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JGPaiva's GridMove and Ahk Tools / Gridmove and Ultramon

« on: February 10, 2008, 09:43 AM »

I`m running Gridmove with Ultramon in Vista Ultimate 64. Dual monitor setup with "smart taskbar" feature enabled on ultramon, which creates a second taskbar on the secondary display that only indicates application windows that are open on THAT display.

Turns out there is a little bit of a problem, more like an annoyance: the grids on the secondary monitor do not consider the smart taskbar from ultramon, so that application windows fade behind the smart taskbar.

I have to right click on gridmove icon on the tray and choose the "reload" function for Gridmove to start considering the presence of the second taskbar.

It`s pretty much like Gridmove is starting up on boot before Ultramon, so when it runs for the first time, the smart taskbar isn't there for it to take notice.

Anyone has an idea on how to make gridmove only run after ultramon has created the smart taskbar?

Thanks for the GREAT app.

-Paulo

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 28, 2006, 12:05 PM »

So, you are writing, and you want to file the note using a tag whose word appears on the note body, so you put the word between brackets beforehand, instead of having to type the word again on the tag fieldline.

This is already a capability of evernote, which I make a lot of use of.

-thomthowolf (September 24, 2006, 06:17 PM)

You really mean this? Well, i knew i could preselect one or more categories and then new notes filed will bear those categories automatically, and i also knew that you could set up smart categories, so that if one note has determined word, that category is auto-assigned to it. But i didnt know that you could mark words and they are transformed into categories on-the-fly....  (this is what i undestood you were talking about, sorry if it's not that at all)

I use evernote a little bit here, but i'm not very fond of its usability. The program itself brings many new things to notetaking software, and in this sense, it is deserved attention. But, otherwise i always feel that it takes too many clicks to do anything on it, and i like to be able to make a note AND sort it at the same time i'm talking on the phone or doing anything else that i can't lose my focus (like reading a book), and return to it just when it is really needed. But the fact that you have to drag categories or click on the stamp icon to bring up the category dialog box is really a chore....

Also, i feel that the program is a little bit confusing when it uses flexible categorization (tags, or categories, on evernote lingo), but still uses a hierarchical tree (rigid categorization) on the leftpane to allow access of the tags. Not only you can have sub-categories (if you can intersect any categories, why would you need subcategories??), but they can even have the same name as other categories if they are do not have the same parent. Very confusing.

Also, the leftpane is used as an index of categories, the only way of accessing them. This may be ok right now, because Evernotes capabilities are leashed by the way the program is presented, in a way that you don't take as many notes and don't categorize it as much as you wanted because it takes much effort to do it. But in a scenario that Evernote evolves to its full capabilities, the category index on the right panel won't be of any help, because first, it is not alphabetical, and even if it was, if one is a prolific categorizer/tagger, it will take much time to browse the list, so another way to reach categories will be needed. For example, i didn't count, but i think i have at least more than two hundred tags on del.icio.us, so instead of browsing the list, i just type my desired tag intersection combo, and there i am.

So, i wish there was a line field where you could input your category intersection of choice on Evernote. The category list could even continue to exist there, preferably switchable with other sidebars, like one where you could bookmark your most useful categories (or category combos) and keep it as a reference... this is a convenient way of making the concept of virtual folders, as suggested on this thread by Mouser, into Evernote.

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General Software Discussion / Re: How do you organize your email?

« on: September 24, 2006, 05:56 PM »

I use Thunderbird with Gmail.
I filter off my mailing list subscriptions with folder rules.
Then, in each folder, i use thunderbird's labeling system to mark messages as 1) important ; 2) cool ; 3) personal ; 4) to answer ; 5) waiting. Each message can be labeled quickly by typing 1 2 3 4 5 on the keyboard.
I don't move messages after i read or answer them to an archive to keep my inbox clean, because if i want to see what i have to work with, i just filter all messages with the "to answer" label. After i answer them, i relabel them to "personal" or "important", depending on the case. Some of the mailing lists i subscribe are full of messages labeled as "cool", or "important".

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 24, 2006, 05:25 PM »

The idea of "you could somehow mark some words on the text, and those words would automatically be transformed into tags" is brilliant. No program that I know implements that. CamelCase is a way of hyperlinking, but this is different (tagging is not exactly hyperlinking) right?

-urlwolf (September 24, 2006, 03:04 PM)

Yeah, indeed i used wikis' CamelCase only as an example of hyperlinking. I personally don't like CamelCase, because it just works well with expressions, so all your notes' titles end up LookingLikeThis. For me the ideal would be indicating the tags on a note by writing the words between brackets or such.

But it is, like you said, totally different from hyperlinking articles/notes, because on wikis, the CamelCase or Brackets point to a title of another article. Here, they are indicating a tag. So, you are writing, and you want to file the note using a tag whose word appears on the note body, so you put the word between brackets beforehand, instead of having to type the word again on the tag fieldline.

And also, and i think this is just what you have grasped, you could make it the other way around, having the software to scan the notes' text for expressions that match existing tags, and hyperlinking these words on the fly. So you are viewing a note that has the word 'math' on it, but its tagged with other expressions. But you have tagged other items with the tag 'math', so the word is hyperlinked. One click leads you to a list of all the entries tagged 'math'.

This is a way of implementing effortless linking, which is one of the things that drive me away from wikis. I don't like wikis because, despite the fact that many of the notes i want to file don't need a title (!), it is a system based on linking. It is easy linking with brackets or camelcase and such, but every note will be mainly acessible via hiperlinks. The more you hiperlink to it, the more accessible it is. This is good if you are building a closed reference system, but it is not if you want a software to use as a general knowledge base for your life. It's like: "oh my god, thats such an interesting article i've just found on the web, let me add to my wiki! but wait, from where will i link to it? It is about the fact that Microsoft Zune adds DRM even to garage recordings! Will i link from my 'Zune' article (considering that i've done one),or from the 'Microsoft' one, or 'Gadget', from 'DRM', or from 'Copyright'? Ok, i'd better link from all of them, let me go from each one of these places and link it, so i'm sure i'll find it back."

Of course it is not practical, because on real life we need places (tags and its intersections) which relate directly to our mind concepts about stuff, so we can quickly drop information in. That's why i don't believe on TiddlyWiki, Wikidpad, and ConnectedText. Connected Text has been from 1.3 to 2.0 since i last tested it, but it is still a wiki, i don't think i'll use it.

Another way (maybe better?) of having effortless links with tagged information, is just like del.icio.us does it. If you are listing your bookmarks with the 'tech' tag, you also see the 'related tags', as the system counts what other tags are more common among the items with the 'tech' tag. And you can even intersect on the fly with that tag, by clicking the '+' sign.

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 24, 2006, 12:28 PM »

Yeah, definitely.

I also forgot about another great idea for fast-tagging that i read on the mydreamapp forum... a guy named Tom Maisey who filed an idea on the contest which was also a tag-based knowledge-base app, he proposed that when filing a note, you could somehow mark some words on the text, and those words would automatically be transformed into tags. This remembers me the CamelCase markup on wikis.

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 24, 2006, 11:15 AM »

Tagging is a very interesting concept (seems well implemented in MyInfo). But, I wonder how fast and efficiently one can tag all notes. Ideally all should be done with keyboard shortcuts, otherwise tagging may be too much of a chore.

Which makes me think...

In a simple text file, everything is a tag! One can do a simple text search and avoid the pain of tagging implemented as a different concept.

Example, in my notes I have: IdeaGTD, ideaPost, ideaPodcast, etc. for ideas. tab completion makes it easy to tag things this way. If there's need for a non-text element, such as sound or an external file of some kind, a file:// url would do the trick.

Just thinking outloud...

-urlwolf (August 21, 2006, 04:17 AM)

One of the ways of making it easy to the user you already mentioned: auto-completion... the software would check the tag index and filter off the best completion suggestions for the user, just like del.icio.us, google suggest, text file tab completion...etc.

This eases things a lot, but i think that the BEST way to make sure that the user easily tags all his notes is NOT giving him hierarchical places to put his notes into. The user is very accustomed with using the hierarchy-tree, and if one is presented to him, he'll stick to it, and forget about tags. Tags will be that cool toy that he uses for a half week and then forgets about it. Also, if the application sticks to a hierarchy, probably much of the tagging power capabilities, like tag intersections, won't be implemented, or if implemented, not practical to use... hidden on the interface, while that bigass hierarchy tree continues to bloat on the left hand panel.

I do believe in hierarchy trees though, but only when you have a pre-determined set of subjects that you want to condense and structure logically for some reason. The same is valid for those cool mindmapping softwares, like Freemind. But for general and constant notetaking and building a general knowledge base, with subjects that go from astrophysics to a list of things i buy every time i go to the grocery store, the tree soon gets huge and the mental effort for adding a new note on the structure is far bigger than the one to tag information. Also, i think that the presence of the tree on the left side disturbs the attention. If you want to add an item to your grocery list, you don't need the tree with all other nodes that refer to other aspects of your life. Worse, you don't want to browse through a tree with all aspects of your life just to get to the grocery store list. That's even psychologically disturbing.

A third way for making very easy for tagging notes is using the software to previously select the tags that i'll be inputting tags from now on. So, if i know that i'll be adding twenty notes about "history, contemporary, brazil" on the next hours, i pre-select those tags, and all the notes i'm adding will be prefilled with them. Little effort.

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 23, 2006, 08:06 PM »

Thank you Mouser, also thanks for the quick feedback.

Many people are scared by the size of my idea draft, and i have two versions of it on my blog (the one i linked is the most recent one), both pretty big.

Though, i have just posted a new entry on the blog with a smaller explanation of the idea, it's not SMALL, but i think it's less then half the size of the previous one, which may help. I think it's a pretty good as an introduction, and those interested may then proceed to read the full explanation.

http://indiegeek.blogspot.com/2006/09/notarius-system.html

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 23, 2006, 01:59 PM »

Hello, this is my first post on this forum. I have written an essay for the "My Dream App" software-idea contest about a month ago, based on my needs for a note-taking and general knowbase software. The core of my "system" is the use of tagging, and the fast-input of info, evetything else goes around this.

Unlike those who still think that tagging is just a web2.0 buzzword, i really think there's something useful into the concept of flexible categorization rather than taxonomies, and that it can provide indeed a new way of thinking about note-taking software instead of the hierarchical paradigm, that can be more flexible and fast to use. I also think that the few software availiable today that implement tagging, all of them do it on very limited way and/or uses the hierarchical structure as a model to it, which severely limits the capabilities of a flexible categorization system.

Since my explanation of my system is a little long, and i don't want to clog the forum, i ask that that may be interested to read it posted on my blog, and then, tell me what you think about it here.

http://indiegeek.blogspot.com/2006/08/taglogger-idea-for-tag-based-pimgeneral.html

Cheers,

- Paulo