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General brainstorming for Note-taking software
arasu:
Hi,
I just came across this and would like to add some comments. I use ndxCards regularly now and own a few other note taking programs as well. I have settled on ndxCards ( I do use OneNote when I want to keep my scribbles as scribbles ) for the most part & would like to share why I settled on it.
Note taking programs should not constrain a person while taking notes as to how they organize the note - when I take a note, I want to do just that. I may want to tag that note with some keywords - but then again, I may not know how to tag it at that time & will come back to it later. Most tree-based programs fail in this regard - while I can 'park' the note in some general category, somehow, the note does not seem to stand alone as it should. After all, I used to note cards & post-its in the paper medium & not note-books with subject tabs that forced you to flip to the right page before I can take the note.
Often I want to know where my note came from - I want to be able to jot down the magazine or book which was the source of my thought/note & perhaps go to it later, or even give the reference to someone. I like the Source card in ndxCards, though I don't need all the reference citation formats that the software offers.
Not all of my notes stand-alone, nor do they fit in only one category. So I want it to be part of a structure as well. ndxCards allows me to use both the keyword system and the tree-structure system. I have several outlines which are just tree-structures for my notes. As you said in the previous post, the tree structure offers benefits of seeing a visual collection of a set of notes.
I take notes because I want to use it later. I like that fact that I can just drag drop notes from ndxCards into my Visio diagram, or create a quick PowerPoint presentation directly from my outline. Even with my OneNote, I am left with copy/pasting from various part of my 'notebook'.
None of this is to try and change your review - just thought I would share my view of 'note-taking' programs.
urlwolf:
Personally, it would be very nice if a notetaking application included a powerful outliner instead of the rtf ordered list options that are normally offered (bullet list, numbered list). A popular outliner in the past was ECCO's feature. NDX cards also has a nice outliner. However, for the most part, it is not the definitive feature of a notetaking application, but more of a nice luxury to have.
-superboyac (December 11, 2006, 04:56 PM)
--- End quote ---
OneNote does that! Bestest outliner ever (it does not only the typical vertical outliner, but horizontal as well. The witdth of the text box eseasily changeable, and you can start writing anywhere on the screen. It can be reduced to a tiny window, and still be useful (good for notes).
urlwolf:
Just wanted to drop a note on connectedText, a personal wiki system.
http://www.connectedtext.com/
The nice advantage over other notetakers and wiki systems is that it lets you see a graphical view of your notes (how they connect to each other) in some kind of concept map.
If you don't like to write wiki syntax, this is not for you.
Version 2.0.0.8. It contains some new features like:
Clipboard catcher: create automatically new topics as you copy text to Windows clipboard;
Support for Flash animations;
Support for AVI and MPEG movies;
Improved HTML paste. Convert HTML tags to ConnectedText marks. Automatically capture images from Internet.
Improved handling of files;
Consult the Change Log for complete information. Thanks for reporting and helping us track down bugs.
superboyac:
arasu, good post! I think I understand better what ndxcards is all about, and it's very cool indeed. I'll give a summary here for others, and you can correct me if I don't get it right:
In ndxcards, the notes are input in on a completely independant basis. That is, they don't go into a tree or any kind of structure at all. Just like real post-its, each one is separate from the other. Then, if you want, you can assign keywords and categories to the notes which can help for organizing later, but you don't have to. If you do want to make a tree or some heirarchy or outline later, you can start doing it, and just take the notes that are available and organize them in a way to make an outline or whatever. You can have as many different outlines as you want. Similar to how Surfulater can have a couple of different ways to look at the same set of notes, but ndxcards is much more flexible. Basically, you dump all your notes without much thought into the program, and if you want to add some structure to it later, you can do that.
I wish I could play around with it a little more, but my trial expired. I really wish these companies would donate me licenses for their notetakers like a few here have, because comparing all of these notetakers is a long process. Every few months, I need to go back and explore a few features here and there.
arasu:
Yes - you have it essentially right. ndxCards uses Subject and keywords to tag a note. It assigns a default subject if you don't give one, but you do not have to tag it with keywords. In fact, I review my notes once a week - I have a 'filter' that finds notes in the last week without keywords & then I tag them, expand my abbreviations taken in a hurry etc. I also like the filter concept - it is a window into your shoe box of all the note cards & you can create and save these filters to select only the notes you want later.
By the way, you can write to them and ask to extend the trial period - I had to do that & they did that without questions. I don't know about donating licenses, but it probably does not hurt to ask.
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