the Windows System Tray and easily pop up to paste a piece of text
- Tabbed interface for opening multiple documents
- Different text styling options
- Tags
- Printing
- Rich media inside outlines (Images)
More reading
http://archive.today/2020.12.10-052846/https://www.actionoutline.com/
TAO (Mac)
Screenshots
Opal (Mac, 2006-)
Summary
A succesor to Acta from its creator David Dunham.
Screenshots
Features
- Basic outliner features
- Checkboxes
- Formatting
- Search
More Reading
http://archive.today/2020.12.08-074855/http://a-sharp.com/acta/history.html
ConnectedText (Windows, 2011-2016 [Discontinued])
Summary
ConnectedText brands itself as a "Personal Wiki". It has a very basic editor with an outliner option. It was somewhat unique in that it was one of the first PIM tools to generate a visual graph representation of your notes. There's also the ability to embed Python scripts that run on the page.
Status
Discontinued
Screenshots
More Reading
https://www.connectedtext.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190421085255/http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/search/label/ConnectedText
UV Outliner (Windows)
VisualOutliner (Windows)
More Reading
https://www.visualoutliner.com/
InfoQube
Summary
Information Manager with support for multiple views, including an outliner. Free Windows app built as a successor to Ecco Pro. An outliner with columns, allowing search, filter, sort. Includes a rich text pane for larger content / web links. Fully portable. Tries to do everything which Connected Text can do and more but without the markup language so everything is done through a GUI and with tables of properties and context menus.
Screenshots
Features
- Gantt Charts
- Pull in data from remote databases
- Integrated Calendar
- Integrated Web Clipper
- Spreadsheet Capabilities
- Pivot Tables
- Charts
- Item Formatting
- Rule Based
- Markdown support
More Reading
- https://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/comments/ggocxu/infoqube_outliner_free_app_your_comments_please/
- https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/2018/03/29/a-review-of-infoqube/
MyInfo (Windows, 2000-today)
Summary
Bare bones outliner.
Status
Active
Screenshots
Features
- Basic outliner functionality
- Multiple columns
- Formatting
- Embedding PDFs
- Transclusion
- Templates
More Reading
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyInfo
- http://www.loosewireblog.com/2006/03/an_outliner_tha.html
- https://www.bitsdujour.com/software/myinfo
- https://manual.myinfoapp.com
- http://archive.today/2020.12.12-061630/https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/a-comparative-review-of-four-note-taking-programs/
Accordia IT
Zoot
InfoSelect
Microsoft Word Outline View
UltraRecall
Cherry Tree
More Reading
https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/