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Word Tabbed Editing, etc – Writing Outliner New screenshots
Posted in: Word addin by Edwin on February 23, 2010
Hi Folks,
I know you have been long waiting for Writing Outliner Word addin, and I’m sorry for not being able to release it that early as you might have been expected, but here are some screenshots and I hope you’ll find it ‘s worthwhile to be awaited 😉
Tabbed Word Document Editing
So with Writing Outliner you’ll be able to editing multiple documents in Word without switching programs with tabs (the popular modern UI design concept, especially in the Web browser world).
Icon markers for Word document
In the outliner there are two built-in columns: document status and document lables, both are represented by an icon and a name. I’m a “visual” guy, I believe that human brain processes graph better than processing text, so I believe these two visual clues will help you better manage your writing projects.
Tagging Word documents
Tagging such a popular tool for organizing information nowadays, especially in the Internet world, why not adopt it to manage Word Documents? It’s another tool in Writing Outliner for your to manage your documents right inside Microsoft Wor!
Another secrete about Writing Outliner Word addon I want to unveil: The Project Manager in Writing Outliner Word addin is almost a full-featured file manager like the Windows Explorer 😉
But I’m kind of perfectionistic (?) so I’m still adding some more features before I release it as a beta version 😉
Questions? Please!
Comments
This is fantastic! I used Scrivener to write my thesis in college and loved it. At my job now we are all on PCs and I’ve found myself cursing at word. I can’t wait for the beta version to be released. One significant part of my job is testing software, finding bugs, and giving the developers feedback. The other is developing the UI for our program. I look forward to being able to work with Writing Outliner!
Will users be able to modify the look of their tabs to further customize and organize their projects? For example, Next to Chapter 1, I might put the icon marker ‘Done’ and next to Chapter 2 I might put the icon marker ‘In Progress’
Or lets say I have all my work reviewed by two people…it would be great to be able to tell from looking at a certain view (Status View?) or by just glancing at the tabs that Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 were reviewed by Editor A and Editor B; Chapter 3 has been looked at by Editor A but I’m still waiting to hear from Editor B.
You know how in Scrivener you can type in a word or phrase and it will show you all the chapters/sections/sources etc that contain that word or phrase? Will this program have a feature like that? It was one of the most useful aspects of that software for me. Especially when I started to have to manage over 200 sources.
This announcement just made my morning. Thanks!
Comment by Kira on February 23, 2010 at 2:29 am
I can fully subscribe to what Kira says. Tabs and tags make our lives much easier 🙂
One small question – will it be possible to add my own icons to the document status and labels?
Cheers!
Comment by Wojciech on February 23, 2010 at 6:10 am
Hello,
Nice pics! 🙂
Have you heard of another project that tries to blend Scrivener features with Windows based program, namely LyX-Outline? (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/05/13/lyx-outline)
But I guess it’s easier to work straight in Word environment rather than get used to LyX. Although they say it’s quite friendly program, once you got used to it.
Comment by Orkhan on February 23, 2010 at 2:56 pm
@Kira,
Thank you for your questions.
1. You can define a ‘status’ and a ‘label’ for each document and the icons of the corresponding status or label will be shown in the Project Manager Outliner line by line and that will give you a big picture. The icons will be not shown next the tabs, I want to keep the user interface as clean and simple as possible. However, this is my current thought and I might be wrong, so in the beta testing process I will collect feedbacks from you guys and do some amendment accordingly.
2. If more than one editors must review the documents, you need to use the ‘document tags’ feature, for example, create two tags: ReviewedByA and ReviewedByB. And in the search box, you can input tag:ReviewedByA to show only documents that have been reviewed by editor A
3. See my reply for question 2 above.
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 23, 2010 at 3:29 pm
@Wojciech,
Yes,but not in the first beta release I guess.
@Orkhan,
Thank you for the link, that’s a nice project.
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 23, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Hello Edwin,
I assume the pre-beta you have now, is not up to your own feelings of what a perfect program should look like.
But since people like myself only want to have a decent outliner at hand and the rest is although valuable and at times irreplaceble but nevertheless not the top priority features (for people like me again), why not to try on us what you have?
Please, don’t get my impatiance wrong. It’s just I have been looking for something lookalike Scrivener for more than 2 years, and the shots that you have presented induce my feelings that I will have it at last.
Cheers 🙂
Comment by Orkhan on February 24, 2010 at 6:17 pm
@Orkhan,
Actually i do not think there are perfect programs in the world 😉
The features i want to add before the 1st beta release are basic features i think (searching), & i am really close to the 1st release now;)
BTW, are the necessary outlining functions in this context?
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 24, 2010 at 8:37 pm
OK, I am glad to hear these words of yours (“really close”) :)))
Comment by Orkhan on February 25, 2010 at 12:19 am
The problem with Lyx is the LaTeX format. It’s great for academic publishing, but most agents and publishing houses will only accept Word formats (and LaTEX doesn’t translate into .DOC particularly well).
But this Word Outliner is looking better each time I see it. I think Edwin is onto a winner here. Can’t wait to see it. Will be very interested to see how it handles style sheets.
Comment by MuppetGate on February 25, 2010 at 2:40 pm
@MuppetGate,
I hope I am not disappointing you, but the first version does not contain any style related features, because although I have some ideas I still need further discussion with you guys in order to implement it.
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 25, 2010 at 6:09 pm
No problem. I’m not sure what I want from stylesheets myself just yet. I would have thought that applying a single sheet to every file in the project would be a good starting point. That way you can convert the project into different formats without too much hassle.
Comment by MuppetGate on February 25, 2010 at 10:33 pm
@MuppetGate,
single sheet for the whole project is a great idea. I’ll propose a detailed plan and gather comments from you.
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 26, 2010 at 10:07 am
Yes, and some kind of drop down so you can switch to a different sheet. Is that doable?
Comment by MuppetGate on February 27, 2010 at 1:33 am
Hi MuppetGate,
Yes I think so, maybe when you see the current version of Writing Outliner for Word you have more ideas about that feature.
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 27, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Yep, I’ll certainly take a look. 🙂
I know we all seem a little impatient, but that’s because we think this will be a seriously useful tool for those of us (for better or worse) who use Word. But it’s important that you’re happy with it before you release it.
😀
Keep up the good work!
Comment by MuppetGate on February 27, 2010 at 3:18 pm
@MuppetGate,
Never mind the so called “impatience”, all it brings are positive effects on the project, I swear 😉
Comment by Edwin Yip on February 27, 2010 at 6:39 pm
I haven’t visited the blog since mid-December, so there was a lot of new stuff to look at. Very exciting! I can hardly wait!
Comment by critStock on March 2, 2010 at 7:59 am
Anything? :))
Comment by Orkhan on March 6, 2010 at 4:07 pm
@Orkhan,
I’m finalizing the preparation for the BETA test 😉
Comment by Edwin Yip on March 7, 2010 at 9:17 pm