Since I wrote the previous post on the MacTel hardware apparently killing Classic and so two commonly used (by me and apparently a lot of folks) Classic apps, More and HyperCard, I’ve done a little more investigating.

I still haven’t found an application that will definitely import More files correctly. There are a number of More replacements available now, including NoteTaker, NoteBook, DevonThink/DevonNote, and the new TAO outliner. Some of these are more oriented toward outlining, some toward notes. If anyone has experience importing More files into these, I’d like to hear about it.

So far I think (judging only from screenshots) DevonThink is the closest to the sort of interface I’m looking for. I clearly need a pane on the left to access and group multiple writing files (as DevonThink has) to manage my writing, but I also really like the tabbed notebook style interface that NoteTaker and NoteBook have. I’m surprised how hard it is to find a writing program for the Mac that has the file pane on the left (not a pop-out drawer - the worst feature of Aqua - by making me have to move my window around). I guess you could create something like this in NoteTaker, but it should be a standard interface. Again, if any NoteTaker/Notebook users have implemented a left file pane, I’d like to know how you did it.

I guess the issue on the interface really revolves around the fact that you’re trying to do three different things in a notetaking program - create content/writing/notes, manage/find content, and then present content. The real appeal of an outliner is its ability to help organize one’s thinking, but an outline document is far too limiting for this. An overall notes program is needed, but it should have a good outliner in it.

One other program that may eventually make it to the Mac is EverNote. Some folks seem to like it. Its chronological memory could be very handy for finding stuff.

In my own case, I really don’t want to have to use two different programs for writing (and organizing my writing) and for storing notes, and I’d really like what I have to integrate with my Palm. In this category (for the Mac; Microsoft’s OneNote isn’t available for Mac, at least yet), it seems that NoteTaker is the leader right now, and I like the direction they’re taking with adding programmability, which could make NoteTaker a powerful tool. So I’m inclined to go with them, but I want a good writing interface.

I guess I need to try converting some of my More files with Brad Pettit’s More2XML (see last post) and then seeing if any of the note programs can import that fairly well. That might be a good two-step solution.