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kfitting:
i do intend for this tool to be a complete hierarchical note taking + clipboard tool, able to compete with the best of them.
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So this won't be a "clipboard extended" with a more advanced clip management system?  This will be a notes manager with a more enhanced clipboard integration?  If so, I think the interface should reflect that.  Right now, it still seems to be more for managing little chunks of data.  One discussion over on the Keynote forum is from writers who want advanced text-editing qualities in a tree structured note manager.  I'm NOT saying you have to incorporate these features, but if you release this as a hierarchical notes program, manual text entry/editing will have to become a bigger piece of the puzzle. 

In other words, it seems the goal has changed, but only some of the features have changed to support this goal.   Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldnt create a notes program, or anything of the sort.  Just pointing out that if you are trying to "compete" (said loosely here!)  with the other note programs other features will be requested (creating/importing tables, picture support, picture in text support, printing, paragraph/font styles, etc).

Overall, keep up the good work!

Kevin

mouser:
i think you are really right about making sure interface and features suit the task..

perhaps i was too quick to talk about it being primarily a note taking tool..

i'm still open to discussing how much it should focus on clipboard stuff vs. note stuff...

it started as a clipboard tool and i wouldnt like to make too many concessions that make it less useful for that task..
and you're comment about supporting advanced text-editing is a good point.

i'll give you my biases up front:
i use both clipboard tool and hierarchical notes tool, separate programs.
i ONLY ever store pure plain text, no images, no sounds, no rich text.
in fact i get annoyed when i copy text from web page and it gets pasted as rich text with colors and fonts and stuff.

so my personal bias would be to create a tool designed mainly for quick and easy plaintext clips and entries, which had a real focus on making it really easy and fast to add notes, rearrange notes, and search for notes.  with a fairly uncluttered interface that makes these main tasks easy.

that's my personal bias.  now i'm open to adding other stuff that people want in their clipboard/note taking tools, but id prefer quick+easy notes+clips versus super powerful but messy interface.

kfitting:
Right, I dont think you're going in the wrong direction, I just think you're "advertising" got out of line with what you're making!  I personally think that a clipboard tool with the search/archive features you are including is a great idea.  Two ideas, probably been mentioned before, but that I think help bridge the gap between your concerns:

- The format conversion stuff (RTF,text, html blah blah) could be selectable.  IE, default to pasting in text.  Or default to RTF, or default to whatever the original format is.  This allows you to always have clips come out as text with the option of the others if something comes up.

- Bridging the gap between notes managers and the clipboard is often overlooked (in fact, until we started discussing this program I hadnt really thought about it much!).  Keynote 1.x has this in a very basic form, but I havent seen it too many places.  This is why I think you could realistically target CHS as a clipboard extender AND an in-between program: from clipboard to notes manager.  That's why I beat the "export to notes manager formats" idea to death (sorry!).  If a piece of text is just a clip, let CHS store it.  If it's a little bigger, but not that important, let CHS store it.  If it fits in with something you have in another one of your other notes programs, copy it and format it in CHS, then transfer it to your "official" notes manager.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter.  I think your interface is good (maybe a tad busy, though I dont see how you will get away from that entirely!!) and your intentions are fine.  Just gotta figure out this in-between stuff!  (and please everyone, of course ;) Yeah, right.........)

Kevin

mouser:
it's a little busy for my tastes as well.. i'm thinking i might try to offer like a couple easy-to-switch-between modes that would show progressivly less information.

we are on the same page about format conversion i think.  it will definitely be easy to tell the program you always want to work with plain text.  i would like to hear more about your idea wrt converting formats.  clipmate is probably the most powerful and flexible clipboard tool and its useful to look at how they do it.  i think basically clipmate by default captures all formats for a clip.  so a single clip might exist in several formats; you can access the format you want to at any given time.  so richtext is always available both as plaintext or richtext. etc.  maybe we can think of a nice way for dragging and dropping the format you want at any given time.

currently im working on group and clip management and moving stuff around between groups, etc.  it's a bit intricate because im using databases for the groups and clips.  the benefits are worth it though, in terms of scalability.

anyone have any use for a networked-synchronized version, so that multiple computers all share the same database?

kfitting:
I'll think about your GUI comment... but, concerning the format conversion.  What I've imagined (throwing reality to the wind, mind you!) is the ability to copy a clip from a plain text editor and paste it as rtf into word or keynote.  Or, the ability to copy something out of an internet browser with html formating and paste it into word in rtf format (I personally prefer rtf over plain text!).  But, that's the idea.  In my thinking, I imagined that you would have a button in the format window to convert between formats.

Two problems I see with my vision of format conversion:
1. When do you stop?  If you take this to the end, you'd essentially be writing a WYSIWYG program!  Perhaps restricting to just text, or doing something default-ish with pictures.  Converting text or tables could be native though.
2. What about programs that dont copy formats?  For example opera doesnt give the html formatting.  Could CHS apply html formatting to clips copied from opera?  How would CHS handle excel?  Word?  Random program no one knows about?

The idea with format conversion is to be able to copy as much or as little formatting as you wish, with the option to put it into the format that suits your purposes.  If I'm just archiving a random clip of data, I want plain text.  If I'm archiving a full article, I'd like to preserve formatting.

Those are my ideas.  I'm sure this could balloon into something unwieldy... like being able to choose exactly what things you want to stay formatted, etc.  But, I personally think that a general conversion button would be fine.  As far as keeping all different versions of a clip at all times... seems kind of wasteful to me.  Generate them as the user demands them.

Kevin

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