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In search of an alternative to InfoSelect ...
barney:
OK, I've had it :mad:. I've been using InfoSelect (IS) since before it was a Windows app. Don't recall the name of the DOS TSR then, though. Anyway, InfoSelect has been a primary application in my life since its inception. Until now.
The latest version, 10.x.x, totally broke almost every usage I had for IS. Formerly, there was search capability on colored text - that's gone. Formerly there was limited capability to copy both text and image(s) from another document - HTML, PDF, you name it - but that's gone ... hindered might be more accurate, since I've seen it drop from roughly 30%-40% to less than 1%, significantly less. The devs added that damned ribbon and totally destroyed a reasonably comfortable menu system, which was very customizable. Currently there is a menu bar which, supposedly can be customized. So I spent half-an-hour customizing it when I first started using IS v10. Next time I started IS, all customizations were gone. Gave it another shot, and another thirty (30) minutes, with the same result.
I just upgraded to a new build - 70 - and lost my last month's work in the process. When I attempted to recover from internal backups, nothing was there :mad:. So, what had been reliable in the past was, along with other things, rendered unusable. There's more, but I'd be incited to extreme profanity should I continue in this vein.
What I'd absolutely love to find is something that has the following capabilities:
* allow drag and drop from almost any other application
* record the URL of the drag and drop origin if a URL, or the title bar if a non-Web application
* record the date (and time?) of any drag and drop operation
* include images along with text in any drag and drop operation
* allow creation of individual notes interactively
* allow - but not require - a tree/outline structure (in order to pre-classify note or drag and drop entities)There's more, of course, but that would be a good start. I'm not quite willing to trade my immortal soul - if I still have one ;) - but such a software would indeed be so dear to me that I might amortize it :-\.
I've been trying WikeNotes - found it here a while back - and it does a lot of what I'd like, but still has quite a way to go, as far as automation is concerned. It holds much promise, and I suspect it'll be a primary candidate, young as it is, for my future workload. However, it's difficult to believe there's not a reasonably mature program already in existence.
IS is touted as being a personal information manager (PIM) and it is, but that is not my primary usage for it. I've used its email capabilities in the past, off and on, but that's not a significant need. Same thing with the calendar and reminder capabilities. I just want record keeping adequate to my needs/purposes. Some of those purposes are keeping code modules, some are aggregating data for reporting - and citing - purposes, some are for brainstorming/idea/concept purposes (much akin to a mind map, albeit non-graphical). There's also a daily journal I keep - a significant chunk of which was lost, btw - that could be kept elsewhere, but the convenience of having all this in one repository is to some degree beyond measure.
Sascha:
I have been using UltraRecall for about two years. It is highliy configurable and meets all your demands. I got a nice discount on the Pro-Version when it was dealed on BitsDuJour.
IainB:
@barney: You have my sympathies. I have been following the latest developments of IS. I have stayed at IS version 8 (IS8) as I cannot see that anything terribly useful is going on with the newest version (v10). The gathering of user requirements seems to have been a fiasco.
But as to your data loss, well, shame on you for not:
(a) having proper backup in place.
(b) not testing that the backup worked (could be recovered).
(c) keeping v10 away from your current data and backup, before you had tested it out.
You never know, v10 might have been just fine!
I intend trying v10 out at some stage, but it will only be able to access a copy of my live data.
I have come to the point where I think UltraRecallPro would probably be the way to migrate, having looked at the alternatives listed below, but I have not yet found anything to exactly/easily replace IS8:
* Chandler - waste of time.
* Compendium
* InfoQube - very good
* MaplePro
* Noah - hmm.
* Omea
* OneNote - I am using this.
* orGenta
* RagTimeSolo
* TaskCoach
* TiddlyDu
* TiddlyWiki
* TimeTo
* ToDo + planning
* TotalText
* UltraRecallPro - looks like this is the best migration path; can apparently import IS database files too
* Wild-in-a-jar
* Wiki-PIMs
* Winguide
* WireNote
* Zoot - pretty nifty, but has a steep learning curve.
David1904:
Tornado Notes - and it was great.
Somewhere around ver 5 or 6 I lost half my data when transferring to a new machine - and because it was a "no longer supported version" I gave up on the program.
Then EverNote looked like the way to go - until it disappeared into the cloud along with the readable ink feature - Grrr
Now I'm trying to learn my way around InfoQube
barney:
But as to your data loss, well, shame on you for not:
(a) having proper backup in place.
(b) not testing that the backup worked (could be recovered).
(c) keeping v10 away from your current data and backup, before you had tested it out.
-IainB (June 01, 2011, 05:49 AM)
--- End quote ---
Unwarranted assumption(s) on your part :D:
* (a) backup was in place - in fact it worked too well :(
* (b) see (a)
* (c) at some point, ya hafta commit.
Problem with my backup- solution - which had served well up to now - was that it worked too well - too quickly? - when disaster struck. I'd upgraded, on the advice of one of the IS crew, to a new build because of some recurring problem. However, the upgrade failed to run the first couple of times - and, in hind-sight, truncated one or more of the existing data files >:(, not something that was evident at the time. That's why I say the backup plan worked too well :o. And, since my major backup(s) be on a first of the month schedule, I ended up losing the last month's work. So there was a functional - and tested! - backup plan in place and in operation. Hindsight indicates there might be a better way to set the workflow, but then, hindsight has a way of doing that :P.
Tornado Notes - and it was great.
-David1904 (June 01, 2011, 05:49 AM)
--- End quote ---
That was it! One (1) of the four (4) or five (5) progs that were absolute necessities back then.
Yeah, I was using Evernote alongside IS, as some of its functionality augmented what I was doing in IS. However, I'm averse to cloud-based data stores for daily usages - too many times I might need the data and not be connected at that moment. And there are other times, fer instance on dial-up, when cloud access is simply unacceptable in terms of speed. And until there is some equivalent, cloud-data-wise, to SQL's commit/rollback routines in general usage, I am averse to most cloud-based solutions.
Remember playing with InfoQube a while back ... methinks a revisit is in order.
Remember seeing reference to UltraRecallPro ... don't think I've ever run across it, though.
I've tried several of the Wiki solutions: with the exception of WikeNotes, they've been inadequate.
Never could quite wrap my head around Zoot.
Never though of TaskCoach in that light, although I use it for general task/project scheduling.
Ah, well ... seems as though there's now something to fill the odd spare moment that occurs now and again :P.
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