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.

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

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).

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?

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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

Thanks,

Joshua A. Hall

I’m testing Evernote too.

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