I do have a wishlist for OO4 features in my head, but it'd take a bit too much time to expose it here. Part of it is something I posted a number of years ago to the OOuser mailing-list.
But that was then. I think OO3 wasn't even out, yet.
Mainly, I want OO4 to work with my iPod touch. In fact, I've been thinking about buying OmniFocus for this very reason. But it doesn't seem to be as convenient as an outliner as I'd want it to be. I'm getting a bit closer to the whole GTD way of thinking, but I'd like something more akin to OO in terms of processing.
I can just see it. It's unlikely to be released, but I daydream about it.
See, I think and work through outlines. Much of what I do ends up being outlinable. Reading notes, presentation slides, random ideas, tasks, lists...
OO is my favourite outliner. I spent three years using a Windows machine as my main computer and the lack of an OO-like outliner was a big issue, for me. NetManage Ecco Pro was a fascinating concept, but it was hard to integrate in my workflow because it didn't play well with "modern technology." I eventually settled on OneNote but it didn't fit so well in my workflow because it "doesn't play well with others," even with Microsoft products such as Word, Windows Live Writer, or Powerpoint.
Which is a basic point: a tool like OO needs to fit in a workflow. OO3 hasn't changed that much in the three years during which I was unable to use it. But it's still quite useful. I can "get by" with OO3. Because it fits in my workflow. Especially now that I can use CarbonFin Outliner online and on my iPod touch. Not ideal, but much better than what I was able to get during my PalmOS days.
OO3's import and export options are quite good. In fact, the .docx export almost "saved my life" as I was trying to get lecture notes into PowerPoint. If this export option were available as an add-on to OO Standard, I'd buy it. (I ended up using a trial version of OOPro to get the .docx for further processing.)
I'm getting a kind of déjà-vu and I'm guessing these are things I've discussed in the past (apart from the .docx export, which only came recently).
But there's a broader context to all of this. Evernote is almost a killer app, on several platforms. If it supported outlines in the way OO does, I'd switch to it in a heartbeat.
Then, there's the whole "task-management" side. There's a wide-array of products out there which do GTD or other forms of task management. OF addresses this very directly and is compared with Cultured Code Things, Toodledo, Remember the Milk, Midnight Inbox, and TaskPaper. I've been looking at all of these quite carefully. As is often the case, all these products have advantages and disadvantages. None of them fits as my ideal tool. Where OF has a significant advantage, for me personally, is that it does support outlines. It's no OO4, but it could enable me to aggregate several of my more task-oriented outlines. The GTD features looked very compelling but they're also the ones which make me torn between different tools. Contrary to OO, OF seems to be a way to "take over" part of your workflow instead of helping at different points of the process. For me, as an outline-lover, OF is too constraining. I want to be able to do the braindump as an outline, transform some parts as projects and goals, and keep the rest in outlines. Sure, those remaining outlines could be related to the "Information" part of the GTD model. But OF didn't seem to make this easy to manage, when I tried it.
As others have been saying in many contexts, some of us don't necessarily need a full-fledged GTD. We could probably a form of Kinkless-GTD if it were well-integrated in our outliners, but that's not necessarily the main goal.
Similarly, those of us who are obsessed with outlines could probably use mindmaps. They go well with outlines, for several reasons. And mindmapping tools out there aren't yet ideal, for the kind of processing we do. But that shouldn't be the focus either.
A strength of outliners like OO is that they're really efficient for the kind of realtime processing required as you're thinking through diverse ideas. There are many outlining tools which lack these basic things. The fact that you can create siblings and parents with the return key, the fact that you see the whole outline as you're editing, the fact that there are keystrokes to move items around... All of these distinguish outliners like OO from many tools which aren't nearly as convenient. The lack of any of these is pretty much a deal-breaker, for me.
TaskPaper is an interesting case. It's probably the simplest tool to use. It does support some limited outlining features. And its file-format is simple enough to make it fit in my workflow. I really wish TaskPaper could have OO-like features. If it did, I'd probably use it as my main "thought-processing" app.
So, the "pie in the sky" concept for my ideal outliner (which is unlikely to become a reality within the OO4 framework) would integrate features from a variety of other tools. OO3, Evernote, OneNote, OF, TaskPaper, CarbonFin Outliner, and MindMeister. I don't know that it'd necessarily include things like attachments, elaborate style management, handles in text exports, multiple columns, and so on. These are literally distractions for me as I use OO3. I end up spending quite a bit of time getting rid of these than taking advantage of them. Makes for a frustrating experience through which I keep going because I love OO for other reasons. But that's probably just me.
My ideal outliner certainly has other OO3 features such as a variety of import and export formats or convenient outline navigation and editing.
Yes, it's all a dream. But what recent events have taught us is that dreaming is a very efficient way to think.
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