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List of newbie questions regarding software
Paul Keith:
Cancelled Choices:
StoryMind/Dramatica
At first, I liked the way the applications introduced me to the whole process but after trying Dramatica's Level 1 Story Guide on an article I was planning to write, I was really underwhelmed by the end result. Yes, it's really not meant for writing such things but the article I was testing it on fits the basic needs of a story with characters, transitions, chapters and the works except I could get away with just one sentence or paragraph to fill most of what the program asks so I saw it as a decent test for what it could produce.
Unfortunately, the end result is very outline-ish and this is bad for me because I really was expecting the program to unearth something while doing all these process but the events it produced were nothing I couldn't have thought of on my own using any kind of snippet taker. After trying IdeaMason, the entire thing just didn't feel like it was worth paying for. (though the bonuses that come with StoryMind is a nice offer)
StoryMind is basically a subsection in Dramatica's Story Guide and it basically asks you to type something and lets you see it later on for reference but compared to IdeaMason's plethora of ways to insert footnotes/citations and references, it really came short.
Note that part of my decision was influenced by the fact that I felt I could reproduce the same thing in Compendium by copying the questions and answering it through the program's user interface and I would get a more concrete view of my content because of it's mapping structure.
IdeaMason
At first this is my Liquid Story Binder/Offline Diigo and I really came into it feeling like I was just shy of cashing out on it and the drag and drop way of doing things really really felt so tempting to use and the ability to basically have a YeahWrite entry only the tabs working per item rather than per entry really REALLY got my hopes up but once I tried it, I found it was too rigid in it's structure. For ex. I want the reference to be basically a blank notepad like Opera's notes panel but with the ability to remove the folder view but the program insists on puttng an entry box when entering the information to satisfy such rote questions as the name of the link, etc. etc.
In the end, what I end up getting was a jazzed up combination of a notetaker combined with the Form Letter Machine except with drag and drop rather than copy to clipboard. Even the links which I at first thought had Web Capturing wasn't to be. One thing it got slightly right was the mini-preview mode but the fact that I couldn't find a way to get a fullscreen preview/reader mode really made it feel like I was better off with Compendium. Not that I was looking for this program to replace Compendium but it really made me feel like it was the Compendium equivalent to my search for a YeahWrite/Diigo replacement and by that I mean, Compendium was one of the programs I really found invaluable to me and if the program now were to be made lighter and more stable with the exact same features, it would be almost be an ideal program that doesn't have any glaring flaws for my own purposes. (though it still wouldn't be good enough to be the only notetaking program I would use.)
Olympus DS-50 Tape Recorder:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your e-mail and interest in our products.
While appreciating your interest,
we are sorry to inform you that there are no dealers or retailers
of our voice recorders in the Philippine.
Therefore, regarding availability of DS-50,
please contact our distributor of digital cameras
at the following address.
*** Distributor in the Philippines ***
Axis Global Technologies,Inc.
20 North Rd., Cor. 3rd Ave., Cubao,
Quezon City
Tel: 632-724-3340
Tel: 632-721-8618
Fax: 632-724-3353
Unfortunately none of our voice recorders
including the DS-50 is water proof.
Therefore, we are unable to guarantee the use of
our voice recorders in a bathroom.
We are not planning to introduce water proof
voice recorders under present circumstances.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
S. Sato
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan
--- End quote ---
Search for Alternate Programs Added:
Two-pane Notepad
Through using these programs, I ended up feeling that maybe there was a much simpler solution to what I needed. IdeaMason's Composition Drag and Drop feature which allows one to first filter contents before dragging the snippets into a full article really made me realize the value of a two pane outliner and it reminded me of how for a long time Opera's notes panel felt really useful to me despite it's bare bones feature and I finally got why it was that way.
Basically the freedom I got from Opera's Notes panel was the fact that aside from a preview/reader mode, it really was a good basic user interface design for my needs if you replace the browser area with a notepad section. Add in the tabs and light mem consumption of YeahWrite with a better export and I really felt it would be good enough to replace Diigo and Yeahwrite for me even if the snippet area might not have the capability and features of Surfulator.
All I really need is to replace Diigo with any highlighter app like Scrapbook and Wired Marker, copy paste the highlights and then paste them into the program and voila! The hideable notes panel means I can get my full screen view of the contents and as long as it can be set for preview mode, I really believe it would be good enough to work.
Unfortunately, I can't find such a program as most of the outliners I've seen waste too much screen real estate by adding a tree-hierarchy to it's 2nd pane while others like creating a two column template for OneNote fall short because you can't hide one side with ease and really OneNote has too many advanced features that doesn't bode well for experimentation. Case in point, I was curious by what the linkify feature's use was and used it but I ended up having my entire snippets turned into links which I couldn't undo because OneNote has no unlimited undos to my knowledge.
The Form Letter Machine + EverNote/Surfulator + Advanced Clipper
Well the core functionality is basically the same as above. I only mentioned this because I'm currently trying to manage through using the combination of Scrapbook + The Form Letter Machine as my alternative to Diigo but it's so clunky because it has no web clipping functionality but it does so many things right like a previewable non-editable reader with a mini-edit box as opposed to the reverse which makes it really great for reading the snippets that pretty much my only worry is it's lack of a backup and export feature and it's lack of an auto-save but it will have to do for now. I also haven't tested how well it handles tons of information especially without a tagging feature.
Paul Keith:
*sigh, I've been really procrastinating for awhile but just a quick bump.
For those wondering why I want a grid over grid program, I forgot to include a picture.
[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]
The core idea is to have a program that creates a larger version of this image encompassing a smaller version of this grid, encompassing an even smaller version of this grid with the end result aiming to have a way to not only prioritize but also segment the different items that are to be included in this concept.
40hz:
re: Writing
Thanks for the info on Compendium. I've downloaded it and I'm putting it through it's paces. A very interesting application to say the least, even if you need to install MySQL to use it. Now that I've played with Compendium and gotten a feel for it's methodology I'm beginning to see the potential for a lot future use. A definite find! :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:
BTW: The reason I couldn't originally download Compendium was because Google directed me to Compendium-TA by mistake. Compendium-TA is an outliner. Their website can be found at: www.compendiumdev.co.uk/compendium-ta/default.php
(And yes, the download links for that app are still broken. Boo hiss!!! ;))
In the meantime, you might want to take a look at Papel. Papel is a free-form note taking and organizing tool that uses a desktop-like metaphor.
Publisher's Description
A new software tool designed for authors of fictional stories. It allows you to write creatively and intuitively without logical tasks interfering with the flow of your ideas.
Rather than using lists and tables to keep track of the various parts of your writing project, it works visually, just as Windows does.
You simply create new papels in the main project window, name them and set their type (described below). Papels are easily identifiable, as each type has it´s own icon, and the descriptive name you gave it is displayed with it.
Papel allows you to keep track of all the scraps of writing you create along the way, and instantly reminds you of what goes where by the way you group them in your project. Papels can be moved around with your mouse, renamed, and the type changed if you wish. Once everything is ready for publishing, you simply import the text files into your word processor for final formatting to the desired publishing standard.
Features:
* Visual on-screen representation of your writing project sections.
* Drag & Drop interface for easy grouping of related pieces of work, notes, etc.
* Individual icons for each piece of work, including Chapter, Scene, Male Character, Female Character, Plot Outline, Dialogue, and Note.
* Simple papel naming system, with automatic file saving under the given name.
* Find, Replace, Word Count,Spell Checking & Thesaurus in editor.
* Multi-sizeable project window with up to 8 times your screen size.
* Configurable and saveable Editor font and size.
* Saveable default Application and Editor window positions.
--- End quote ---
Downloading Papel can get a little tricky since the product's homepage seems to have gone missing recently.
This download link does work however:
http://download.freewarefiles.com/files/Papel_Setup.exe
tomos:
The core idea is to have a program that creates a larger version of this image encompassing a smaller version of this grid, encompassing an even smaller version of this grid with the end result aiming to have a way to not only prioritize but also segment the different items that are to be included in this concept.
-Paul Keith (September 16, 2008, 06:50 PM)
--- End quote ---
Notebox disorganiser is in this direction at any rate - never have used it properly (& that a couple years ago) so cant say more
I don't think Notebox Disorganizer has been mentioned so far. It's aimed at writers, and is truly weird. Here is part of a third-party review:
No, seriously, you should check out NoteBox Disorganizer:
It's an amazingly useful program.
NoteBox Disorganizer is tailor-made for quickly jotting down notes and
ideas, organizing those notes and ideas, combining selected notes into a
document, and exporting that document for publication. It's truly my
favorite writing program, and I've tried pretty much everything out
there. Here are some of the things that make NoteBox Disorganizer so
outstanding:
* Notes are kept in a spreadsheet-like grid that is easy to understand
and navigate. And that means all your notes are spread out in plain
sight; nothing is hidden away in a database or lost in an outline
"tree."
* It's possible to name each column, so you can easily categorize your
notes under the columns where they belong. Have a note that belongs
under more than one category? Clone it! Change a clone, and that change
is reflected in all of the others.
* It's also possible to name each *row,* so you can lay out a book's
structure before you even start writing.
[...]
I love the side-by-sideness of all this, which gives me a sense of
overview, organization, and control that I don't get in any other
program.
* If you need finer "granularity" in categorizing notes, you can include
note ~keywords in the text (and keep an alphabetical list of those
~keywords) and then do a "bounded" search for them. In Boolean terms,
that's an "And" search, which finds notes that include all of the
specified ~keywords. Don't want to fuss with ~keywords? You can still
use a bounded search to find notes that contain several terms.
--- End quote ---
-rjbull (August 23, 2006, 05:19 AM)
--- End quote ---
more info:-
http://www.geocities.com/goosnargh37/category.html
http://www.geocities.com/goosnargh37/docs.html
tomos:
Here's what it looks like here ... with greetings :)
List of newbie questions regarding software
edit/ hmmm - What's that top of the window :huh: looks like advertising, very strange (screenshot made using minicap/FARR combination, FF was behind, tried again & was normal but will leave it here - nothing to do with Notebox I dont think)
BTW - it's portable
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