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Last post Author Topic: General brainstorming for Note-taking software  (Read 841788 times)

rjbull

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #875 on: December 07, 2012, 03:20 PM »
TreeDBNotes
[...]I don't use it to collect information from elsewhere, although it says it is an information manager. [...]

The clipping is quite good, but I don't see it as a web clipper at all. There are keyboard shortcuts, but I don't use them. Virtually all these features are there in the free version of the program.

Have you checked the Free version lately?  Their TreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature CompareTreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature Compare chart left me slightly puzzled.  The headings are Free, Free registered, and Pro.  It lists far more features for Free registered than vanilla Free.  I thought, oh, they're offering a free registration to unlock extra features and get you on their mailing list, an uncommon ploy but not unknown.  But if you look at their Buy Now page and scroll down to TreeDBNotes (Free), it gives different purchase prices for personal and business use.  I don't have any problem with a single .EXE being a basic Free version on its own and more advanced Standard version on being unlocked, but I don't think they should still advertise the Standard version as Free when it's payware.  Maybe they just forgot to change the name?

I don't much care for the e-book Help file, either, especially as the Ctrl+G global search doesn't work, and it seems a bit thin on real information.  I couldn't see anything about Web clipping in the sense that EverNote, RightNote, UR etc. do.

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #876 on: December 07, 2012, 06:40 PM »
Have you checked the Free version lately?  Their TreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature CompareTreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature Compare chart left me slightly puzzled.  The headings are Free, Free registered, and Pro.  It lists far more features for Free registered than vanilla Free.  I thought, oh, they're offering a free registration to unlock extra features and get you on their mailing list, an uncommon ploy but not unknown.  But if you look at their Buy Now page and scroll down to TreeDBNotes (Free), it gives different purchase prices for personal and business use.  I don't have any problem with a single .EXE being a basic Free version on its own and more advanced Standard version on being unlocked, but I don't think they should still advertise the Standard version as Free when it's payware.  Maybe they just forgot to change the name?

I'd agree about the confusion between Free Registered (that they charge for) and Free and it would be better if the Registered version was just called Standard. But, in terms of features, nearly all the features that the registered version has that the free version hasn't are not to do with the actual text editing functions. When I used the free version, I never felt the slightest need to upgrade, and only upgraded to the Pro version on a BdJ offer because I felt it would be good to pay something for a program that I used regularly. And that would still be true now.

I don't much care for the e-book Help file, either, especially as the Ctrl+G global search doesn't work, and it seems a bit thin on real information.  I couldn't see anything about Web clipping in the sense that EverNote, RightNote, UR etc. do.
I don't used keyboard shortcuts, so I hadn't noticed that - I also tend not to use Help files. What it does have is a lot of options on the menus (top & right click), so I have always found it very easy to explore the possibilities of the program. Depends how you do things, which is one of the reasons I think these programs are very subject to personal preference.

Yes, I don't think it does web clipping in the way those other programs do. The clipping it does do, is just the usual sort of screen shots, images, text etc but it does work and is integrated in the program. Web clipping is more of an archive/PIM thing - and as I said, it claims to be a PIM, but I've never seen it as one, and feel it is just a (very good) text editor.

I've used Rightnote a bit more now, and am struggling to find anything I can use it for apart from the clipping from Opera; tiny spreadsheet tables seems to be the only other thing and I don't know how much I would want to use that. Just seems less good generally, and less suiting my way of working, than the other programs I have. I've also been tempted back into using Ultra Recall more since trying Rightnote, and it does do a lot of things pretty well; quite a number of similarities with Rightnote, all in Ultra Recall's favour with exception of the Opera clipping. But Rightnote still seems to be progressing while UR seems not to be.

Paul Keith

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #877 on: December 07, 2012, 06:59 PM »
Minor update. Probably old but it's been a while since I downloaded Jarte and I just found out they not only had a new skin (which I'm not a fan of) but also sports a new clickless mousing basically hovering the mouse instead of clicking on menus. Too bad most of the hover is on useless options.

rjbull

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #878 on: December 09, 2012, 05:19 PM »
in terms of features, nearly all the features that the registered version has that the free version hasn't are not to do with the actual text editing functions.
[...]
Yes, I don't think it does web clipping in the way those other programs do. The clipping it does do, is just the usual sort of screen shots, images, text etc but it does work and is integrated in the program. Web clipping is more of an archive/PIM thing - and as I said, it claims to be a PIM, but I've never seen it as one, and feel it is just a (very good) text editor.
This is where we differ, as I'm primarily concerned with keeping Web clips, plus my own text notes, in one convenient program with good searching.  I've never tried a modern Windows PIM/outliner for content creation.  I'm unlikely to need that now, and would find it hard to adapt, after years of using pencil and paper, and DOS WordStar-style editors.  I see the point when you need to combine self-generated material with outside sources into a coherent whole, of course.

When I used the free version, I never felt the slightest need to upgrade, and only upgraded to the Pro version on a BdJ offer because I felt it would be good to pay something for a program that I used regularly.
I did something like that with the last free version of ClipCache, registering as a thank-you but never bothering to install the registered version until the old one proved no longer reliable on later versions of Windows.

I don't used keyboard shortcuts, so I hadn't noticed that - I also tend not to use Help files. What it does have is a lot of options on the menus (top & right click), so I have always found it very easy to explore the possibilities of the program. Depends how you do things, which is one of the reasons I think these programs are very subject to personal preference.
Indeed so; again we differ, as I really like to have hotkeys, especially for new Web clip and add more content to current note.

I've also been tempted back into using Ultra Recall more since trying Rightnote, and it does do a lot of things pretty well; quite a number of similarities with Rightnote, all in Ultra Recall's favour with exception of the Opera clipping. But Rightnote still seems to be progressing while UR seems not to be.
I've seen the comment that UR's interface is confusing, but suspect that familiarity plays a big part.  I have to say I haven't used click.to myself, but, could you get UR to clip from Opera by using click.to as a helper app?  The author of All My Notes Organizer has used this approach instead of adding web clip hotkeys or actions in his own program.  Details here: Integrate AllMyNotes to work with click.to [web-clipping].  Maybe something similar might work for UR.

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #879 on: December 09, 2012, 07:10 PM »
This is where we differ, as I'm primarily concerned with keeping Web clips, plus my own text notes, in one convenient program with good searching.  I've never tried a modern Windows PIM/outliner for content creation
As I said originally, I use TreeDBNotes primarily for writing and don't clip anything into it; I rarely attach files either. I like the freedom to organise and reorganise (outlining is really good for this) and having a lot of the things I write in one easy to access place. And I find it much more intuitive with access to commands than the alternatives (remembering that I hate using hotkeys). I can see that you have to like hotkeys if you are used to WordStar and derivatives. I couldn't wait to get away from them (& the mainframe equivalents) - I loved the whole GUI phenomenon from the moment I saw Lisa (and stayed away from IBM & MS machines as much as I could until Win 95 appeared).

I've also been tempted back into using Ultra Recall more since trying Rightnote, and it does do a lot of things pretty well; quite a number of similarities with Rightnote, all in Ultra Recall's favour with exception of the Opera clipping. But Rightnote still seems to be progressing while UR seems not to be.
I've seen the comment that UR's interface is confusing, but suspect that familiarity plays a big part.  I have to say I haven't used click.to myself, but, could you get UR to clip from Opera by using click.to as a helper app?  The author of All My Notes Organizer has used this approach instead of adding web clip hotkeys or actions in his own program.  Details here: Integrate AllMyNotes to work with click.to [web-clipping].  Maybe something similar might work for UR.
I quite like UR's interface, complex as it is; it's the tie in with MS programs that puts me off the most. And I love the multi panes. Both it and RightNote work fine to store files & webpages, and I'm happy enough storing info in a different prog from the one I am writing in - it is as easy to switch between programs as it is to switch focus within a program and with sufficient monitor(s) space everything is visible all the time, so that is OK. And I use EverNote  for an increasing host of other stuff.

I hadn't heard of click.to but had a look when I saw this. I wasn't clear about exactly what it does & didn't see references to clipping full web pages, let alone how to send them to new notes in something like UR - I uninstalled it pretty quickly - and it is interesting how much extra rubbish had to be cleared up once it had been uninstalled. In practice, I remain happy with ClipMate for ordinary clipping (despite development stopping) and SnagIt for regions and windows.

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #880 on: December 09, 2012, 07:32 PM »
This is where we differ, as I'm primarily concerned with keeping Web clips, plus my own text notes, in one convenient program with good searching.  I've never tried a modern Windows PIM/outliner for content creation.

And the difference in basic functions is one of the things that is most confusing this genre (as identified by Superboyac when he started this thread). There are programs like PageFour which are purely simple writing & outlining programs and others which are primarily large integrated databases of collected content (MyBase, Surfulater). The discussion in this thread moved very quickly to the database end of things, but I'm not sure what the hierarchical note structure brings to that party once you have the different concept of hierarchical tags but is always important in writing.

robinsiebler

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #881 on: December 10, 2012, 06:03 PM »
lol...InfoSelect. I used it when it was a memory-resident program called Tornado Notes and dropped it when it got to IS 4. Too much feature bloat for too high of a price.
Happiness is laced with shards of pain

rjbull

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #882 on: December 12, 2012, 03:30 PM »
And the difference in basic functions is one of the things that is most confusing this genre (as identified by Superboyac when he started this thread). There are programs like PageFour which are purely simple writing & outlining programs and others which are primarily large integrated databases of collected content (MyBase, Surfulater).  The discussion in this thread moved very quickly to the database end of things
The nomenclature has become confusingly blurred.  I think of a "outliner" as a single-page outliner like the lamented PC-Outline was for DOS, and Ecco and Noteliner are for Windows.  Likewise "PIM" suggests more in the way of organisation of time and people, while "notekeeper" is more what I'm interested in, your database end of things.  I suppose authors want to make their appeal as broad as possible to attract sales, so it takes knowledgable DC users to point out the real strengths and weaknesses of the different programs  :)

I rather regret missing Bits du Jour's recent free (as in $0) offer on PageFour; the interface looks nice and simple.  They currently have a 45% off special offer, $21.45 instead of $39.00.

I'm not sure what the hierarchical note structure brings to that party once you have the different concept of hierarchical tags but is always important in writing.
tranglos says (somewhere on DC) that he finds it necessary to have the hierarchical tree, that (from memory) he's uncomfortable leaving organisation solely to tags.  I'm not sure.  I don't use tags religiously and wouldn't want a system that enforced them, but I do sometimes add words to a note so it contains the form of words I'm most likely to use myself.

rjbull

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #883 on: December 12, 2012, 03:32 PM »
lol...InfoSelect. I used it when it was a memory-resident program called Tornado Notes and dropped it when it got to IS 4. Too much feature bloat for too high of a price.
I don't go back that far, but I had a DOS version of IS.  In the end I preferred the cleaner, simpler interface of Memory Mate.  Someone else on DC - IainB, I think - has the same issues as you with later versions of IS.

rgdot

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #884 on: December 12, 2012, 05:10 PM »
tranglos says (somewhere on DC) that he finds it necessary to have the hierarchical tree, that (from memory) he's uncomfortable leaving organisation solely to tags.  I'm not sure.  I don't use tags religiously and wouldn't want a system that enforced them, but I do sometimes add words to a note so it contains the form of words I'm most likely to use myself.

That is why tags are 'ok' for personal use not for something blog posts. You may be able to train your own mind to make tags intuitive and meaningful for you. I find I use them sometimes but I think the best approach is to make the title of a node, note, etc. meaningful and give clues as to contents. One thing I like about All My Organizer for example is that you can see previews of child nodes/'folders' contents when a parent is selected. I believe Evernote is the same (?)

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #885 on: December 12, 2012, 06:48 PM »
tranglos says (somewhere on DC) that he finds it necessary to have the hierarchical tree, that (from memory) he's uncomfortable leaving organisation solely to tags.  I'm not sure.  I don't use tags religiously and wouldn't want a system that enforced them, but I do sometimes add words to a note so it contains the form of words I'm most likely to use myself.

That is why tags are 'ok' for personal use not for something blog posts. You may be able to train your own mind to make tags intuitive and meaningful for you. I find I use them sometimes but I think the best approach is to make the title of a node, note, etc. meaningful and give clues as to contents. One thing I like about All My Organizer for example is that you can see previews of child nodes/'folders' contents when a parent is selected. I believe Evernote is the same (?)

Exactly. Conceptually, hierarchical tags can be used in exactly the same way as folders - Folder 1 containing 1a, 1b etc & 1b containing 1b2 1b2 etc. The difference is that with folders there is is a folder tree available to view at all times and in a set order. If a prog allows you to see the tag trees, then they can be used the same way and each file/note can be in as many folders as you choose.

And, yes, Evernote allows you to see the tag tree on the left exactly as you would with folders - so you can see all the tags at once if you wish (and have a screen large enough) - and shows you a thumbnail view of the content of each note.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 07:05 PM by Dormouse »

Paul Keith

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #886 on: December 13, 2012, 02:35 AM »
tranglos says (somewhere on DC) that he finds it necessary to have the hierarchical tree, that (from memory) he's uncomfortable leaving organisation solely to tags.  I'm not sure.  I don't use tags religiously and wouldn't want a system that enforced them, but I do sometimes add words to a note so it contains the form of words I'm most likely to use myself.

That is why tags are 'ok' for personal use not for something blog posts. You may be able to train your own mind to make tags intuitive and meaningful for you. I find I use them sometimes but I think the best approach is to make the title of a node, note, etc. meaningful and give clues as to contents. One thing I like about All My Organizer for example is that you can see previews of child nodes/'folders' contents when a parent is selected. I believe Evernote is the same (?)

To be a devil's advocate, this is why tags are bad for personal use.

The average group will always have data that are less information and more data. This is because information is managed separately and information attributed activity is moved by the groups' philosophy/goals/mission/duty. No one really cares about the end result of the data and no one is affected by it because the mission goals are about contributing to the group, not contributing to the individual needs above those of the group.

In comparison, personal often comes down to individual. If you want to buy an apple for health reasons and you tagged the healthy tag, you're training your mind to always register healthy when you buy an Apple and the more you use that intuition, the less you will ever try to explore the unhealthiness of an Apple. In short, it's bias fulfilment.

The difficult part is in the question of how much harm it does.

Certainly trees and folders also have their conceptual limitations but here's the thing: they don't pretend. Tags pretend the brain. It has a verifiable effect that can immediately be experienced by the recipient as soon as they got "their" tagtuition.

I don't mean to be a tag demonologist, certainly tags are not evil. I'm just making a devil's advocate case for the possibility that tags may be like TV ads. Also how intuition depends on data we surround ourselves with. If people as smart as scientists and economists can self-manipulate their idea which then demolish and creates a wrong paradigm shift  in their theories (sometimes to their entire lifetime and beyond depending on how influential their works become), so too and especially, can personal information using tags worsen the bias of intuition.

As far as proof, I don't have any strongly backed ones. I don't even know if there's an official name to it but if you notice many of the "software hackers" of these tag based products: many who often try to create templates for their tags via the use of official names for their tags, many if not all tend to have worse sets than the average folder names.

For example, the average My Documents, Music, Downloads folder in OSes are extremely bad, bland and many times redundant. What I mean by this is that the Music folder is rarely used, the My Documents punishes the computer newbie who thinks he has to save his documents in that folder, there's no immediate reminder for backups, manuals, etc. in the same folder...but at least it's more nuanced than the average tag sets.

There's an "intuition booster" of Work, Fun, Web. It barely registers an effect on the person but at least it's there so far as information concept is concerned.

The only information concept that tags often boost are find and it's not even because of the tags but because there's a search bar.

Now try to turn a nuanced intuitive information data that's in a folder into a tag and you'll feel a slight tug out of your intuition like something's micro wrong. It's at this point that the first problematic data switches from foldertag to tags entirely data. Conceptually foldertags only work as a dumbing down of tags to begin with. Comparatively, a propaganda ad that doesn't register as propaganda in your head or registers a propaganda with a positive message in your head will seem less evil than a normal TV ad even if it has every signs of being a propaganda and you know it consciously.

The harm here (guessingly) is not that it dumbs down the brain but the brain has to reserve space for the intuition to use itself up for registering the tags for information finding that once you have the actual data you no longer have the chance to utilize that data intuitively outside of how you belittled that data. Fitness is no longer a tag for the dictionary word fitness, it's a tag for looking good, diet, slim waist. Forget survival. Forget the dictionary. It's about being socially attractive in public and long term, it's about being vulnerable to unhealthy fitness products sold in the market. That's IMO the conceptual difference between words besides a note and a tag. One can still register as an icon to the brain despite being a word and one has to register as a set of affirmation like words to the brain despite being a tag that no longer has to register consciously as a word and is intuitively just a data finder markup.


PPLandry

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #887 on: December 13, 2012, 09:02 AM »
Exactly. Conceptually, hierarchical tags can be used in exactly the same way as folders

This is true only for container-type folders. Item is in the folder or item is not in the folder.

However, value-type folders carry a new dimension. Much like a database field, an Excel cell, an Ecco folder, URp attributes, or in my own InfoQube (where they are called fields), you can put text, dates and numbers in a folder. Tags don't support this.
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Paul Keith

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #888 on: December 14, 2012, 03:37 AM »
I think while the distinction is welcome, it's also important to note that there's been several (often web-based) implementations that also changed the implementation of tags that makes tag support certain things of those needs.

For example, http://www.coolendar.com/ 's field is built with tags and those tags can't do anything but by modelling it around tags, the dates can be presented and inputted in a different manner from InfoQube's "date field".

The tags don't support this but it's only through the mechanic copying of tag mark-up registration that coolendar can achieve the state of field that coolendar provides.

Short version: Concepts are changing. There's no true and false anymore. One day the descendants of Infoqube may have mp3tags embedded in each field that autoplays to replace a reminder or vice versa, tags can support fields (like how Scrivener uses the word processor field to fill the index card field.)

TaoPhoenix

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #889 on: December 14, 2012, 04:56 AM »
As a small partial reply, I despise the My Documents folder. (Not the least because way back then My____ was some kind of craze.)

Sloppy programs try to save everything into My Documents. Really?! First thing I hunt for is Browse for Location to Save in.

Hoping I didn't mis-understand your post Paul, tags seem to allow a more-than-one list of stuff so it can simultaneously be both Windows8 and Usability for example. Tha's not so bad. You'd just need some method to determine where the actual master copy is.

Paul Keith

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #890 on: December 14, 2012, 01:41 PM »
Depends on the tags. I would say most tags aren't. That's partially why I used the verb pretend.

My Documents for example. Hated it, but it's instant. You can immediately drop it.

Tags you can't once you actually have to apply that more-than-one list mindset not just set it up. For example, you're still only using one list in Google Reader despite labels which is how most tags function.

Once you have to actually think about the concept of utility or the containment by which utility is on there, it's tough to think in Usability. You'd have to be passive or have pre-biased information because if you start contemplating, most tags will read like "Usability-Windows8", not Usability: Windows8; Usability: NotWindows8.

...and that's just the basic tag. Editing hell, review data, bookmarks...you slowly need to cheat with quickfind bars or trees or accept hashtags and then you have to cheat your instinct and then you have to dumb yourself down while adding unnecessary complexity.

The long term result I feel is that it's more like two-headaches-in-one list of stuff and the more-than-one list of theory is only for data that don't need two lists to begin with and can function with just one or only need an additional set of tag for filtering and not reviewing and even there, if you look at the public lists that really host bulk data like delicious bookmarks, it didn't really change the bookmarking world for filtering. People still used Google Alerts instead of Delicious. Curation is still a much more straightforward way to have more-than-one-lists. Multiple views is still a better split for two lists. Tags are still present. They still can be useful. Just the concept seems to be built on novelty (and the talent/intelligence of the user relative to his goal for the data inside that list) no different from users pretending you can have priorities with colored icons or bullet points can instantly make good outliners or the multitude of data that don't need to be organized that are sprinkled with tags.

The only true more-than-one of tags,conceptually, in my opinion is that it's a parasite for more than one data. It's like being able to find two clean dogs when you bury the other dogs in garbage. Yes, that might seem like more-than-one but can the human data interpreter (the brain) really still be filtering through two attributes like "find" and "dog" or are they simply pretending that's what they're doing only to be subconsciously looking for the sole adjective "clean"? What then? At least folders are a dumpster. You don't want them, you throw them out. You need more-than-one, it's the fault of desktop OS for not popularizing the revision feature found in Dropbox and offering it for free. Tags? You can co-exist with it and organize multiple contextual items so long as your data can exist with the sole list of having multiple parasites. Once you can't live with it for your data, it's no longer more-than-one list. It's one or more parasite eating away at your entire set of jumbled data and needing to be evacuated or exterminated from the old tags so the new parasite of tags can align with your data to brain registration ecosystem of multiple lists for multiple contexts.


clean

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #891 on: December 14, 2012, 04:47 PM »
Some musings on tags here:

http://www.kinook.co...p;posted=1#post20142 (posts 17 and 18)

Paul Keith

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #892 on: December 15, 2012, 08:32 AM »
In other words, on the MACRO level, a tag tree can be as effective as the trees are we know and use all day long: the main items will get a tag "car assurance", and within 1,000 or so main categories, this creates the category / tag "car assurance", as we would create that same category in our big-tree, by placing a heading there... and in the same way the car assurance, in a tag tree, would be placed under car and under assurance, a cloned "car assurance" heading under "car" would provide the car assurances in our UR tree, whilst the "original" would be placed in the "assurances" compartment of our tree.

IMO it's wrong. It's a common hole to fall into: Linking tag hell to tag conceptually when analyzing and linking the "visual map" effect of tags to the concept of a sole tag.

Mainly there's two big wrong assumptions here:

Trees being something people know and use

People don't know trees. They're handed trees especially those who don't know how to install or find alternatives to data management.

Once they do, people use programs that don't have trees or tree programs that have more advanced feature.

It's at a macro level that tags work because the brain can still remember some part of the data

This phenomenon fails:

But it's at the MICRO level that tag trees don't function: They ain't able to order these 60 items UNDER the heading / main tag in a way that'd be sensible for accessing these 60 items later on: Our big tree might appear convoluted on the main "tag" level - that's why I advocate the "zero" = PM level on top of it, allowing for creating natural GROUPS of headings -, but on the micro level, on the level of detailed information, it allows for creating, by placing any new item where we want to to place, a LIVE CONTEXT SYSTEM - tagging system FAIL here completely (or force you to do it artificially, by OVER-TAGGING, whilst in our traditional tree, there is NATURAL (and highly beneficial) additional meta data for each item: its very POSITION within the subtree and beneath the corresponding sub-headings there - if a tagging system wants to replicate this micro meta data, there's a tremendous manual work to do for its user (if ever it's possible from what the tagging system offers to begin with).

...not because the user went on a micro-level but because he finally took a macro level look at his tree instead of just searching for whatever it is he has bookmarked. The fallacy is just the Dunning-Kruger effect of information management especially PIM. You think you can remember a couple of bullet list so you think it could scale until you start looking at the totality of your data and suddenly your personal data doesn't even say back to you: this part is your personal mission, this is your life, this is your love life. Instead, that's delegated to the novelty of goal pre-planning and most of the working data are just reminders, grocery lists and random article trinkets you can sprinkle to your blog, that depending on your skill, you can sprinkle into a full blown book or academic work.

The short analogy here is to simply say footnotes and bibliographies and other links don't mean shit to the actual PIM user. It's the junk collecting hobby of personal data. That's why tags manage them better than containers. It's easier to find your junk if there are more drawers with less interrelated items inside and you've macro thought the structure of your data instead of micro-think it for future proofing, CRIMPing, backups, contemplation, visualization, inspiration and other long term thoughts that make the tag fail to scale when it finally fails to scale.


Writer

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #893 on: December 15, 2012, 01:49 PM »
Hello,

I have tried a few of these, including Keynote, OneNote, TreeDBNotes, Rightnote, Cintanotes, Evernote, and Simplenote. My work primarily revolves around design and journalism. So, I have always felt the need for a software that would be a good mix of  collecting abilities, hierarchical categorization, live search and lately 'anywhere access'. Am yet to find one that provides a good mix. Righnote and Simplenote is what I use now.

Writer

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #894 on: December 20, 2012, 06:40 AM »
Just noticed that Cintanotes is being offered at a 50% off on their website.

In their latest version history, they have listed a new feature: Simplenotes sync. I haven't tested it yet. However, Alex, the developer, does a good job with new features, and fixes problems quickly.

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #895 on: December 27, 2012, 07:24 PM »
I've been continuing my examination of RightNote & TreeDBNotes clipping abilities.

RightNote is clearly better at clipping webpages. Keeps a record of the source, can clip (I think it actually downloads) whole webpages, and the formatting is pretty good. But it does not keep a record of the source files when clipping sections from files and having to use the hotkeys to do any clipping, is pretty tiresome, when I'm just browsing or reading by using the mouse. So far I have failed to get the screen capture to work; I can identify the area to clip but nothing saves.

TreeDBNotes has a button which will turn on the ability to save each item going into the clipboard into a new note as well as a screen capture that does work for me. Doesn't save the sources at all. Easy enough to get around - just give a note to each file that is being clipped from, and the clips will be saved as subnotes under it.

They'd both be more useful if they would record the source of all clips. CintaNotes is an example to both of them for that.

In terms of practical use for me, I can't say that one is better than the other for clipping. It depends on what I am doing. These abilities seem to play into the strengths of both, RightNote for storing info & TreeDBNotes for using info. Overall, TreeDBNotes has far more features than RightNote.




J-Mac

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #896 on: December 28, 2012, 10:09 PM »
I am running RightNote Pro and MyInfo concurrently. I try to mimic everything in both, e.g., capture a web page in MyInfo and then immediately do the same in RN. RN still misses on more than a few pages, either claims that it cannot capture that page or it just muddles it up when it tries. Also takes significantly longer than MyInfo. MyInfo has captured just about everything I have thrown at it. Not everything, but close. MyInfo also keeps an Attributes pane full of source info for each capture, while RN doesn’t. However MyInfo, while having a "Notes" pane for each webpage capture, does not have the same for captures of other content - not webpages - like another open program's window.

BTW, where is the Note pane for RN? I don’t see one at all. There is a "Scratch" pane but whatever you enter there shows for all captures. Not sure what use that has.

Thanks!

Jim

Dormouse

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #897 on: December 29, 2012, 06:14 AM »
BTW, where is the Note pane for RN? I don’t see one at all. There is a "Scratch" pane but whatever you enter there shows for all captures. Not sure what use that has.
dk about a note pane, but you can add notes to a webclip by toggling edit mode.

I am running RightNote Pro and MyInfo concurrently. ... RN still misses on more than a few pages, either claims that it cannot capture that page or it just muddles it up when it tries. Also takes significantly longer than MyInfo. MyInfo has captured just about everything I have thrown at it.

I tried MyInfo after seeing a number of people say it had overtaken Ultra Recall, but haven't seen anything in it to confirm that view. MyInfo does not have an addon to clip from Opera, and the other methods are rather tedious. The thing I will say about RN is that it does clip from Opera, not always reliably I agree. I feel that UR is still better than MyInfo, even if MyInfo has improved (and it does have its note pane for clips from other applications).

I'm still not sure what I will do about whole page webclips. RN works okay for when I am casually browsing using Opera - but so does Evernote - and for highly targetted browsing I could easily enough use FF or ie and then use UR. Evernote looks increasingly ubiquitous; lots of ways of putting stuff in, such as the little click.to app. For clips from webpages, there are lots of ways of doing it and I'm likely to just use a program I already use. Haven't really decided about CintaNotes or whether I will use a clipboard manager (ClipMate, Ditto, CH+S etc) more systematically for longer term, info storing clips.

J-Mac

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #898 on: December 29, 2012, 11:00 AM »

I tried MyInfo after seeing a number of people say it had overtaken Ultra Recall, but haven't seen anything in it to confirm that view.

I was using UR-Pro for a few years but I was getting really aggravated about a couple things. For one, capturing web pages - it works great, and then it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t it really doesn’t, in a big way! And requests for help, while not going unanswered, don’t get me anywhere. Also, MS Office docs will open internally just fine... and then they stop and insist on opening externally in the relevant Office programs. Then I must go through re-doing the registry changes recommended by Kinook and revamping all my UR settings - usually ending up where I started - and the last time it happened it never did get back to opening documents internally. Kyle just doesn’t seem as committed to customer support as he once was.

Oh, yes - and then there was the upgrade to version 5, which turned out to be not a major upgrade after all. No new features, no bug fixes. Just wants folks to pay to continue using UR as it is. I gave up. Unfortunate because it definitely was the best out there IMO. At least when everything was working right, which it wasn’t anymore for me. I just had to get out and try other PIMs. I couldn't stand to go through another Support Request PITA again with Kinook. If he ever decides to develop UR again and show even just a little commitment to the users I'd upgrade and go back to it in a minute.

MyInfo does not have an addon to clip from Opera, and the other methods are rather tedious. The thing I will say about RN is that it does clip from Opera, not always reliably I agree. I feel that UR is still better than MyInfo, even if MyInfo has improved (and it does have its note pane for clips from other applications).

Where is the Notes pane for other applications in MyInfo?    :tellme:   I can't find it and I have really, really looked for it!

I rarely use Opera and haven't tried clipping from it, so I can't comment on that.

I'm still not sure what I will do about whole page webclips. RN works okay for when I am casually browsing using Opera - but so does Evernote - and for highly targetted browsing I could easily enough use FF or ie and then use UR. Evernote looks increasingly ubiquitous; lots of ways of putting stuff in, such as the little click.to app. For clips from webpages, there are lots of ways of doing it and I'm likely to just use a program I already use. Haven't really decided about CintaNotes or whether I will use a clipboard manager (ClipMate, Ditto, CH+S etc) more systematically for longer term, info storing clips.

I agree wrt Evernote. I just use it casually and then I start reading about more and more positive changes they make. It is still the only one that makes your data easily and quickly available on just about every other platform. I have tried the free (or trial?) version of CintaNotes and it is looking nice, but I don’t see it replacing anything I have at this time.

Thanks!

Jim

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Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #899 on: December 29, 2012, 01:25 PM »
Just a quick note to say that I'm very happy with Scrivener as a notetaker.
In linux :)