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Upcoming function in Writing Outliner Software: Check For Updates

Posted in: Outliner Software, Version History by Edwin on February 11, 2011 | 4 Comments

I’ve just added the “check for updates” function to Writing Outliner – the ultimate outliner software for writers who use MS Word.

In the upcoming version of Writing Outliner software you’ll be able to open a web page to check if a new version is available for download, with just one click.

The following is an example of the checking result when you have the latest version installed already. If you don’t, a Download button will be shown in the webpage .

Outliner Software for MS Word

New function is coming: Export all project documents to a folder

Posted in: Outliner Software, Version History by Edwin on January 31, 2011 | No Comments

Export documents to a folder

You might know that Writing Outliner software stores all your documents and the associated document tags, notes, synopsis, etc, in a SQLITE database which is the most reliable desktop database system.

But some of you told me that you will feel more comfortable and safe if you can access all your documents in a folder in your disk.

And I fully understand and respect that – I’m not only saying this, but I am actually doing something to make you feel safer and more comfortable when using this outliner software.

The screenshot

Check the following screenshot, I’ve just added a new function to Writing Outliner software, it allows you with a few clicks to export all documents, or  in a given project to a folder.

In this Outliner Software you can export your documents

I’ll release the new version of the outliner software later

After the upcoming holidays here, I’ll show the exported result, including:

  • The exported files and subfolders in the target folder.
  • The index file, which is a Word document with a table which lists all document metadata, and especially, with links to exported files, so that you can access the exported documents easier.

And importantly, I’ll release the new version of this outliner and document organizer for MS Word!

New Function Added: ‘Auto Title Case’

Posted in: Book writing software, Version History by Edwin on January 22, 2011 | No Comments

Start from today, from time to time I’ll write about new functions being added as the Writing Outliner software developments goes.

And this is the new ‘Auto Title Case‘ for document titles, now when you first time edit a document title in the outline, Writing Outliner software will automatically turn the title into ‘title case’. It’s a small function, but image the time it can save us in the long run 🙂

The following screenshot should demonstrate it well:

Index card software for MS Word

Posted in: Index card software, Version History by Edwin on January 21, 2011 | No Comments

Just added a new page that shows the new corkboard (index card) view for the Screenshots section of the Writing Outliner website.

I think now with the newly added ability to treat each documents in a writing project  as an index card,

Writing Outliner can be called an index card software.

New version 1.2.0.662 with the new corkboard (index cards) view!

Posted in: Version History by Edwin on January 3, 2011 | 4 Comments

Hi folks,

First of all, happy new year! Writing Outliner Word Add-in new version v1.2.0.662 has been released, the major new feature is the corkboard view, as you can see it in a video demo in my previous post, as well as other enhancements and bugfixes, details at the end.

Please download the new trial version (paid customers please find your purchase notification email for the full version download link, contact me if you can’t find it). As always, you feedbacks, comments and questions are welcomed!

Promo for the New Version and the New Year!

$29 only till Jan 10th! Don’t miss the chance! Click To Buy Now!

corkboard

Read more…

Writing Outliner Beta 4 (Update 1)

Posted in: Book writing software, Version History by Edwin on July 2, 2010 | No Comments

Hi folks,

I’ve just uploaded a new beta version of Writing Outliner – 0.9.9.492 Beta 4 (Update 1).

This version includes the following bugfixes and enhancements:

  • Enhancements of document compilation (merging separate documents into a single one):
    • Compilation error under Vista Enterprise + Word 2007.
    • Style handling problem reported by forum member MuppetGate in this forum post (happens only when ‘Include titles’ option is not selected).
    • Now the ‘compiled output’ will not be opened in the current document tab, but instead, open in a new tab (and one tab only). This is more convenient as it will not change your current document selection.
    • Shows an icon on the ‘compiled output’ document tab so that it can be identified easily.
  • Occasional error (something like ‘Access violation’) that happens when closing Microsoft Word.
  • Shows a balloon hint window to tip the user that he/she can restore  the Writing Project Manager pane when it’s is minimized. Some users reported they lost Writing Outliner, I guess this might be the reason 😉

Download address of this beta 4 (update 1) of Writing Outliner Word add-in. Note there is an alternative download link at the bottom of the download page.

Writing Outliner Beta 4 and Pre-launch Promotion

Posted in: Version History by Edwin on June 29, 2010 | No Comments

I haven’t blogged for a while – I’ve been extremely busy with the development of Writing Outliner Word add-on, and today, I can finally announce this final beta release!

Beta 4 of this Word-on mostly contains improvements of existing functions, so that it’s easier to understand and use.

I’d like to thank you all people who has sent  me so much useful feedbacks, comments and suggestions (I know, not all of them have been implemented, but let’s get version 1 out first, I promise I’ll keep work on it 🙂

I’ve set the release date of version 1 to be

July 8th, 2010.

And I’ve decided to sweeten the pot with a very attractive pre-sale, here is the deal – start from now till July 7th, you can pre-order Writing Outliner for only $39.50 – 50% off of the list price.

Pre-order today!

What’s New in Beta 4?

  • Complete Office 2010 (Word 2010) support. The strange problems with Word 2010 should go away now!
  • Enhanced compilation (The processing of merging separate documents into a single document).
    Now ou can set your compilation options – generate TOC (table of content), apply heading styles to chapter names, etc (see screenshot below).
    The compilation has become very easy due to the UI improvements.
    Screenshot of Writing Outliner Word Add-in
  • More friendly to academic writing:
    • Fixed: In Word 2007 and above, the ‘current list’ bibliography will be lost after reopening the project.
    • The compilation now handles footnotes/endnotes well.
    • Fixed: Word documents’ footnotes/endnotes option loses after reopened.
  • Better support for project-based writing:
    • All documents in the same top-level folder (such as the drafts folder) now shares the same style set.
    • New outline node type – folders. You’ll be switched to the multi-column outline will be shown when a folder is selected.
    • In addition setting target word/character counts for a single document, you can now also set target word character counts for folders.
  • Enhancements of the Project Manager outline and Multi-column Outliner:
    • Print the Multi-column Outline.
    • Now the visibility, width and order of the columns are remembered even you restart Microsoft Word.
  • Other usability improvements:
    • Shortcuts for toggling Project Manager Outliner, Document Properties Pane.
    • Ctrl + click to open document in new tab.
    • Use balloon hint window to show document summary when your mouse is hovered above a outline node or a document tab.
    • New ‘Keep Document Window Focused After Selecting A Document’ option.
    • Show word count (in gray color) for each document in the project outline.
  • And a lot of other bugfixes and enhancements, such as problem with International character input, installation for multiple Windows users, loss of Word documents’ page setup info (margins, columns), etc.

Why Pre-order Writing Outliner Now?

  • You’ll immediately get the license key which can be used to unlock the full version of Writing Outliner which will be released July 8th, 2010.
  • You’ll save $39.50! (Or save $99 if you buy MindVisualizer mind mapping software as well).

Don’t miss this chance, but now!

What To Expect Next?

The cork board! With the corkboard documents in a writing project can be viewed and arranged as index cards, it’ll be a powerful tool for writers.

Since I’ll increase the price of Writing Outliner as new major features being added, so I strongly recommend you to pre-order Writing Outliner now and you’ll eligible to upgrade to future version!

BETA 3 update 1 – Slightly enhanced the interactive between the tabs and the Project Manager.

Posted in: Version History by Edwin on April 25, 2010 | No Comments

I have just uploaded beta 3 update 1, which includes some minor changes, especially for the newly introduced multi-column outliner which helps get a big picture of the selected portion of the project and manage it easily.

  1. Fixed the two issues reported by Taxi in this thread in the beta test forum.
  2. Fixed the second issue reported by Andrej in the beta 3 announcement thread.
  3. And slightly improved  usability of other parts of this Word add-in.

BTW, I’m going to make some demo videos for Writing Outliner .

Writing Outliner Beta 3 Is Released!

Posted in: Version History by Edwin on April 24, 2010 | No Comments

What’s new in BETA 3  (vversion number is 0.9.6.393)?

Full-featured multi-column outliner

With it you can focus on and plan a certain portion of the project,write synopsis, notes, target words/characters, etc, and you can quickly switch betweendocument editing mode and multi-column outliner mode.
At the bottom of the multi-column outline you can see the total words/characters  and target words/characters, so that you see the progress of any portion or the whole project.  A picture worth a thousand words:
Multi-column outliner in Microsoft Word

Search snippets preview  and auto locating

go to the exact matching places easily when searching documents. See my previous blog post for details.

full text search

Project restore (and backup, of course!)

Project restore function – now you can revert the entire project to any previous revision which was saved manually or automatically!  . See my previous blog post for details and screenshots.

New graphical visual outline style

Emphasis the hierarchical relationships – and you can switch back to the old text-based style, of course! screenshot:

graphical visual outliner

Auto document synopsis extracting

Extract synopses  from documents so that you can see the overview in the multi-column outliner.

And others improvements:
  • Customize the outliner – show/hide columns, switch between visual styles – shape-based or text-based.
    outliner customization
  • More outline structuring functions – indent, outdent, etc, with keyboard support!
  • More friendly modified/created time showing, e.g. use “Today”, “Yesterday” instead of the ordinary long datetime showing.
  • When opening a Writing Outliner project in the Welcome pane, it will be opened in a new Word window instead of asking you to close the current Word document first.
  • Other improvements and bugfixes.

Thanks for your attention, folks! And I’m looking forward to you feedback!

I’ve been extremely busy in the past month, in the upcoming days I will still have a lot of work to do – mainly preparing for the first commercial release, and it’s very late here now,  I’ve got to have a sauna and take a rest now now!

Have fun play with the new version, don’t’ forget to give me feedback via email or the online best test forum.

Auto project backup and more – Writing Outliner Word Add-in BETA 2

Posted in: Version History by Edwin on March 31, 2010 | 1 Comment

Hi Folks,

I’m getting a great amount of valuable feedbacks from emails and the beta test forum since the first beta of Writing Outliner Word Add-in was release 15th this month, thank you all, guys!

Of course in such a short time I couldn’t get all suggestions and problems fixed, but here is the list of the new stuff in this second beta release of Writing Outliner Word Add-in – the all-on-one writing tool for writers.

And I’ll be working on the rest, please don’t hesitate to give me more feedbacks through:

  1. The beta test forum, or
  2. Email me directly.

Download

Download the new release (BETA 2) here.

Manual or automatic project backup

You write/edit Word documents a lot, you have to backup your documents frequently.

Word document backup with Writing Outliner has become easy now, it allows you backup your whole Writing Outliner project anytime as you wish, or simple let Writing Outliner takes care of it for you – automatically backup the modified writing project upon closing. See the screenshots below:

Project backup menu in Writing Outliner Word Add-inProject backup optionsProject revisions list

Quick Word document import, a great time-saver!

Quickly (with two clicks) import currently opened Word document to a specified Writing Outliner project.

It’s very easy, just click the ‘Import Current Document’ link in the Welcome pane and then select the target project you want to import to. Once it’s done, you open the target project and you’ll find the imported Words documents under the newly introduced INBOX folder. Screenshots:

Import Current Word DocumentProject INBOX - import word documents into a WO project

Other improvements

  • Move a document up or down in the Project Manager Outliner with keyboard <Ctrl + Up/Down>;
  • Added the ‘address bar‘ to the embedded File Explorer tab, so that when doing document importing or exporting you can quickly navigate to a folder;
    File Explorer Address Bar
  • Now ignorable notification messages are shown with the small notification window that appears at the lower right part of your screen, so that your workflow will not be interrupted (Like what Outlook, MSN/Live Messenger do).
    Word document backup notification window

Bugfixes:

  • Project notes are missing after re-opening the project several times;
  • In a rare case the document synopsis, tags or notes sub-pane in the Document Properties Pane (only the UI itself, not your data) will disappear until you reopened Microsoft Word.
  • Temporary Word documents that are used internally by Writing Outlinier Add-in are no longer be added to Word’s ‘Recent Document List’, so you’ll not be seeing strange document names like 1AE63565B5E04ACB8674659621A9AA89.docx;
  • Avoid moving the special ‘Compiled Output’ document node with drag and drop.

Download

Download the new release (BETA 2) here.

Enjoy the new beta release!