OmniOutliner Pro for Mac

I was quite happy with OmniOutiner 3 and then came OmniOutliner 4. It was a disaster for me. I modified one of the custom templates and, everytime I created a link, the application blew. Numerous reports went sent but it was like spitting into the air; you just get wet in the face but the problem persisted. I am a graduate student and relied heavily on OmniOutliner. Five weeks ago, I tried OneNote and never looked back. Sure, there was no collapsible items but never once did it crash, even with pictures inserted into notes and files linked/attached. Shame on you, OmniGroup, for ignoring this product. I'm keeping OmniOutliner around to get at my old notes but moving forward, it won't be with OmniOutliner. I also used OmniFocus--the operative word here being used." Now, I'm off all of them and will sink no more money to enrich the Group. It was good while it lasted but that's the trouble with developers: they give you what they think you want, not what you want.

It's okay, but development is proceeding at a positively glacial pace: new features are few and far between, and annoying bugs remain unfixed. This application is obviously not a priority for OmniGroupe.

Unfortunately I don’t have the knowledge to be able to express my thoughts in a technical way, so all I can say is I totally agree with the good, critical, reviews below. I recently downloaded a trial version of OO Pro 4 and am asking myself why would a serious software company turn something so good (v3.xxx) into something so bad (v4.xx). Why on earth did they take out the ‘Clipping Service’. And as for the ‘Styles’!!. I have used OO Pro for may years and considered it the best of all but am now faced with the prospect of having to use an alternative programme. I can’t see Omni supporting v3 in the future (thereby admitting v4 is inferior) and who’s to say that any future OS upgrade won’t make OO v3 unusable. At the moment NeO is looking likely to be my alternative programme, but I wish I didn’t need to go through the required learning curve. Anyway, apart from the negative technical/operational comments of v4, the upgrade price is just plain ridiculous. A comment has been made about OmniWeb. Some years ago I paid for a licensed copy….silly me.

More failed promises in this version. How long has both tech support and sales been promising CLONING? YEARS! It sure seems like the #1 feature request. How about just announcing you have no intention of including cloning, rather than stringing along your clients?

Looks pretty. Doesn't crash. But... a downgrade from v3 in many ways. Given that most task-specific research now is web-based, the removal of any clipping service is a critical failing. "Doesn't work in a sandboxed environment" rather doesn't cut it. Plenty of other apps (NoteSuite, Scrivener, OutlineEdit, Evernote etc. in the App Store, Circus Ponies Notebook and the more functionally advanced, though not so candy-flavoured, NoteTaker, DevonThink, DevonNote and a host of others *not* in the App Store) have managed it. Styles are arguably *less* intuitive than before; for example, choosing a style to apply to 'All Level <n> Rows' doesn't highlight the rows it's going to apply to, unlike v3, leaving you in the dark. Am I in Level 3 but applying it to Level 2 by mistake? OO 4 doesn't say. The handy navigation dropdown has been replaced by a clumsy "contents" sidebar. Improvements we might reasonably have expected after so long, and at a high upgrade cost, just haven't happened. It's impossible to filter on any degree of Boolean multiple-term search; nor can searches be saved. There is at least now a primitive and clumsy linking of outline items, though way behind what NoteTaker, Tinderbox, Neo et al. have been doing for many years. Checkbox states ("Show me only the stuff where 'Done' is checked") are unsearchable. Multiple finds can't be seen all at once; you have to skip from one to the next. It looks pretty, yes. And the integration, via OmniPresence, with iOS mostly works, usually, though it's a bit of a lash-up; I don't want to have to put things I want to sync across devices *all in the same folder* but tough luck on that one. Cloning? Oh come *on*. Of course there's no cloning. Et cetera. Omni Group has always been a kind of avatar of the Mac ethos. For whatever reason, they're following the current direction of Apple: pout, twinkle and let the rough guys do the actual *work*, honeypie. It's a shame. But it's not really "Pro" except in the after-dark Sunset Bvd. sense. If it didn't have the multiple columns as a USP, I'd look for another solution. Matter of fact, I think I'll look for another solution anyway, if only for the random ditching of the clipping service. The columns are only a matter of prettying up, anyway; you can't *do* much with them. It seems to be the way Omni is heading. Similar cosmesis-over-function seems to have been the governing principle behind Omni Focus, too. Think I'll turn into the kind of old fart who says "I remember when you could stuff with your computer *even if Apple didn't like the idea*. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a wind getting up and I have to go whistle in it.