How Trello Is Different
The great horizontal killer applications are actually just fancy data structures.
Spreadsheets are not just tools for doing “what-if” analysis. They provide a specific data structure: a table. Most Excel users never enter a formula. They use Excel when they need a table. The gridlines are the most important feature of Excel, not recalc.
Word processors are not just tools for writing books, reports, and letters. They provide a specific data structure: lines of text which automatically wrap and split into pages.
PowerPoint is not just a tool for making boring meetings. It provides a specific data structure: an array of full-screen images.
Trello looks pretty nice to me, although I don’t think I have a particular need for it right now. I use OmniOutliner and BBEdit for my lists. I believe Omni has made similar statements about how the idea for OmniOutliner came from Excel.
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The multiuser/Web-accessible nature of Trello is really the major difference. I still use OmniOutliner for fine-grained planning every day as I have for the past 8 years (! - used Radio UserLand's Instant Outline before that), but it's never had a useful sharing/syncing strategy. We've been using Trello for lightweight project planning and have actually stuck with it over the course of several months, which is more than I can say for every previous tool I've tried.
Anybody aware of a way to create a Trello card from an OmniOutliner item?
Seems like it would be possible to do this with AppleScript...
Would anybody else find that useful?
Okay, it's not from Omni per se, but there is indeed a reference that it is the case: http://blog.wilshipley.com/2006/01/thinking-boxes-what-kittens-can-do-to.html