Is Curio the answer to no OneNote on the Mac?

You know how I love and depend on OneNote on my Windows-based Tablet PCs and since switching to the Mac on my desktop (17" MacBook Pro actually) I have longed for a tool that approximates what OneNote does for me.  Today I was bouncing around the web as I always do and stumbled upon a program that I believe just might fill that need on the Mac.  Curio is a program produced by Zengobi that defies description as it does so much.  I am just getting started with it and I intend to write a detailed review of it when I get some time with it under my belt.  Meanwhile I can tell you what you can do with it and you can see why I am getting pretty excited about Curio.

Freeform notes:  Like OneNote you can take notes all over the page as you like.  There are even numerous templates in Curio to make them look like you prefer.  With a digitizer you can take ink notes too, could be a use for that ModBook that is now shipping.  Notes in Curio can be text, graphics, hyperlinks and just about anything you can imagine.  Just drop whatever you want to save in your notes

Embed audio and video:  In the latest version of Curio you can add audio and video snippets to your notes for review at any time.  A super usage for this is to record meetings for later referral when you wish to flesh out your notes without sacrificing concentration during the meeting.

Project Management:  Curio has a number of tools and templates to help you manage your projects right in the program.  You can even produce timelines for projects.

Project Center:  You can tag notes with a Project designation and get to all pertinent information about that project when needed.

Mind mapping:  Curio has some cool tools to make it easy to produce mind maps for brainstorming sessions.  It won't replace MindManager but it's pretty heady stuff.

Curio is a very full-featured data collection tool that may be daunting to get into but I have a feeling that once I jump in it with both feet I am going to be pretty impressed.  I am sure I will miss inking in Curio but we'll see how well it works for other things I do with OneNote.

Comments

[Tim Verpoorten]

To answer your question James, no it's not the answer to OneNote on your Mac, but I think the new Evernote in beta for Mac certainly is...
http://www.surfbits.com/?p=1486

[James Kendrick]

I'm testing Evernote too. :)

[jhall]

Have you tried circus ponies? It is a notebook clipping application to store your notes.
http://www.circusponies.com/

Thanks,

Joshua A. Hall

[Marshall Huwe]

I second Joshua's recommendation of Notebook from Circus Ponies. It is the closest thing to OneNote that I have found. I looked at Curio, but I already have Mindmanager so I was mainly looking for a OneNote replacement for the Mac. Notebook fits the bill perfectly for me.

[jmoney]

I have modded my le1700 with leopard (since the modbook has had some serious fulfillment issues) and curio has been my choice. Circus ponies will support ink with 3.0 but it's not here yet. Evernote beta is wonderful and could replace it all if they get ink supported. It is very cool, especially sync capabilities. I sketch out my day per page with curio and for now screenshot the page so I can view it on all my machines and the web/iphone,etc. If you ink in windoze version of evernote and sync, the mac shows a screen "ink coming soon".

[Joe O'Laughlin]

Specifically, what's not to like about Curio?

My testing so far shows there is no equivalent to the OneNote INSERT WHITESPACE that moves everything on the page up or down.

To get OneNote running on the MacBook Pro requires VM Fusion, Windows (XP), and a chill pad to reduce overheating.

Thanks for the tip.

[Joe O'Laughlin]

My impetuous mis-statement!

SELECT Shift-Click will allow multiple items to be selected and dragged to create white space in the middle of a sequence of items.

[Stu Gisburne]

Marshall - I was thinking of doing the same thing with my LE1600 and installing Leopard on it. What steps did you follow to get it all/most working?

[MPerricone]

In addition to Circus Ponies Notebook is Aquaminds Notetaker. I find Notetaker to have more features than Notebook (search multiple notebooks and the notebooks are searchable by spotlight).

[Joe O'Laughlin]

Editing the layout of an IdeaSpace
To wedge apart as per OneNote's Insert WhiteSpace

Use Arrow Select Tool (= an Arrow cursor)

Drag a box around ALL the Figures below the desired insert point.
(including "text figures")

All will now be highlighted in "Figure Boxes" .

On the top menu choose Arrange | Group

A highlighting box will now be drawn around ALL the Figures.

Drag the whole box down to open up whitespace to the desired amount.
(put the Arrow selection cursor on an empty space between boxes)

Clear the grouping with Arrange | Ungroup

Click ANY Figure to clear the individual highlighting of all.

File | Save might be a good idea at this point

[A Rossello]

I'm not quite getting the whole Circus Ponies argument as the closet there is to OneNote for the Mac.

I looked at the leading apps for Mac about a year ago and it's clear to me that, while Circus Ponies is a strong product, it just is way too linear of an application to be compared to OneNote. Is it the notebook metaphor that gets everyone?

Curio's Idea Spaces are way closer to the free-form model that OneNote employs so well. The mind map feature in Curio is, to me, a confusing move but it's a relatively new feature that is far from the focus of the application. I can type where ever I want, I can link objects, pull in images, create tables...anywhere on a page. Search is limited to within an Idea Space (file) but I've learned to live w/ that. If I want subdivisions, I create nested spaces. Sure it's not the cool tab & page model of OneNote, but it works. There's no flag searching either, which is another thing I loved about OneNote. That's something I haven't seen anywhere else.

There are definite limitations to the product compared to OneNote. But, as a poster has already said, there's nothing out there like OneNote for Mac. That's it. Based on email correspondence I've had w/ the Curio developers and my experience w/ OS X apps, it seems a lot of the limitations are a function of the platform and not necessarily of the app itself.

For example, tables in OneNote, one of my favorite features, are clumsy in Curio. But, I can put them anywhere I want on a page, just like I can type anywhere I want on a page. Not so in Circus Ponies. Although, I did check out their latest version (3) and it's pretty cool.

So, for those still looking, check out Curio again.