TAO for Mac

User Reviews

• Wrong Title

  anmortonSeptember 26, 2011

  Pros

  Works fine

  Cons

  Read instructions to get what you thought you were downloading.

  Summary

  This is the installer for PIXUS iP6100D Memory Card Utility. Since I don't need that or have one, I don't know if it works. But to get the HID driver, expand downloaded file and extract the HIDDrv98 folder.

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• TAO is dead?

  cogdenAugust 2, 2008

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />As an original ThinkTank/More user, one of my biggest OS X hurdles was converting my (and those of my colleagues') outlines to a OS X application. After testing all the available software, we found Tao to offer the most robust feature set. I then helped Takashi Hamada with the alpha/beta testing and the product's evolution (then called "FO"). The product was very promising Unfortunately, what was once solid support has waned. Development (which people once complained resulted in too many updates) has stalled. Indeed his website that addresses "Current State of Development" hasn't been updated since 3rd June, 2007. The "shipping" version is a beta. Worst starting June 2007, the product has led to total file corruption in more than six instances. Takashi wrote that they were working on the issue, yet a year has passed and no new version has been released, and the product continues to corrupt critical data beyond recovery. Unfortunately, additional emails to Takahasi have gone unanswered. <b>Sady, we can no longer recommend this product.<b> While OmniOutliner seems to be the next best thing, it doesn't match Tao in several key areas, namely "Cloning" (which Omni has promised for over two years now) and ease of keyboard custom configurations. They are still stuck in 3.x releases, with no 4.0 in sight. The funny thing is that More still rocks as a mean, lean, featured outliner. To bad Dave Winer doesn't brush off the source code and release it for Leopard (seeing as how the product was abandoned by Symantec).

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• TAO is a strange beast.

  Nick SloanApril 9, 2007

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />In theory it has power and flexibility like no other Mac outliner; in practice it requires intense study and patience to get the best out of it. Like other revered pieces of Mac shareware (Graphic Converter and Vuescan spring to mind) it is the complex and ingenious product of a single developer, which gives it the sort of single-minded focus that commercial software often lacks, but it also means that what may be obvious to the impressive mind of Mr Takashi can be a little baffling to the rest of us. You will be able to do things with TAO (sophisticated columns, minute control over formatting, comprehensive linking, extraordinarily flexible viewing options) that are not possible with most if any other Mac outliners, but do not expect to be able to achieve this without a considerable investment in time spent learning the intricacies of the app. TAO is not for the casual user, but can be very rewarding for those prepared to make the most of it. I have found it to be stable --in that it has never crashed on me, or caused a 3rd party crash so far as I know-- but not bug-free: some of the preferences do not seem to work as intended, and even after a minute study of the manual, some corners of the interface continue to perplex. This is not surprising for so convoluted an app, but as some previous reviewers have noted, the fact that TAO still has glitches to be ironed out after over 3 years of development and innumerable versions, makes me worry about the prospect of finite resources being dissipated on a Windows version. For $30, TAO is an absolute bargain. Please keep up the good work Mr Takashi.

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• The most feature-rich outliner

  spammy1September 10, 2006

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I own licenses for Mori, OmniOutliner Pro and Circus Ponies NoteBook, but decided to give TAO a try as well. It has the most powerful feature set by far, there's no point in listing it here. The price for such power is an interface that's awkward at best, which is what kept me away until now. You do have a lot of control over styles though once you get set up. The documentation could be improved (a tutorial or two would be nice), but if you're interested, don't give up too quickly. Devote a few hours to learning to learning the basic functions, you can go back later and try to learn some of the advanced features. Besides a refined interface, my other wish is that the web site had a forum, I suggested it to the developer; it is particularly necessary for an app of this complexity (while you're at it, there's no excuse to have such a crappy looking website if you're selling a product). I'm sure there are expert TAO users out there who would be willing to help out dummies like myself, and other users who would benefit from discussion. It seems to me the value of a forum to users and therefore to the developer would far outweigh any setup costs. And please aim for a 1.1 final release, if for no other reason than to encourage new users to try the app.

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• MORE is back!

  ZX81May 18, 2006

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I started using an Aple Macintosh in 198? and wrote hundreds of articles with MORE and loved it (I sometimes open it, for nostalgia...) TAO claims and succeeds to be a very good replacement for MORE. What I like : folding items, of course, cloning, linking, export &amp; import capacities, GREAT background colours, multiple columns. Of course, some of the palette icons are mind puzzling, to say the least, and have to be improved. I second the suggestion to read Ted Goranson's review in ATPM. My only problem is choosing between OmniOutliner Pro &amp; TAO. Just now, I use both and can't decide!

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• Cloning Feature

  sprindle1December 25, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Although there are numerous cocoa/carbon outliners and organizers available, as far as I can tell TAO is the only one to implement cloning -- and this alone makes TAO stand out from the throng. Cloning, for the uninitiated, allows an an item to be on various sublists, with a change to one applied to all. Cloning must be a bear to code, since a half-dozen other programmers say it's on their feature request list but nothing ever comes of it. Incidentally, Takashi T. Hamada's licensing scheme allowing a user two installs seems fair to both us and him, and will only offend those who expect a de facto site license for the basic payment. The demo version seems fully enabled, albeit with frequent pop-up reminders.

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• Quick Response to License concerns

  cottonMOctober 5, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I have just deleted a negative review I wrote concerning the one machine license for Tao. Literally over night the author has changed that. Thank you Takashi Hamada. This kind of response bodes well for troubleshooting and support. Now a license is for one person which can be used on two machines but not by all users on the machine. I consider this both practical & fair. With keyboard nav, & columns this will be the perfect app for <b>my</B> needs. Also the app had been rock steady even in beta.

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• Brilliant, but...

  Matt_Neuburg_865October 1, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Although the developer has almost understood MORE, he has not fully understood it. As far as I can tell, there is a major functionality hole, something without which no outliner can be useful - keyboard navigation. There has to be a way to navigate from this item to its next or previous sibling even if children intervene, or from this item directly to its parent. Once that's in place, this will be the first Mac OS X application capable of replacing MORE.

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• Great features, difficult to use

  alemanleftSeptember 30, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I'm hungry for something to replace MORE, and this shows great promise, but it isn't there yet. Most importantly for me is the fact that adding children and moving elements around requires using command sequences which means that each item I add involves lifting my fingers off the keyboard. This slows down the process a lot, and it means that one cannot really very quickly brainstorm or even compose in the program! I tried altering key bindings, but none of those override the use of the return key and tab key. Perhaps the author, who is clearly a skilled programmer, could come up with a "More" version in which the key bindings were roughly more compatible (and I could keep my fingers on the keyboard)

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• This is really great!

  Arno WoutersAugust 27, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Two days after I posted my complaints about the user interface the author of TAO posted a version that solves the main problems: confusing status indicators and the need to click on an item twice in order to open or close it. Now, I'll be happy to buy TAO!

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