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RightNote PRO 50% off
tranglos:
But, it occurs to me to ask: do you have a well-defined idea of what your ideal would look like, if it isn't RightNote? -rjbull (February 20, 2012, 03:22 PM)
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I wish I had an answer to that! It's something you could write a book on (and collectively, we have probably done that twice over on DC!), but I'd rather just have the right idea and implement it in Delphi :-)
I don't have a good answer to your question, but I have a few loose thoughts. One panel, not two (or three). OK, you'll always want something on the side, such as a place to store attachments, but make it optional. Having only one panel simplifies so many things in the UI! As soon as you have two panels, you must decide what the TAB key does: does it navigate panels, or does it insert a tab? So you've just discovered an unsolvable problem (at least until keyboards get a proper, dedicated navigation key like I postulated some time ago). And there's plenty more where that came from.
Next, when I wrote KeyNote, my emphasis was clearly on the content of notes. The tree was just there to help organize them. The tree was great for so many things, but it too has limitations - like one item can have only one parent. And while you can overcome that, especially with a database-backed design, it'll always be with you, while a flat, tagged list makes that problem go away just like that.
Further, I've noticed that the tree is becoming more important to me than the notes. I want to do more with the tree - keep more data there, edit it more fluently. I'm influenced by Workflowy here, although in the end I'm not using it any more, because the in-browser UI is taking its toll. It's good for typing, but when I later needed to edit, heavily rearrange the tree, export and print, I was fighting it every step of the way. But a Workflowy clone on the desktop could do wonders for me. (Another good example of a more powerful tree is MLO, but I want multi-line items and at least basic in-text formatting.)
I remember when I first saw Evernote I thought it was very innovative, a new way of organizing loose notes. I am sure it's not the end of the road, and someone will come up with an even more ingenious design - but I worry it will be on the web, where all the ingenuity is gagged and hampered by all the inconveniences and all the dangers of living inside a browser and in the cloud.
As for the good old tree, I want it infinitely malleable. The manually imposed hierarchy is fine, but also let me be free from that. Let me show the tree as a filtered flat list. Or let the tree arrange itself automatically according to rules, e.g. group items by date (years at the top level, then months, then maybe days, whatever). Group by tags, by content, by all kinds of properties and metadata.
And little things. I have KeyNote, Evernote, a few others along the way, and I did register Right Note Pro today after all, because I like it more and more. but when I need to jot down just a phone number of just a URL, where do I put it? It's too small to deserve a branch of its own in KeyNote, but if I put it in a note together with other stuff it gets lost in there, and pretty soon I have a single note with years' worth of tiny little bits like that. Soon I have no idea what that URL was for.
I have a big catch-all note like that in KeyNote. Not just numbers and URLs, but some useful command-line switches for TotalCommander, the serial number of my WD drive in case I need it replaced, symbol of the battery model I need for my video camera, an address for a local animal shelter, someone's birthday... and wait, wasn't I suppose to organize stuff?
I don't know what to do with bits like that. Evernote, maybe, but a subscription is not for me, and somehow I just can't make that jump. I like what OneNote does, where you can start typing anywhere and your little note gets its own colored frame. It looks great and makes a great impression, but these little frames will get messy too after a while. Oh, and often I want to know exactly when I added a little scrap like that. Is this the serial number for my new drive or the old one? I could tell if I knew when I entered it. (Yep, Evernote would know.)
I guess it all boils down to how hard it is to organize dis-organized stuff, and we accumulate so much of it it's not even funny! I always know very quickly what annoys me in a piece of software, but in this case I have to leave the solution to someone else. My ideas there extended as far as KeyNote 2.0, now fully realized and much expanded upon in RightNote - but I my imagination can't see any further, I'm afraid.
daddydave:
BitsDuJour offer extended for another day.
johnk:
I have a big catch-all note like that in KeyNote. Not just numbers and URLs, but some useful command-line switches for TotalCommander, the serial number of my WD drive in case I need it replaced, symbol of the battery model I need for my video camera, an address for a local animal shelter, someone's birthday... and wait, wasn't I suppose to organize stuff?
I don't know what to do with bits like that.
-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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Many of us have battled, and lost, to find a single piece of software to manage our information. I gave up some time ago.
I too like RightNote, and plan to use it from now on as my main program for "organised" information.
But the other stuff? Here's what I do. I use not one but two clipboard capture programs.
One of them, your excellent Ethervane Echo, Tranglos, runs permanently in the background, in "inmemorydatabase mode", i.e. it will clean the database very time I reboot. Just recording information I might need for that session only.
The second program is Clipcache Pro. The auto capture is switched off most of the time. Then when I come across a snippet I know I might want sometime (e.g. a phone number), I switch on Clipcache's capture mode with a keyboard shortcut, then capture the number, and then immediately toggle Clipcache's capture mode.
Why go to this trouble? Because Clipcache is for information that I know I won't organise or manage. It's one big database of useful snippets. The important thing is to give the snippet a good title. So if the phone number is for the South-Eastern Electricity Company, the title should be 'South-Eastern Electricity Company phone number'.
I also use Clipcache for things like software registration numbers, recipes, software reviews, useful technical how-tos, film reviews, information on various hobbies...
I've been using Clipcache for several years now. Goodness knows how many snippets are in there. The database (SQLite) is about 50MB. I can find anything in seconds using search. It's one of the first programs I install on any machine. Invaluable.
And it means the serious information management programs are kept just for data that really needs organising.
rjbull:
AllMyNotes looks like it has a lot of potential, but I was looking for something that might become mature BEFORE my lifespan is over.-J-Mac (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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;D J-Mac, you said it! It's not just AllMyNotes (I have and like AMN but want more features), but several other programs all at once! :-[
the brakes in the software-purchasing module of my brain get slammed on. Gotta figure out what nerve-ending is doing that!-J-Mac (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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When you find out, patent a way of switching them on, and sell the product on DC. Some of us surely NEED 'em :(
rjbull:
I don't have a good answer to your question, but I have a few loose thoughts. One panel, not two (or three). OK, you'll always want something on the side, such as a place to store attachments, but make it optional.-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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That sounds a bit like EverNote, where you can make the timeline and tags panels fly out with a hotkey. But I suspect you mean something more fundamental than that.
As soon as you have two panels, you must decide what the TAB key does: does it navigate panels, or does it insert a tab?-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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Unless maybe you choose that default note status is Locked, and have to press an extra key to Unlock it for editing?
while a flat, tagged list makes that problem go away just like that. -tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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Which NoteFrog has. I was rather surprised to see a "one dimensional" notekeeper appear, after years of two-pane dominance.
Evernote [...] I am sure it's not the end of the road, and someone will come up with an even more ingenious design - but I worry it will be on the web, where all the ingenuity is gagged and hampered by all the inconveniences and all the dangers of living inside a browser and in the cloud.-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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I bought Evernote with my own money, though I used it mainly at work (at the time). Whether it had been my money or the company's, I would not have accepted a cloud application. I would feel that data I had laboriously accumulated was being held hostage to my or the company's continued subscription fees. That seems an absurdly bad business decision.
As for the good old tree, I want it infinitely malleable. The manually imposed hierarchy is fine, but also let me be free from that. Let me show the tree as a filtered flat list. Or let the tree arrange itself automatically according to rules, e.g. group items by date (years at the top level, then months, then maybe days, whatever). Group by tags, by content, by all kinds of properties and metadata.-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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And that sounds a little like the filtering and virtual folders of The Bat!, or the rather similar ideas IainB has been wanting mouser to add to CHS.
I did register Right Note Pro today after all, because I like it more and more.-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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It must be good :)
but when I need to jot down just a phone number of just a URL, where do I put it? It's too small to deserve a branch of its own in KeyNote, but if I put it in a note together with other stuff it gets lost in there, and pretty soon I have a single note with years' worth of tiny little bits like that. Soon I have no idea what that URL was for.
I have a big catch-all note like that in KeyNote. [...] wait, wasn't I suppose to organize stuff?-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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Part of the problem is the discipline needed to add meaningful details, but discipline isn't the whole story. If you're really busy, you don't always have time.
For things like your examples, when I was dabbling with Black Hole Organizer, I mostly put them in their own notes, but made the first note in the list a catch-all that had internal hyperlinks to the individual ones. That worked reasonably well for a small number of things I frequently needed rapid access to, but could scarcely be described as "organised."
I guess it all boils down to how hard it is to organize dis-organized stuff, and we accumulate so much of it it's not even funny!-tranglos (February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM)
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I keep remembering what I think was zridling's motivation for moving to Linux; an unwillingness to commit more and more information to proprietary formats, and an intent to keep it in plain text files. For me, a Windows-based alternative might be everything in plain text files, and running Archivarius more often. I just want to save and retrieve information. I don't need to impose structure on it, at least, not in the sense of making an printer-ready report. It then depends on what you find the easiest way to search, and you have this tension between live search maybe with tags, versus tree organisation. That's full circle; no clear resolution of this issue yet...
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