Opening Omnioutliner Files - Level Titles to Auto-title

[kristian]

I want to suggest considering that Mellel open Omnioutliner files. Even appreciating the mellel-autotitle function a lot, for me it does not substitute omnioutliner for initial research and document planning and structuring (and i think that's fine, mellel shouldn't also try to be a full fledged outliner).
I like to make my documents "grow" out from their outline which evolves and puts on meat as I work on it.
Since Mellel and Omnioutliner now both are packaged files containing a .xml file inside I imagine that technically it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

I would suggest that in the process of importing I can decide how many hierarchy levels should be included as autotitles. In this way I could decide to have 1st and 2nd level hierarchies in omnioutliner as autotitled section and sub-section while the following hierarchies be normal text.

Anyone have a say on this?
regards,
Kristian

[fastmiso]

This is also my workflow: OmniOutliner -> Mellel (vel sim).

So, yeah, this is a great idea and would be a nice feature—circumventing RTF and reformatting.—but it isn't as high on my list as cross-references and indexes.

[nicka]

There's an XML open standard for outlining, OPML, and OmniOutliner can export in that, can't it? So it's a matter of someone making a suitable OPML XML to Mellel XML converter, isn't it?

[kristian]

hi nicka,
>>There's an XML open standard for outlining, OPML, and OmniOutliner can export in that, can't it? So it's a matter of someone making a suitable OPML XML to Mellel XML converter, isn't it?<<

This sounds very interesting and seems to me that should be the way to be taken. Would be great to have someone write such a converter. Who do you think could be motivated to do such a thing? Someone on the Mellel side, the Omnioutliner side or the OPML.org side?

It would be nice if in this way Mellel would become the wordprocessor of choice also for all those that work with outliners.
kristian

[nicka]

It's a job for someone who uses Mellel, I suppose. The Omni people have done their share of the work, supporting export to an open standard. The ideal is someone who uses OmniOutliner and Mellel and knows a bit about XML. Or someone who knows how to produce an XSLT and wants a challenge.

[wrbudge]

I certainly would like a way to import documents from OmniOutliner Pro and have Mellel automatically assign Autotitles to the outline headings.

[pepe]

Yes, please!!

[macsailor]

I certainly would like a way to import documents from OmniOutliner Pro and have Mellel automatically assign Autotitles to the outline headings.

I agree on this one.

[wrbudge]

It certainly would make a snazzy workflow.

[wrbudge]

The same sort of automatic autotitles import functionality would be great for Word files as well.

[caseyodonnell]

Right now I just keep my Omni Outline open on a different screen with Mellel on another.

I do know a fair amount about XSLT and XML, so I can certainly give it a shot going from OML to Mellel. I'm busy writing the dissertation, so I'm not sure if I'll actually get to it, but I like the idea and seem a reasonable candidate.

I was also thinking that brining in "comments" for a outline node could be brought in as regular text under a given autotitle with which it's coming from. Just another thought.

Cheers.

[ozean]

casey, if you find the time to do this it would be most welcome! however, dissertations are evil creatures, so I try not to get my hopes up to high…

[kristian]

casey,
that would be wonderful if you could give this a try! having mellel open outlines automatically creating autotitles of the first 1, 2, 3,… levles would be an incredible addition to many people's workflow i believe.

keep us up to date with your progress!
regards,
kristian