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well, i've decided to make chs a full fledged tool for this kind of stuff, so it's just a matter of time, so keep the requests coming.

actually i have a special idea of something to add that will even take it beyong what we're talking about but i'll discuss that after more progress is made.

however, my plan is still to perfect the clipboard + notes aspects of this tool, and only then move to more general database handling.  so keep an eye on the todo list and keep the suggestions coming.

Ok I've been really busy coding new tools for the site..
it's hard to spend time on reviews when i'm deep in the middle of a new donationcoder.com project.

but we definitely need some new reviews; next week we'll start with an easy one, open/save dialog box customizers.  scott and i will team up on it.

after that, we are going to bite the bullet and do the review that gets the most votes, which looks like Hierarchical Notes tools, which is going to be one hell of a difficult review.  but you guys/gals who took the time to vote deserve to have your votes heard, so that's what we're going to do.

plus, as the new dc tool (clipboard help+spell) becomes a full fledged hierarchical note tool, i suppose it will be useful to find the best competitor out there.


but we still need some more guest reviewers! if you feel like you could do a dc-caliber review, send me an email!

remember, the more guest reviewers, the more time i have to program software for the site!

did i mention i'm happy someone is actually using this program 

requests for new features are welcome.

if you're only working with folders try %N

http://www.donationcoder....rdhelpandspell/index.html


with new pics for those who are curious about what it looks like but dont want to download.

v1.04.09
grabs application/company/product name not just title string
more options for custom titles
saves application info with clips (new Application column)

i might need to update the help file, i have it in mine.

indeed that was it - failure to respond to system shutdown request gracefully.
new version uploaded with fix.  same url as before: http://www.donationcoder....ClipboardHelpAndSpell.zip

could be another restart bug like my other program had because of failure to respond properly to restart events; i'll look into it.

v1.04.07
bugfix - scheduled recyclebin maintenance was asking for confirmation from user
minor change - consolidated clipboard options on one tab of options
minor new feature - added "clear filter/search" button

ps. you can already turn of clipboard monitoring/capture.

ok the first thing we need to do is make sure we are on the same page w.r.t. terms

chs has a concept of "Preset Views" which can be saved arrangements of window panels (what is docked and where), as well as saving information about what columns are visible and in what order they are displayed, their widths, and what is being sorted on, as well as information about how which nodes in the left hand tree are open vs. closed.

this is what i call a "preset view"

now
inside the database itself is a table for the group tree, and a table for the clip items.
in the group tree (or folder tree), are group nodes.

each clip can belong to one and only one group node.

but a group node can also be "virtual", in which cases it specifies a filter rule to specify what other clips(records) from the entire database to show inside it.

SO,
my virtual nodes are what you sometimes refer to as "views".  if you dont mind lets use virtual nodes for this concept.
right now these virtual nodes are indeed inside the database and would travel with it.
i think thats usually going to be a good thing, although i can see your point that if you had many users working on it, you might want individual users to be able to create their own private virtual nodes to hold results of past searches, etc., that other people working on the database wouldn't need to see.
that could probably be implemented with a little bit of work, if i move to a completely custom handled tree, which i am thinking more and more is the way to go, especially if we want to add support for multiple databases.

let's call things that are in the database and would travel with it and be shared by users of it, DatabaseLocal vs things that are only available to current users machine as UserLocal.

so right now, preset views (defining look of program and sort order of column,etc.) are always UserLocal.
and virtual nodes (which define custom filters on records) are always DatabaseLocal.

it sounds like you might really want both to be both.

one might settle for preset views always being UserLocal, but i think you could make the case that you would want to be able to make virtual nodes and specify exactly what columns are visible and in what order they are sorted, etc.

it all gets a little complicated with so many possible ways to use the program.

How are the actual clipboard contents contained now?  Are they merely a field in the database presented in a textbox instead of a cell?

absolutely, there are also fields for graphic images and richtext for when i add support for that.

as you say, the memo panel is the one panel that is really customized to show the two fields (title and clip text) specifically designed for clipboard and note taking.  this is why things like Brilliant Database has a form designer, so you can customize this kind of panel to show you just the info you want in a nice single-record view form..

yeah, i should say it's definitely the write way to talk about these things, to hear what one person themselves thinks they want - so it's definitely more useful to hear what you want personally than to hear what you think everyone would want, so these discussions are useful.

ok i understand what you are saying about user nodes - i'll have to think about that, since currently there is no real way to do that now - the tree arragement with the virtual folders and everything is all in the database and would be shared betwen users.

regarding the nodes i was thinking of it like this
at top level root nodes would be databases,
then each database has its own subtree of nodes that act exactly like the current chs system.

so the tree would look like:

* database 1
-*ALL
--*NEW
--*OLD
--*Favotires
--*Recyle Bin
* database 2
-*ALL
--*NEW
--*OLD
--*Favotires
--*Recyle Bin

database1 and database 2 would be totally independent database files - you couldnt (easily) drag and drop between databases, or create virtual views that combined them, they would be firewalled from each other really.

but within a database node youve got the subtree underneath which can hold different phsysical and virtual groups, you can drag and drop betwen groups, etc.

i could let the user create their own virtual groups local to their hard drive and not associated with the database, but you would still not be able to create a virtual view that combined multiple databases.  thats the price for having the ability to have different columns in different databases.  the idea is, different databases would not mix.  its basically you can only be working in one database at a time - its just a convenience that you are shown the different databases as root nodes in the tree, to make it easier to navigate between them.

one advantage of rewriting the group tree node code is if i do completely rewrite it to provide that option we discussed before of showing records within the left sidebar tree if desired...

still a lot to think about it, but its fun to brainstorm ideas and see if we cant make an app out of this.

i avoid registry like the plague - i tend to keep all settings in ini files in the app directory for easy moving.

note that chs has current "virtual folders" which you can set up specifically to display virtual views of the data - the "Favorites" folder is just a virtual folder that says "show all data items not in recycle bin and with the favorites field set to true"

the "quick paste" virtual folder shows all items added in the last week.

so the idea of virtual folders is exactly as you say and easy to create virtual folders that save the results of past searches.  when i add more complex searching i will add a button to say "create a virtual folder from this search", which should make it even easier.

im not sure exactly your file and user nodes but i think we might be on same line of thinking.

right now, chs uses 1 database.
in that database are 2 tables, one for the items (clips) and one for the tree.  each item belongs to one node in the tree.  the tree nodes are arranged in a hierarchy.  all items in the table have the same fields (this is super important for later discussions).

one of the benefits of saying that each item(clip) in the database has same fields is that its easy to drag and drop and move items between nodes in the tree (groups), and it makes sense to do 2 things i really love:
1) have a recycle bin
2) have recursive display of items(clips), so if you click on "all" you see all records, etc.

so right now, chs works with one database, which it expects to be a in a specific format with a specific set of fields.

--

now
what would be interesting would be
if we added the ability for chs to manage multiple databases.

each database could be like a root node.
within each root node would be like a mini tree seen in current CHS view.

thse different databases would be automatically "discovered" by looking at subfolders in some directory.
so that merely copying in another database subdirectory would make that database available as a root node in the tree.

each database node could have its own set of columns, its own recycle bin, etc.
they would basically be independent databases with no interaction, but just be very easy to switch between, depending on what you wanted to work on at any given time.

there's something quite appealing about this, but my main concern is writing something like this, a very general tool, without too much attention on what it would actually be used for.

basically what we are describing sounds like what Brilliant Database does.
but brilliant has some really cool form designers, web export, and all sorts of nice extras.

and if you wanted to use it to organize home collections, let's say dvd movies.. i don't think we are going to do better than something like this: http://www.collectorz.com/ which has organizers customized for a particular task, which are inevitably going to be funner to use and more tailored to the task.

it would be a fun project if someone was commissioning me to do a specific custom application that they knew they needed and that didn't exist elsewhere - but i've learned the hard way (and still keep making the mistake anyway), that trying to build a general purpose tool without really thinking through the specific applications, is a good recipe for trouble..  i mean look at the dvd database screen at collectorz: http://www.collectorz.com...nshots/mainthumbnails.gif 
surely a tool like that is better for organizing your dvd movies..

however,
we also have the situation where we have this tool, which is a pretty serious database tool, which could be used for lots of stuff,
currently only usable for notes and clipboard storage, and it seems a waste not to go some extra steps to make it a more flexible tool..
i'm especially attracted to the idea of being able to customize the columns completely, and the idea that the tool might take advantage of special tools, IFF they exist in the database.  If you want to keep track of creationdate, lastviewdate, parent hierarchy, favorites, then it could help you add such fields, if not don't add them.

it definitely seems like it would be a cool tool; and there is nothing major i can see that would make it not doable, i just wonder if it would actually be useful to anyone but a couple people..

importing and exporting to excel, printing, etc. are all easy

the other thing that adding the ability to work with other database would do is let you make a more flexible program that didn't try to combine all items into the same databases.. ie clipboard clips could be in a separate database node than personal notes.  todo lists could be in yet another.  this would let you have custom fields for each database.  and i like the idea that each "database" is essentially just a subdirectory on your disk that can be copied and shared, etc.

i'd have to rewrite most of the group-tree management code to handle such a situation, and of course there would be all the column customization code and code dealing with rendering and smartly displaying columns, and im sure some serious headaches when switching between databases and trying to remember views..  right now you can save a "preset" view of the column configuration through the menu.. well that wont make any sense once there are different databases with different columns, and preset column customization views would have to be stored within each database rather than in a file (i think this is actually what you suggested you would prefer anyway ).

sounds fun - the real problem is just that its not a small job (frankly its been a HUGE amount of work so far, much more than i anticipated) and i still don't know if there is even an audience for this tool - let alone the super generic one.

i keep trying to think if its possible to merge chs with the functionality of a more general purpose db tool..

actually the #1 think i want is any reports of database errors.
like if you can get the program to say something about a record not being in edit state,etc.

my main concern is making sure that there is never data loss.
that's why i spent so much effort on providing backup functionality.

so the main thing i would like is any reports on stress testing where you can trigger a database error
(im not counting deleting files and stuff, i mean through normal use).

so a question-
you wouldnt want any of the things that chs does to help working with data?
ie hierarchical groups, keeping track of modification + viewing date?
or would you?

yeah it does sound like you need a proper scripting interface..
i'll have to think about that.
it actually shouldnt be so hard to provide such an interface to allow such manipulation

i just can't help thinking there must be existing tools for this.
but then on the other hand, if i have 90% of the code written, what's another 10%.
unfortunately sometimes the 10% takes 90% of the time.. yipe.

let me finish work on chs first and then i can look at splitting off some code to a super simple database tool, but still considering the features that would be useful to you when working on chs.

its easy to make the data editable all from the grid.
scripting is probably quite a bit more work depending on what kind of information you want to make accessible.  if you elaborated on the kinds of scripts you might want to use it would help answer that.

your request that everything be in one file might be problematic - though you could get around it with a virtual file type system.
by far the easiest thing would simply be to change from saying a single file to a signle directory.

so your Wires database
would be
Wires\

and in that you would have database files, preset views, etc.

you could add functions for ziping and unziping if you really wanted to hold the users hand.

but relaxing the demand for a single file and make it a single directory would make everything easier.

the real question is whether there isnt already nice tools for this..

its not a bad idea -
adding and deleting columns is not so hard though its a bit tricky to get it to work cleanly.
but yeah i could make a minimalist single pane viewed db tool which lets you custom add the columns you want,
and import/export to excel..

not a bad idea - really minimal db editor..

let user create/delete columns, fill in data, import+export.. search, filter.

there are some nice customizable easy-to-use personal database tools out there - i think chs may morph into one of those.
check this one out: http://www.brilliantdatabase.com/

im using dbisam, at least for now.
i have to tell you, i am not a fan of using databases in programs.  it has some advantages, but i've now done it in several programs, and there is no end to the pain involved (imho) in getting things to work right.
unless you are going to have 100,000 records, i would give serious thought in the future to whether i really wouldnt be better off with my own custom data structures.

i think i'll add a "clear search" little eraser button to the right of the filter, to make it easier to clear.

rearranging the panels is confusing - the panels sometimes seem to need to be undocked completely before they can be redocked properly.  but they do seem to work pretty well.  i dont know if you noticed but you can rich click on the caption bar and change the "alignment" which affect how the panels resize when you expand form.  ie you can make them resize proportionally or align left and thus not resize.

the nicest thing i think is how you can save both panel arrangements and column customization (click tiny button on far left of columns), as presets, and then reload presets from the menu.  so the idea will be to make some nice presets and then save them and easily switch between them. i will be adding more columns to the database as well.

memory usage im going to have to investigate - basically it uses a database backend and there are tons of options to customize memory usage and stuff.