Author Topic: SQLNotes...what is it exactly? (Read 838792 times)

JohnFredC · « **Reply #925 on:** June 24, 2008, 07:21 AM »

Even if columnar databases have benefits in certain data situations, the SQLNotes structures which emulate a columnar database model are implemented in a relational model! So there is always some basic relational overhead behind the columnar model overhead which itself is behind the user's notes data.

SQLNotes must run queries in the relational model first in order to set up the columnar structure in which the users' own data query can finally run!

PPLandry · « **Reply #926 on:** June 24, 2008, 08:20 AM »

True, but I'll quote you: Jet is much more efficient than most people give it credit.

And JET's "name" in itself, is a statement that it handles multi-table (and multi-query) queries with the optimum efficiency.

JohnFredC · « **Reply #927 on:** June 24, 2008, 08:57 AM »

Touche!

superboyac · « **Reply #928 on:** July 07, 2008, 06:42 PM »

So, I'm a little unclear with the HTML pane now. I understand that the most recent version supports editing in Word. But what does that mean as far as integration? Does that mean I have to edit in a separate Word window, and then insert it in the html pane? Here's what is happening from what I can observe:
--I want to use Word's editing facilities, so I have to create a MHT file (because that is the prompt that I get autmotically in SQLNotes).
--I do my editing in Word, and a file is saved somewhere in my main data directory.
--Now, the Word document can be seen in SQLNotes. But I can't edit it in SN, I have to go back and edit it in Word. So, unlike normal html pane content, when it's an mht format, the html pane just becomes a viewer at that point and not an editor.

This design is kind of inconvenient and piecemeal in my opinion. It would be better if all the editing can happen inside SN itself without having to go back and forth. I guess its convenient in those cases where you're editing just HAS to be done in Word, but in most cases I would avoid using it for the inconvenience alone.

The html pane as it is does just about all the editing I need anyway, so that's fine. If anything, I would suggest having faster response times and adding the ability to insert pictures in there. And as I've mentioned previously, I have had some slightly random issues in the past with the html pane about losing data in there (I don't know why...it's happened a couple of times).

PPLandry · « **Reply #929 on:** July 07, 2008, 06:48 PM »

Hi Superboyac,

MHT files are really neat since they support embedded objects and still work with the HTML Export feature. However, I'm still searching for a pluggable editor. The only one I found is no longer sold (it is used by EverNote). The plan is threefold:

1- Improve the HTML editor, to support images
2- Add support for MSWord editing of HTML content
3- Find/develop a built-in MHT editor

I hope this clarifies the current situation.

superboyac · « **Reply #930 on:** July 07, 2008, 07:12 PM »

Hi Superboyac,

MHT files are really neat since they support embedded objects and still work with the HTML Export feature. However, I'm still searching for a pluggable editor. The only one I found is no longer sold (it is used by EverNote). The plan is threefold:

1- Improve the HTML editor, to support images
2- Add support for MSWord editing of HTML content
3- Find/develop a built-in MHT editor

I hope this clarifies the current situation.
-PPLandry (July 07, 2008, 06:48 PM)

Sounds like you're already on top of it, as usual. Very cool!

I have to add, the one in Evernote is brilliant. Of all the editors I've tried with notetakers, the one in Evernote worked the best...especially with preserving captured web content. That's a shame that it's not sold anymore, I hope you can come with something as good or better.

PPLandry · « **Reply #931 on:** July 07, 2008, 07:31 PM »

Actually, some web content is not well captured by EverNote, anything with CSS and JS does not import well. Other programs, including MS Word do a much better job.

superboyac · « **Reply #932 on:** July 10, 2008, 05:49 PM »

I just created an issue on Mantis about this, but I wanted to discuss it a little more.

I'm having problems with the HTML pane. Ever since I began using SN, I have had erratic behavior of the html pane on seldom occasions, but because I can't predict when they will hit, I have come to distrust it. On a handful of occasions, I have gone into the pane to add a lot of information, then I come back and find that it has disappeared. it's happened twice the last two weeks. Sometimes, i get a scary prompt asking to erase the content or do I wish to save, and I don't know why the prompt appears because I never clicked on anything to erase or delete anything. Usually, I'm just moving to another item or something. And I have always had the auto-save enabled from the beginning.

Just now, when it happened, I went back into the pane of the item where things got unexpectedly erased, and I pasted in some content again. I went to another item, came back, and it was gone! I did this many times, and it kept disappearing. Then I clicked on "create new html document". A prompt came up warning me that the current content will be erased. Well, there was nothing there anyway, so I said ok. I pasted in the same content again, switched out, came back, and it had disappeared again! Eventually, I clicked around a lot, and I kept pasting in the content, and now it is in there and not disappearing. But I don't really know what I did.

My point is that the whole thing is a little too klunky and non-intuitive for me to trust right now. I really need to be able to trust the html pane because I use it for a lot of long text notes.

One suggestion I have is to have the html pane behave like in most other 2-panes notetaking programs. In most of these programs, there are no options to auto-save or not, or "create" new documents or anything like that. It's just a pane that is associated with each item and whatever goes in there is automatically saved, and saved "live" (that is any changes made are retained constantly; each new character; whenever you go to another item and come back; etc.). Even if the program crashes, or is closed without saving, all of the latest changes should always be retained. I know SN is designed to behave the same way, but the implementation is not as seamless as the other programs.

I would further suggest that the options for the html pane be integrated into the main SN options or toolbar menu. The fact that there are two different options and menus for SN and the html pane make the two feel disjoint, like they are two separate programs or modules. It should be seamless.

Take a popular program like Evernote, for example. There's no option to "auto-save" what you type in a new note. As soon as you type in a note or make a change, that's it, it's done. I never think about it even. The fact that I'm thinking about is due to the distrust. The html pane has to be the same way. I just want to type in there and not have to think about if it was saved.

PPLandry · « **Reply #933 on:** July 10, 2008, 06:50 PM »

I'm off for 3 days, but will look at this on a priority basis on monday. Sorry about this issue. Have you tried to click the save button when auto-save is not working correctly?

BTW, I agree with all your points. When you enter content, it should be this (simple) way.

Some of the complexities (which I'll resolve) is that the HTML pane can be used in other ways. For example, you can open an HTML file from disk. Then any changes to the content updates the disk file (EN does not have this feature). You work on what looks like SN content, but it is really a local file (and eventually an FTP or other web file). You can also open a URL and view it, in this case, editing is disabled. HTM, MHT (and PDF) files are handled differently too, etc. It has many modes and managing all of these... well... needs a bit of improvements

Armando · « **Reply #934 on:** July 10, 2008, 07:06 PM »

Just now, when it happened, I went back into the pane of the item where things got unexpectedly erased, and I pasted in some content again. I went to another item, came back, and it was gone! I did this many times, and it kept disappearing. Then I clicked on "create new html document". A prompt came up warning me that the current content will be erased. Well, there was nothing there anyway, so I said ok. I pasted in the same content again, switched out, came back, and it had disappeared again! Eventually, I clicked around a lot, and I kept pasting in the content, and now it is in there and not disappearing. But I don't really know what I did.
-superboyac (July 10, 2008, 05:49 PM)

(Just came back from a loooong day out doing boring stuff.

)

I've experienced the same problem yesterday. It might be a problem with one of the latest builds. I confess that I use mostly the MHT format though, so the problem might have been there for a while without me noticing it.

Pierre : it's a fairly severe problem. Stuff in the html pane doesn't get saved sometimes.

1- Create a brand new data base
2- Open the inbox grid
3- Create a new item called "Test" (after the "Have lunch with Mary" item)
4- Write something in the html pane. Press CTRL-S.
5- change to the "Have lunch with Mary" item
6- Come back to the "Test" item : hmtl content is gone (well, here, in my case, it is...)

PS : superboyac : in the mean time, if your facing an emergency and if you don't mind, you could use mht. haven't had any problems with it, and this what I use everyday...

superboyac · « **Reply #935 on:** July 10, 2008, 10:37 PM »

Just now, when it happened, I went back into the pane of the item where things got unexpectedly erased, and I pasted in some content again. I went to another item, came back, and it was gone! I did this many times, and it kept disappearing. Then I clicked on "create new html document". A prompt came up warning me that the current content will be erased. Well, there was nothing there anyway, so I said ok. I pasted in the same content again, switched out, came back, and it had disappeared again! Eventually, I clicked around a lot, and I kept pasting in the content, and now it is in there and not disappearing. But I don't really know what I did.
-superboyac (July 10, 2008, 05:49 PM)

(Just came back from a loooong day out doing boring stuff. )

I've experienced the same problem yesterday. It might be a problem with one of the latest builds. I confess that I use mostly the MHT format though, so the problem might have been there for a while without me noticing it.

Pierre : it's a fairly severe problem. Stuff in the html pane doesn't get saved sometimes.

1- Create a brand new data base
2- Open the inbox grid
3- Create a new item called "Test" (after the "Have lunch with Mary" item)
4- Write something in the html pane. Press CTRL-S.
5- change to the "Have lunch with Mary" item
6- Come back to the "Test" item : hmtl content is gone (well, here, in my case, it is...)

PS : superboyac : in the mean time, if your facing an emergency and if you don't mind, you could use mht. haven't had any problems with it, and this what I use everyday...
-Armando (July 10, 2008, 07:06 PM)

I don't want to get into using mht yet because I can't edit it inside of SN. I've found a workaround to it temporarily. As long as I create a new html document from a template (there's an evernote template that's available in the default directory), I can clear the contents and it gets saved. I think it is the current build problem because it was fine for the most part before.

I'm all for the additional features of the html pane, like Pierre listed above. Hopefully, the additional features can be implemented as the "inconvenient" options (like using the menu to enable or access), but the default setting of the html pane should behave like a traditional 2-pane notetaking application.

I trust it will be taken care of. Pierre is very prompt with his support (I think my last bug report was fixed in minutes!).

PPLandry · « **Reply #936 on:** July 10, 2008, 10:39 PM »

I updated the current build with a fix for this issue. I did not have the time to test it throughly, but it now saves correctly in those problematic situations.

I'll examine it in more details on monday.

With the recent problems with the SQLNotes web site (www.sqlnotes.net), due to hosting service SQL Server problems, I started looking at alternatives... and fell in love with Drupal (old site was using DNN).

It is not fully operational just yet, but users can get a good idea of what it will be by visiting this page: www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5 (the skin will be improved/changed once fully functional)

New features
- Faster
- Clean UI with space saving left task panel
- More customizable
- User blogs
- Integrated forums, flat or threaded, simpler image upload
- Support for anonymous user comments with email notifications
- List of site changes (new posts, comments, pages), New posts since last visit, etc
- Possibility of integrating Mantis or using Drupal's own issue tracking
- Live highlight of glossary terms in posts, with tooltip and links to detailed description page
- Site-wide search
- And much much more (there are probably close to 1000 free modules, I haven't explored them all)

Armando · « **Reply #937 on:** July 10, 2008, 10:50 PM »

I updated the current build with a fix for this issue. I did not have the time to test it throughly, but it now saves correctly in those problematic situations.
-PPLandry (July 10, 2008, 10:39 PM)

Works very well here!

With the recent problems with the SQLNotes web site (www.sqlnotes.net), due to hosting service SQL Server problems, I started looking at alternatives... and fell in love with Drupal (old site was using DNN).
-PPLandry (July 10, 2008, 10:39 PM)

Looks great.
Have a good weekend!

xbeta · « **Reply #938 on:** July 10, 2008, 11:56 PM »

PPLandry:

I have finished the UI Chinese translation and send to [email protected] several days ago, also a forum message to you. but got no reply. You got it?

PPLandry · « **Reply #939 on:** July 11, 2008, 06:41 AM »

Yes Thanks! it is already in the installation

Armando · « **Reply #940 on:** July 11, 2008, 09:55 AM »

Wow! THis is really cool xbeta!!!

tomos · « **Reply #941 on:** July 11, 2008, 01:22 PM »

Actually, some web content is not well captured by EverNote, anything with CSS and JS does not import well. Other programs, including MS Word do a much better job.
-PPLandry (July 07, 2008, 07:31 PM)

just cross-referencing with this thread (quote from johnk below) "Reliable web page capture..."

In my endless quest/obsession to find the perfect information manager, I've decided that one of the key features for me is reliable web page capture. Not pixel perfect. But close enough. There are lots of other features I'm willing to compromise on, but not that one.

Now you wouldn't think that would be a problem. But it is. Most of the information managers we know and love just are not as reliable as they should be. I have licences for three of the best -- Ultra Recall, Surfulater and Evernote. All claim that web page capture is part of their feature set.

And yet compared to the free Firefox add-on Scrapbook, their performance is variable, to say the least. Pictures speak louder than words, so here's a comparison of the three programs I mention above with Scrapbook, and web capture specialists Local Website Archive and WebResearch Pro.
-johnk (July 11, 2008, 12:53 PM)

and the challenge is

What I want is for one of the heavyweight information managers ... to improve their programs and start providing bullet-proof web page capture ...
-johnk (July 11, 2008, 01:22 PM)

superboyac · « **Reply #942 on:** July 15, 2008, 12:10 PM »

THanks Pierre, for taking care of that bug. Sorry to come off so aggressive, but I need to be able to trust that html pane. Eventually, there will be a lot of very important information in there, and it needs to be rock-solid reliable.

I also want to give some props to xbeta, who seems to work hard on translating a lot of these notetaking/PIM software information into Chinese. I hope there are chinese people that appreciate the effort.

superboyac · « **Reply #943 on:** July 15, 2008, 06:20 PM »

I noticed that SQLNotes has two convenient timers in the bottom of the window. How are we supposed to use that, or is it just there for convenience?

Is it possible to time something and when you stop, have the timer value automatically get entered in a field, or something like that?

PPLandry · « **Reply #944 on:** July 16, 2008, 11:26 AM »

The two timers are to help consultants who get paid on an hourly basis. Often, such an individual works on a main project and is interrupted by phone calls and must work on something else and later on return. The two timers are easy to turn-on and off. If you put the computer in pause (i.e. lunch), they stop counting.

There is no link between the counters and any fields, it is the responsibility of the user to enter the timed value in the proper project, etc. If you have any idea of how it could be used, do not hesitate to propose!

Related to this issue, the phone dialer is in need of major improvements, one of these is logged calls with duration (à la Ecco)

superboyac · « **Reply #945 on:** July 16, 2008, 03:58 PM »

The two timers are to help consultants who get paid on an hourly basis. Often, such an individual works on a main project and is interrupted by phone calls and must work on something else and later on return. The two timers are easy to turn-on and off. If you put the computer in pause (i.e. lunch), they stop counting.

There is no link between the counters and any fields, it is the responsibility of the user to enter the timed value in the proper project, etc. If you have any idea of how it could be used, do not hesitate to propose!

Related to this issue, the phone dialer is in need of major improvements, one of these is logged calls with duration (à la Ecco)
-PPLandry (July 16, 2008, 11:26 AM)

Oh yeah! That's another feature I'm eagerly waiting for, the phone dialer. I want to transfer all of my contact info into SN. When you're ready to work on it, let me know. I have some good suggestions for the dialer.

PPLandry · « **Reply #946 on:** July 16, 2008, 04:18 PM »

The phone dialer is already there (CTRL-T) to activate.

1- Finds all numbers in the item and in parent items (enter only company number, not one for each employee, same for family members, etc).
2-Uses TAPI dialing rules, so easily adjusts between home and office.
2-Customizable phone number recognition through regexp.

You knew that right?

superboyac · « **Reply #947 on:** July 16, 2008, 04:58 PM »

Well, sort of. I knew dialing was already there, but I haven't tried it yet! I'll have to do it at home, because my phone at work isn't connected to the computer.

superboyac · « **Reply #948 on:** July 31, 2008, 10:29 AM »

It seems that I ran into some data disappearing problems again:
Yesterday, I added a few items to my "Evernote" grid (where I keep random notes). Nothing major, just a list of software I use with Autocad. I had short descriptions in the html pane. I come back this morning, and all of those items are gone. I also had some work-related items in another grid I added yesterday, and those are still there. Does this happen to anybody else? Between my past experiences with the HTML pane and things like this, I get a little nervous. Is there anything I can do before exiting the program that sort of ensures me that the changes are being saved? I still think it's important to have a more sophisticated backup settings (like the one I posted here earlier for mylife organized).
I think part of the reason why I seem to be the only one experiencing this is because I'm using this program actively while most of the other users are just testing it out. I'm actually doing work in this program on a daily basis, I'm not just trying out new features once in a while or experimenting with it while I do my real work in other programs. Anybody else here that relies on the program daily?

The worst part of all this is that I come in the morning, open up SQLNotes, and I don't see some of the items I added yesterday. So I'm wondering if I even put them in, or maybe I was planning to but never did. You see, it's making me doubt myself, which is the most difficult part for me.

superboyac · « **Reply #949 on:** July 31, 2008, 10:40 AM »

OK, one more note:
I did a quick search on the lost items, and I found them. I remembered from the past that sometimes data disappears from a grid, but rarely is it gone from the database. So, the lost items showed up in the quicksearch. But in the properties, they appear in no grids, which is weird because I obviously entered them in a grid. So what causes this to happen? And how do I restore it back into the proper grid?

As I mentioned, I also entered new items in another grid, and didn't lose those. However, in the grid where I did lose items, I also remember that I went through the list and also deleted some other items (delete from database, not just the grid). I'm guessing that that caused something to happen to the grid that made my other items disappear. So, if that's the case, that's a bug that needs to be looked at.

Now, how do I add the lost items back into the proper grid? Do I have to move it manually, or can I restore it somehow?