Keynote for the Web

December 4, 2006 5:04 AM

In the last 24 hours I've discovered Keynote (no, not that Keynote) and it's pretty much revolutionized the way I organise my information and do my work. Is there a web-based equivalent?

The basic form of Keynote is:

(a) A tabbed interface - each tab is a "note".
(b) Within each tab you can set up a "tree".
(c) Each node on the tree is an RTF text document.
(d) It's all movable, searchable, exportable.

Somehow this format is incredibly intuitive - it makes much more sense to me than all the other "mind mapping" or Wiki style of information management software. I can put a different project in each tab, and under each tab set up nodes and sub-nodes for a things to do list, copies of correspondence, things to remember, research data, analysis, lists, you name it.

But it would be killer if I could keep all my information online in a form that is accessible from anywhere. Now days the web seems full of "Online AJAX to-do lists" - any ideas about something more like Keynote?

posted by Jimbob to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Keynote is excellent (used it for years, tried other things that I didn't like much and ended up with the free evernote) but I haven't seen anything quite like it on the internet. You do know you can run it off a USB thumb drive, right?
posted by IronLizard at 5:07 AM on December 4, 2006

Unless I've misinterpreted you, isn't what you're after actually along the lines of a wiki?

Or maybe Google Notebook? You could have one notebook for each project and keep all of your lists and data as separate notes. No built-in list functionality, though.
posted by blag at 7:41 AM on December 4, 2006

How about Remember the Milk?
posted by fletchmuy at 7:42 AM on December 4, 2006

I've been a huge fan of Keynote for the past few years and have tried out every single Ajax info manager in the hopes of finding something similar. There isn't one.
posted by EiderDuck at 8:24 AM on December 4, 2006

Zotero? They're currently working on making it web-based. (Browser-based for the time being, but still pretty useful.)
posted by imposster at 8:44 AM on December 4, 2006

Just came across this today: www.ijot.net

I like the folding sections and the hierarchy on the right. Looks like it might be as close as you're going to get at the moment.
posted by verevi at 9:46 AM on December 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Try sproutliner.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:38 AM on December 4, 2006

Well, ijot is about as close as we get - it still ain't quite right - I thought the tabs at the top were something you could edit, not part of the site itself. Anyway, thanks for the effort!
posted by Jimbob at 2:43 PM on December 4, 2006

Holy crap! This question destroyed my productivity today. Thanks for introducing me to KeyNote.
posted by Kwirq at 3:25 PM on December 4, 2006

Keynote is free but is no longer being developed. A $30 product called MyNotesKeeper is very similar. Those who can peek under the hood can perhaps determine whether MNK has borrowed the KeyNote code.
posted by yclipse at 4:26 PM on December 4, 2006

If different software is where you end up going, I'd suggest evernote. The free version isn't crippled unless you need something like handwriting recognition. Not only does it do trees (not tabs, though), it also supports tags and auto creates some branches according to tags and lets you create custom rules on which notes go where. This is quite useful in both obvious and not-so-obvious ways. (Make sure you edit the preferences to auto-tag the note with the branch you're creating it in or you may end up wondering where some things went after a bit! Don't know why this isn't the default). It has just about all the features of keynote I use and then plenty that keynote doesn't. Too much to list, really.
posted by IronLizard at 10:25 PM on December 5, 2006