Looking For Freeware Electronic Index Cards

[Menard]

Or, at least that is the way I am describing it.

I am in need (well, it would make things easier anyway) of a program which allows me to write small text files, like an index card, and to also sort the different notes I have written into a tree like structure; basically like taking the different index card notes and laying them out according to the order of presentation.

Yes, it's a silly reason for wanting such a program, but I am wanting to work on some choose your own adventure type stories for my new website. Unfortunately, when I sat down with the idea of a science fiction story, somewhere along the way (like many pages into it) I forgot that I had intended to write it as a choose your own adventure story as I got carried away with the writing (dangit).

I thought such a program might help to keep me a little better organized and make it easier to structure the different parts of such a story.

Anyone familiar with a freeware ptogram which may be helpful?

[Derf]

I don't know if it would do exactly what you want, but for simple, rearrangeable organization, you might be able to adapt recipe-card software (what's the recipe for a successful adventure? YOU be the judge!). Granted, that wouldn't do you much good on your site. You might also try a site like nonags.com. They have a good mix of freeware/shareware that might do what you are wanting to do. I've got a bookmark on my home computer (I'm at work right now) for a site that does what it sounds like you are wanting to do; I suppose you could go there and steal their structure see how they do it and come up with a similar, though wholly original, structure. Let me know if you're interested and I'll post the link this evening.

[Menard]

That is an interesting suggestion. While I was searching for some kind of program for this purpose, I was getting recipe card programs in the search results. I really had not paid much attention to them, but it could be worth a shot. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Andrew]

You know, I was just thinking about designing one of these (a pick-your-way) adventures for the site, but with a bad movie plot.  This was all done while I was out for a PT run.  Organizing seemed pretty simple, since I was not planning on mingling branches more than once or twice after forks.  What I am stuck on is graphics, because there would have to be some artwork to go along with some of the story.  I suck at such.

A .txt file system might work, but it could be tedious to navigate.  Microsoft Project, if I remember, can organize things like this.  Unfortunately, I do not know of any freeware programs.

[Menard]

I have so far found three programs which look promising, though, I would rather have something which was just specifically for such a purpose and save it as a plain text file.

WhizNote appears to be, at first glance, the program closest to what I am trying to find as its primary purpose is to be able to file notes and link them between each other, within one file. Of course, it saves the resulting file as a WhizNote specific file.

KeyNote and NoteTab Light are both tabbed text editors which have scratchpad functions in which you can takes notes and save then to a congruous file which can be ordered in a tree like fashion. The advantage to both of these is that they are ordering the tree structure and not saving it in a proprietary file; though this probably makes little difference as the tree structure is endemic to the program itself. Of course, for pure laziness, NoteTab is also an HTML editor (I know, gee isn't every text editor) which may allow the saving of the files in formatted HTML pages and linked according to their structure in the tree (maybe, I have just started playing with them).

Dang. I used to wonder what the appeal was of a plain text editor. That is, until I needed one with special features.

[Menard]

Just found a freeware program called Express Notes which is basically an electronic cardfile. You can create different books (files) then add notes to them. I found this, interestingly enough (especially since I did not think of this before), by doing a search for freeware rolodex. Small program too; only 116kb download.

[trekgeezer]

You know Windows 3.1 had a built in card file program .  Maybe you just need to downgrade your operating system, I may still have the diskettes somewhere. 

[Menard]

You know Windows 3.1 had a built in card file program .  Maybe you just need to downgrade your operating system, I may still have the diskettes somewhere. 

[Menard]

You know, I was just thinking about designing one of these (a pick-your-way) adventures for the site, but with a bad movie plot.  This was all done while I was out for a PT run.  Organizing seemed pretty simple, since I was not planning on mingling branches more than once or twice after forks.  What I am stuck on is graphics, because there would have to be some artwork to go along with some of the story.  I suck at such.

A .txt file system might work, but it could be tedious to navigate.  Microsoft Project, if I remember, can organize things like this.  Unfortunately, I do not know of any freeware programs.

I just came across this while searching for other scripts. Looks like it could be interesting.

http://questml.com/