Never used Omni Outliner before but read some reviews, watched some video clips and thought that it was EXACTLY what I needed... so despite the (for the app store) high price, laid down my money and installed it on my iPad.
But I'm just hitting this brick wall - I was hoping for an app that would just work intuitively - to let the ideas flow and let me push into the outline what I wanted, how I wanted. Instead I'm fighting this thing every inch of the way and to be honest, just a couple of hours after my purchase I regret spending money on this.
I guess I should back all this bitterness up with some real comments so here goes:
(1) Named Styles - well I create a style with a certain background colour and font size... then when I use this style, no matter what font size the style is set to, it just goes to '20' regardless. I have to manually edit it to whatever I need it to be. This is pointless.
(2) I want to enter carriage-return on a list line? Nope - won't let me do this.
(3) Importing an image - could this have been made any harder? Don't think so. Why not just let me either take a photo or let me pick a file from my images on my device? Why do I need to leave and re-enter the app? This is such a crazy way of doing things and SO non-standard.
(4) Why can't I resize an image so I can see it all? This was mentioned in this forum and the response was to choose 'quick view' to see it - but no, I want to see my image completely in my outline. I should be able to do this.
(5) How can I import a mind-map from iThoughtsHD? I've seen lots of mentions on blogs that this is possible but I can't figure it out. Omni Outliner seems to be devoid of import options.
(6) PDF export - I've created this lovely outline. I'd like to save it as a PDF so I can distribute this. How?
(7) Minor point - I've emailed Omni Group from within the app - and received an auto-response to say they have the email. The auto-response contains an 'FAQ' which states that Omni-Outliner is not yet released for the iPad. Ummm... it might just be now, guys!
Look, I know I sound like I'm just moaning and complaining. Honestly, I'm not normally like this - and usually quite tolerant with App Store purchases - but this one chose to enter the store at a premium price and subsequently I thought I'd be buying a premium, polished product. This really isn't. It feels like it's barely been user-tested since it works GREAT for the OmniGroup canned demos but when you try to use this properly, for the myriad of uses we may come up with for it, it just isn't sufficiently flexible. Surely the whole point of this app is to be as flexible as possible - to make the organisation and collection of ideas easy and seamless? If I have to fight a tool like this, I simply won't use it. So I'm really disappointed by my purchase and REALLY hope there'll be some commitment to improving this product.
I was on the verge of also purchasing OmniGraffle but I'm really reluctant to do so now, fearing that I'll find the same incompleteness and awkwardness there also.
:-(
Jamie.
But I'm just hitting this brick wall - I was hoping for an app that would just work intuitively - to let the ideas flow and let me push into the outline what I wanted, how I wanted. Instead I'm fighting this thing every inch of the way and to be honest, just a couple of hours after my purchase I regret spending money on this.
I guess I should back all this bitterness up with some real comments so here goes:
(1) Named Styles - well I create a style with a certain background colour and font size... then when I use this style, no matter what font size the style is set to, it just goes to '20' regardless. I have to manually edit it to whatever I need it to be. This is pointless.
(2) I want to enter carriage-return on a list line? Nope - won't let me do this.
(3) Importing an image - could this have been made any harder? Don't think so. Why not just let me either take a photo or let me pick a file from my images on my device? Why do I need to leave and re-enter the app? This is such a crazy way of doing things and SO non-standard.
(4) Why can't I resize an image so I can see it all? This was mentioned in this forum and the response was to choose 'quick view' to see it - but no, I want to see my image completely in my outline. I should be able to do this.
(5) How can I import a mind-map from iThoughtsHD? I've seen lots of mentions on blogs that this is possible but I can't figure it out. Omni Outliner seems to be devoid of import options.
(6) PDF export - I've created this lovely outline. I'd like to save it as a PDF so I can distribute this. How?
(7) Minor point - I've emailed Omni Group from within the app - and received an auto-response to say they have the email. The auto-response contains an 'FAQ' which states that Omni-Outliner is not yet released for the iPad. Ummm... it might just be now, guys!
Look, I know I sound like I'm just moaning and complaining. Honestly, I'm not normally like this - and usually quite tolerant with App Store purchases - but this one chose to enter the store at a premium price and subsequently I thought I'd be buying a premium, polished product. This really isn't. It feels like it's barely been user-tested since it works GREAT for the OmniGroup canned demos but when you try to use this properly, for the myriad of uses we may come up with for it, it just isn't sufficiently flexible. Surely the whole point of this app is to be as flexible as possible - to make the organisation and collection of ideas easy and seamless? If I have to fight a tool like this, I simply won't use it. So I'm really disappointed by my purchase and REALLY hope there'll be some commitment to improving this product.
I was on the verge of also purchasing OmniGraffle but I'm really reluctant to do so now, fearing that I'll find the same incompleteness and awkwardness there also.
:-(
Jamie.
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