Curio: Another Mac OS program

[Heidi]

I'm telling you now: unless you're a PC user who can point everybody to something similar in Windows format, you really, really don't want to read much of this.

I just found Curio.  I've only just started playing with it, but if I can find my Wacom tablet, I think I may be in love.

So far it looks like the digital version of my four million reams of weird notes and notecards and jots around the house.  I think I can do this in Scrivener, but I don't think I can write like it's a blackboard, which is what I crave.  And I'm pretty sure I can put in images and stuff and split the screen and all the goodies.

I'm going to play for the next fifteen days and will report back: any Mac users want to join me? 

[Molly]

I'm in-- and thrilled.  I've been using Tinderbox for brainstorming.  Powerful, but stodgy compared to what the info pages for Curio show.  They haven't quite left the flowchart metaphor behind, and it looks like Curio will truly allow for a collage mentality (I'm more of a pot au feu thinker-- things bubbling and interacting in strange and unpredictable ways-- than a hypercard stack thinker). 

[Stephanie L.]

Oh my Lord. I'm going to have to go find my Wacom tablet, too.

[Molly]

I'd get this program for Sleuth alone.  The tutorial is pretty good-- but go ahead and skip down to the Sleuth page and do what it says...  You can effortlessly use one search term to look through several image sites, reference sites, etc.  This is going to be so much fun for collage work and brainstorming. 

One thing I think is a misnomer is "webarchive".  Their version of this only captures the html and assets on the page you archive,  none of the links will work if you are offline.  Sigh.  I'm looking for a replacement for DevonThink--  which isn't as good for brainstorming as Curio.  I need a single tool that'll help me organize all my snippets of information and manage projects.  But webarchiving is a thing of beauty in DT and I use it a lot. (For when I can't get online-- i.e. for my WIP I captured the Greek Gods pages from wikipedia and can now refer and research offline). 

1 tool to rule them all, 1 tool to find them, 1 tool to bring them all and on my laptop bind them...  (sorry-- I can't help myself---  and it has been an epic struggle to find the perfect productivity tool)

[Heidi]

1 tool to rule them all, 1 tool to find them, 1 tool to bring them all and on my laptop bind them...  (sorry-- I can't help myself---  and it has been an epic struggle to find the perfect productivity tool)

Molly, you should WRITE ONE. 

I wanted to spend the day playing with Curio, but we had an ice storm and lost power.  Which was an immediate reminder that technology is good only as long as you have power.

So far, though, I'm in absolute love.  I can't figure out how to publish it to pdf, which it says I should be able to do and yet cannot.  I only downloaded the basic trial.  I wonder if I should try the home. 

And I could not find my wacom.  I think it got sold.  It was five years old anyway--they probably do the dishes by now.  But this thing is amazing.  Now the only trouble is I need my monitor to be bigger so I could have this open with Scrivener next to it.  OH. MY. GOD.

I honestly hope the PC people are just ignoring this.  Or are out shopping at apple.com.

[Jenny]

Oh, my God. 
You can collage on the computer.  It's a WHITEBOARD.

I'm so glad I'm on a Mac.  I know, I know, it's not fair but the freaking MacMini is $600 and it runs Windows.   

I must go play with this and see if it's as fabulous as it looks.  Which since I've seen Heidi's ATOS board, I'm sure it is.

Heidi, post the URL here so people can see what you're doing with this software.  Please.

[Heidi]

Gah. 

Okay, I'm just playing, mind you, and I think the "main conflict" box is a telling example of how warped my conflict loops are, but this is what I've been doing with Curio.  You can click on the side bar on the left to flip between the two pages.  The second one is in process.  I keep moving the photos around as I add the boxes. 

I really like the boxes.  A lot.  I have to boil everything down to a small box.  Like I think that one on the sexual arc page is too big, the blue one about Madeline.  So I'll keep at it until I can be succinct. 

Bear in mind this is a finished story I insanely pulled out to revise.  So I know this stuff. But my trouble is ALWAYS that I have so much that it's a mess.  I like Curio because I'm pulling stuff together I've had for years and doing the sort of noodle stuff I did in notebooks and on scraps of paper and making it digital and pretty. 

I think the best part is that I found this because Mollie encouraged me to sign up for .mac when I bought this machine last August, and I was noodling on the apple site exploring .mac features.  This was listed as a program which had .mac features.  And that's how you have that link--there's a "publish to .mac" button and I just clicked it and suddenly there it was.

The only thing is I wish I still taught school.  My God, the things I could have done with this.  The kids would have paid more attention. 

[Molly]

Thank you Heidi-- it's fabulous!  I love how you were able to capture the story with this tool-- and show it to us.  This would be an amazing tool for critique groups, I'd think.

I like how you can use the different shapes in the text boxes to show different feeling/purpose.  So flexible.

So far I've crammed a ton of images and textboxes into mine and the program hasn't blinked.  Everything's still editable and I can move quickly around the page.   I'm really impressed.

[Michele H.]

Question from a non-novel writer....

I will be working on my graduate project really soon (as in, when I can finally sit myself in front of the computer for more than 5 minutes) Also, the robotics group that I mentor, we have many projects that we have going simultaneously (3 children's books, a robot being built, and others).  Oh, and I teach (in what seems to be my spare time).

So here's my question- I have looked at Curio and at Scrivener, and I was wondering what the pros/cons of each are, from a project standpoint rather than a novel standpoint.   They seem really similar in terms of organization, but I bow to people with more expertise than me....

I'm using a Powerbook G4 with Tiger- no tablet. 

[Robin L]

This looks amazingly cool! Even better, it runs on the operating software I've got. Yeay!

But which edition are you guys using? Home? Professional? I want to be sure I get all the right bells and whistles.

[Jenny]

Michelle, I've just started with Curio, but I think I'm going to write in Scrivener and use Curio as the backup.

Scrivener gives me a full word processor that organizes the parts of whatever I'm doing by attaching a note card to it.  I put the name of the doc at the top of the card and then, for my books, the beats of the scene.  If I click on the major document, it gives me a bulletin board with just those cards on it so I have an automatic outline any time I want that changes as I change the document. 

It also has a window to the left where I can put keywords to tag the individual docs to make searching easier.  And it has section where I can put in clickable URLs from my research.  And a notepad where I can drop in photos that I'm using on that doc so they're always there.   

It does other things, too, but for writing and organization, I like Scrivener.

For brainstorming, Curio.  It has absolutely flexibility for making notes, doing clusters, combining pictures and text for brainstorming, doing whiteboard schematics, all the things I've never been able to do on a computer before.   I've just started using it, and there's probably a lot more, but that's the big deal for me, brainstorming and whiteboard work.   

[Heidi]

I answered Robin in a PM, but I have the home edition.  Well, I just have the trial right now, but I will have the home version soon.  Very soon.

I can't stop playing with Curio.  I'm feeling very, very narrow right now,  but this sucker is just what I need.

I really love Scrivener and will be playing with it again soon, but between the two programs I may have found nirvana.  I'll let you know when Mercury goes out of retrograde and I find out if any of them stick.  But I can't see how Curio won't.  Or Scrivener, for that matter.

I love Scrivener because it's so organized and i don't have to hold stuff in my head so much.  I think I might still compose in Word, maybe, or I"ll start with a fat draft or just randomly dump scenes when I start drafting a new novel again, but for editing it is the thing.  But it's very, very linear.  It reminds me of an outline.  I think it'd be ideal for research projects, for composing a fat thesis or something. 

Curio is free-form.  You coud outline like crazy, but you could do it in a circle if you wanted.  It would be amazing for a presentation.  I wouldn't use it for huge amounts of text, though I suppose it's possible.  Never for a story draft.

I would advise you to download both.  Both have trail periods.  Play and see what you prefer.

[Michele H.]

Great advice, Jenny and Holly.  Thanks for the input!!

I'm planning on getting Scrivener, as well as the K-12 edition of Curio - I'll let you know how the student edition is compared to home edition.

[inkgrrl]

Omigod... y'all are killing me here.  I just dropped major cash on a spiffy new notebook a few months ago.  And now Must Have A Mac.  Ah well, I am an uber-geek and a Gemini, so it's in character to have at least one of both flavors of 'puter. 

And to drag this sorta back on topic , I'm gonna have to run right out and buy a Mac so I can properly evaluate all the above goodies and contribute something besides drool and lust to this thread.

[Heidi]

Okay, I've officially played with Curio for a week now, near to constantly, so I can report rather in-depth on how frankly FANTASTIC I find it.  I'm going to be as detailed as I can, but I'll get all anal and point by point with bold so you can skip or delve as you want. 

Why I love Curio, by Heidi Cullinan

1.  Ease of Use.  I'm not technologically ignorant, but I'm no whiz, and if you give me too long of an instruction book, I start to glaze.  You can literally just dink around and try stuff and then search the help and figure this out as you go.  It took me a few minutes to figure out that I had to use the Inspector for a lot of formatting, which at first seemed clunky but now I really like.  I just wish I could right click or something to make it appear.  Lazy here.  Bonus: The creators are VERY friendly and if you leave them feedback, they not only thank you but answer your questions.  Personally.  I linked them here so they could see us raving, so they might be watching.  *Waves to Greg*

2.  Flexibility  You could be really linear and anal and use checkboxes and lists or idea clusters, or you can work freeform in a circle or loop or whatever.  You can be INCREDIBLY colorful and detailed: you can make the background and image but change the opacity of it so that maybe it's a picture of a dew drop on a leaf, but it's faded and washed with purple.  You can change the opacity of images and boxes.  You can layer, you can group things so they move together, you can lock them in place (and ungroup and unlock).  You can draw lines, with the tools or with your mouse. 

3.  Durability  I have CRAMMED my pages with images and blocks and lines, and I have a library of images bursting at the seams and it never, never so much as burps.  Never.  Not once.  This is the Bernina of collage software.

4. Organization you didn't even know you wanted.  I didn't realize how much I distract myself by flipping out of my program to use the net.  Molly's right: Sleuth rocks.  And when you find what you want you just drag it into the library and there it us.  PLUS you can name stuff in the library without changing the file name.  So the file is still "Ewan McGregor in kilt" but I can call it "Charles looks sexy" or what have you.  And you can store anything in there.  I bet you could but a word doc or something in there.  I didn't try, but I bet you could.  But when I want to add an image I just open the library and drag it up, then adjust.  Or use Preview to grab and take a snapshot. 

5. Simplification.  I actually did start crying this afternoon because I finished and realized how much I had just emptied from my head; all those little things you try to remember to insert and have on notecards in the desk, under the desk, on the cat, in the couch, in your purse--you can put them all here and make them pretty.  And connect them.  I started tracking arcs, both by theme and character, but I also tracked stuff: who has the sword when, what spell was used where and why, etc.  You can do all this stuff in a database, yeah, but it doesn't have color and photos and coolness.  You use a different part of your brain for that.  In Curio I do it with photos and color and I dive into the same creative place that birthed these things to begin with, and I post them and they SNAP.  I'm excited to work on it because it looks so nice.  I keep coming up with stuff to Curio, which eventually will be a problem  because I'll use it as avoidance--but MY GOD.  I had no idea how much I was making myself insane carrying details until I took them out and laid them out around me.  And I got to have fun doing it.

6. Inspiration.  I think my favorite feature of Curio was what it taught me about my own story. I found myself moving characters around on the theme arcs, deliberately positioning them near or away from the antagonist (whom I found myself putting in the center a lot), and I began to see how naturally the hero and heroine were moving in and out of action with him, attacking and retreating.  Bascially I could see a lot of my theme reflected in the way the collages came out.

7.  Economy.  My husband balked at the $80 fee, but in one book this thing will pay for itself.  It is nothing for me to drop $100 in collage/ink/brainstorming supplies, and this isn't counting the butcher paper on the dining room table for weeks or taped to the wall.  I mean, I'll still collage tactile stuff, but I collage A LOT and this is going to save space, time, and resources.  Plus now I can send THE collage to people in .pdf or post it to my .mac (get the Home edition or above for this, however). And this thing expands to the size you need it to automatically, or you can grow or shrink it deliberately.  The only problem is now I want a bigger monitor.

This program may not be for everybody, and don't slit your wrist if you're on a PC and cannot do it.  Cry a little maybe, but no blood, please.  But if you are on a Mac and you consider yourself a visual/spatial organizer, if you have ever crashed a Word document trying to stuff photos into it, you want to look into this. 

And that ends my review.  The Curio people are beautiful and I love them.  Go spend  money in their store. 

Now that I have satisfied my spatial and visual monkey, I'm off to play with Scrivener.