outlining/note taking software

[Kenny]

I did a quick search but couldn't find anything that helped me.

I'm looking for software that will help me organize lists and notecards into topics thaty would allow me to expand and collapse various sections. I am envisioning an outline in which I can expand each heading/subheading as I go. For example, if I organize a bunch of note cards (in particular for studying) that relate to topic A I can expand heading A and see the "list" of note cards where the list is comprised of a sinlge line related to the topic of each note card. I then want to be able to expand items on this list to see further detail related to each note card, with the expansion continuing into as much detail as necessary.

I tried using the MS Word outline view, but that requires I view everything on the same level all at once rather than only expanding the specific items I want to view. Does anyone know if any (preferably free) software that will allow me to do this or can I do this in Word or Excel somehow?

[no driver]

The expanding by clicking sounds a lot like tiddlywiki, which has some extensions to allow mathematical notation.

I've been playing with Microsoft's OneNote lately, but I don't have a tablet PC and I'm a newbie so I know I'm not taking full advantage of it... There's a free/pay (depending on if you need the extra features) alternative called Evernote (www.evernote.com) that is web and desktop based, but I haven't played with it at all.

I, too, would like a way to organize my notes such that I can link them together to cross reference when necessary, but until I start studying for my next exam I'm not likely to have time to explore my options.

[Ron Weasley]

TiddlyWiki with the jsMath, inlineJavaScriptPlugin and NestedSliders plug-ins are what I've used.

Freemind I use for other purposes, but it may be worth a few minutes of your time to look into.

Anki, mentioned in this thread, also looks like its worth looking into.

[campbell]

I use Evernote all the time.