i'll admit i've not spent a lot of time with mybase, just a quick click through it, and i'm wondering does it allow editing of captured web content?
i thought the features in surfulater that allowed editing and amending extra notes to captured webpages was/is very handy.-nudone (February 22, 2006, 02:36 PM)
my my my, how did I not try this program before now?
1. is there a way to dock the search results window on the right like in Keynote? I found that to be much more useful. (a can't seem to move this winodw
2. also what about having tabs within each document file? is this available or planned?
3. what about import/export functions?
where is this yahoo group you spoke of superboyac?
The whole mind mapping/note taking started me thinking about what I really want out of this type of software.When I read this quoted text I immediately had to think about Google Mail! Anyone else?
I think I want topic association vs. categories. The difference is subtle.
To me categories are centered around database thinking and the need to make binary (true/false) relationships between an item and a category. While I understand this need, my brain tends to assocate items with a topic (category) on a graduated scale. I'm not sure how you develop an interface that let's you do that easily.-Rover (February 25, 2006, 12:45 PM)
By the way, this capability is at the heart of Evernote. What they call categories are actually tags. Any note can have multiple categories associated with it, and they can be manually or automatically assigned. This gives you incredible sorting and finding capabilities. much like google mail.The whole mind mapping/note taking started me thinking about what I really want out of this type of software.When I read this quoted text I immediately had to think about Google Mail! Anyone else?
I think I want topic association vs. categories. The difference is subtle.
To me categories are centered around database thinking and the need to make binary (true/false) relationships between an item and a category. While I understand this need, my brain tends to assocate items with a topic (category) on a graduated scale. I'm not sure how you develop an interface that let's you do that easily.-Rover (February 25, 2006, 12:45 PM)
Not sure if you are a user yet - they dropped the "put everything in its own folder" principle (that had been around for more than a decade) to come up with labels. You could just put several labels on an email, I like it a lot!-brotherS (February 25, 2006, 12:54 PM)
I wonder if it would be useful or even practical to combine the typical heirarchical system with the labeling system somehow? Or have both options available in the same program? Does anyone think that's even possible, without causing mass confusion, or a breakdown of the organizational system?Possible? I think so...-superboyac (February 25, 2006, 10:45 PM)
brotherS: so sorrry for the type-o. I enjoy your postings a lot. I would hate to think I havve offended you :)No harm done. ;D-Rover (February 26, 2006, 12:44 AM)
I wonder if it would be useful or even practical to combine the typical heirarchical system with the labeling system somehow? Or have both options available in the same program? Does anyone think that's even possible, without causing mass confusion, or a breakdown of the organizational system?-superboyac (February 25, 2006, 10:45 PM)
i was certainly impressed with surfulater but after some use i do miss features that i would have thought basic requirements.-nudone (February 22, 2006, 01:45 AM)
Hi nevf, I hope I didn't offend you with any of my comments...
Let me ask a couple of questions:
1) Could you provide a more detailed description of what Surfulator is specifically designed for? It would help us sort out it's role among all these information collection programs.
...-superboyac (February 24, 2006, 10:43 AM)
Let's assume Surfulater is the best way to capture information from the web. Unless Surfulater is ALSO not one of the best notetaking programs, then where are we going to store and organize the information? Are we going to use Surfulater to capture the information, but then port it somehow to another program that is a more powerful notetaking application or organizer? I don't think so, that would be very frustrating. Anyway, I'll have more thoughts on this later.-superboyac (February 27, 2006, 11:03 AM)
I like where this discussion is going... because I too am in favor of the note-side of things! Real quick note: Keynote did have capturing capability. It was a fledgling start but compared to many other apps of it's time it was special.
But, I have to jump back on my soapbox, sorry! Note programs need to be able to store and relate information... this ought to be the primary function. I should be able to build very rigid structures (a la Keynote) but I should also be able to build weak relationships and strengthen them over time. And now, before I go off on a wild-eyed tangential dream (and repeat myself!)... I go.
Kevin
Here's what I propose: the categories or labels can be structured in the tree/heirarchy format, but the individual notes can be placed in multiple branches of that tree. Maybe Gmail can do this also...confirmation BrotherS?Google Mail does show the labels in a alphabetical order, and you can label every email with as many labels as you like - I don't label some at all, many get one label, and then some get two or three labels.-superboyac (February 27, 2006, 11:05 PM)
... It would be extremely powerful to be able to build relationships instead of just a simple heirarchy. I think the fundamental difference here is that a note won't be restricted to one location, but can be shared between several categories. Like a note about Screenshot Captor can be under the categories of "Windows Utilities" and "Graphics Utilities", but the note itself is a single note, not copied in two places. That is powerful indeed.-superboyac (February 27, 2006, 11:05 PM)
So I guess we want our cake and eat it, too! We want to be able to have the traditional heirarchy, but we also want the notes to be governed by relationships. Here's what I propose: the categories or labels can be structured in the tree/heirarchy format, but the individual notes can be placed in multiple branches of that tree. Again, I think Evernote is a living example of this right now, if you want to try it out.
"PS I wasn't aware of Keynote's capturing abilities!"
Sorry if I misunderstand your sentence here, but I'm interpreting it as you want to know more. (?) If you already know or have since found out, please disregard this post!
If you go into the Keynote options, there is a whole panel for clipboard capture. Basically Keynote watches the clipboard and captures the clip as it comes in. There are some format modifying that can be done, and then the clip is sent straight to the active Tab in a new note. My main problem is that the new node cannot be named on the fly. Even if a dialog box popped up that you could type the name in would make it more useful in my opinion.
Kevin
Surfulater works this way. There is only ever one physical instance of a 'note', but it can be in as many tree folders as you want.
Surfulater also lets you link related 'notes' together so you build a web of related information. This is very useful.
I don't see a tight connection between the hierarchical tree and tags (labels, keywords whatever).
Tags are separate organizational method which can be used in a variety of ways. For example you get a list of all tags and selecting one shows all notes which include that tag. Tags could also be used in conjunction with filtered tree views. In this mode the tree would only include notes that included a certain tag or tags. With a good implementation of tags some folks might not even use the tree.
Time to go get some sleep.
I mostly agree with you... except I think that trees should still be an option. If you're trying to write a book or write an outline you want only certain nodes in a certain order. The final implentation should allow both. You should be able to throw things in, but then "hard assign" them as needed (they would still be in the database pool for other groupings, but that one group would always contain it).
Kevin
A quick comment: you and I are on similar pages superboyac. I agree with your primary needs and also your admitting that there are other needs out there. Have you looked at NeoMem (http://www.neomem.org)? I dont use it because it is deficient in some areas but it is an interesting example of an information manager. Like you said before (I think it was you), we want our cake and eat it too. This genre could be so powerful... it's just so hard to fit everything in!
Kevin-kfitting (March 01, 2006, 05:57 AM)
nevf, I tried the patch, and it works! Yes, that is what I was talking about as far as a simple note article.
a related issue: http://www.opml.org/spec2
opml is an xml markup standard for exchanging "outliner" (hierarchical notes) data.-mouser (March 02, 2006, 01:34 AM)
a related issue: http://www.opml.org/spec2
opml is an xml markup standard for exchanging "outliner" (hierarchical notes) data.-mouser (March 02, 2006, 01:34 AM)
...
Here's my suggestion: for captured material like html pages, it's good to have an editing mode and a viewing mode like there is now. However, for just plain notes, I'd prefer the editor to just always be in editing mode. As in, you don't have to click in and out whether it's the pencil or double-click or single-click or whatever. For just plain notes, you want to be able to go in and start typing, I don't think you want the user to feel any interruption. Just like this forum's quick reply box--I know if I click inside it, I can just start typing away. That's what I'm talking about.-superboyac (March 01, 2006, 01:46 PM)
...
If you really think my suggestions are useful, I'll keep them coming, especially if you think they apply to the general userbase also, and not just myself.
On a completely different note, am I not capturing from the web correctly? I'm using Firefox, and when I highlight text and capture in Surfulater, it's fine. But when I capture pictures, there are a lot of those broken links (with the red "x"). What are the limits to capturing accurately from the source in the program? (I'd post a screenshot, but I've been having a hard time attaching files lately here).
And the final question I wanted to ask is how to make everything in the right content pane smaller? I like things much smaller, compact, minimal than most, and everything in Surfulater on that right side is just too big for me.
In my view (perhaps different from yours because I am an architect/law student). I want a nice UI and easy access to my information. The information is what it is all about. As far as a text only programs there should be not discussion. There are a ton of text editors that all do the same thing. What is important is a tool that will allow you to gather information from everywhere (the web included) organize it (usually trees) and link it. Obviously the ability to grab information from the internet is important (because there is so much information out there) but you need to also be able to use simple text or import from other sources, docs, pdfs, etc.
....
With this said, I am placing my bet on Surfulater. I down loaded this program with about 20 others and it is still installed. My process for evaluating is as follows:
1. Go to download.com and do a general search so you get as many results as possible (then do it again so you do miss it)
2. Go through the hundreds of results, read the descriptions, look at screenshots, visit homepages, and finally download promising programs.
3. Install all the promising programs (I do it while I am searching)
4. Gather all the new shortcuts on the desktop, and open each of the programs
5. If the UI sucks - uninstall the program
6. Take a closer feature look at each of the remaining programs. Can you import the information you want? Does it work well with other programs? Can you input data easily (i.e. is the structure of the program not so restrictive that it takes to long to input simple date), etc, etc,....-jgiebeler (February 28, 2006, 02:34 PM)
...
I use a similar, subjective approach - but that's what it's all about, surely? Everyone has different needs and preferences and no one piece of software will please everyone!-lifeonmars (March 04, 2006, 11:01 AM)
I was a little disappointed to find that both Surfulator and Mybase are not freeware! Surfulator sounds great. Oh, well.
I was a little disappointed to find that both Surfulator and Mybase are not freeware! Surfulator sounds great. Oh, well.-lifeonmars (March 04, 2006, 11:01 AM)
Do you work for free? If so I'd be interested to know how you provide food for you and your family, put a roof over your head, buy petrol for your car, electricity, water, clothes etc. Maybe you are independently wealthy. How about coming to work for free for me, I'm sure I could find something for you to do.-nevf (March 04, 2006, 01:33 PM)
Surfulater works this way. There is only ever one physical instance of a 'note', but it can be in as many tree folders as you want.
Surfulater also lets you link related 'notes' together so you build a web of related information. This is very useful.-nevf (February 28, 2006, 05:30 AM)
I don't see a tight connection between the hierarchical tree and tags (labels, keywords whatever).
Tags are separate organizational method which can be used in a variety of ways. For example you get a list of all tags and selecting one shows all notes which include that tag. Tags could also be used in conjunction with filtered tree views. In this mode the tree would only include notes that included a certain tag or tags. With a good implementation of tags some folks might not even use the tree.
Hey pmowbray... are you the same pmowbray from the Tranglos (Keynote) forums?-kfitting (March 06, 2006, 08:01 AM)
If so, welcome aboard-kfitting (March 06, 2006, 08:01 AM)
I'm kf2 from over there... just remembered the name from the thread about KN2 "database-type" development.-kfitting (March 06, 2006, 08:01 AM)
Surfulater works this way. There is only ever one physical instance of a 'note', but it can be in as many tree folders as you want.
Surfulater also lets you link related 'notes' together so you build a web of related information. This is very useful.-nevf (February 28, 2006, 05:30 AM)
It's pretty good: Though I'd like drag&drop enabled on this so that you could simply drag one article on top of another and it would be added to the "See Also" section. That would make it very fast to link your articles together.-pmowbray (March 06, 2006, 06:36 AM)
I don't see a tight connection between the hierarchical tree and tags (labels, keywords whatever).
Tags are separate organizational method which can be used in a variety of ways. For example you get a list of all tags and selecting one shows all notes which include that tag. Tags could also be used in conjunction with filtered tree views. In this mode the tree would only include notes that included a certain tag or tags. With a good implementation of tags some folks might not even use the tree.
In my mind the most flexible method of implementing this would be a FolderType of TagFilter where you could add your tags and/or !tags to the folder query definition and the articles would sort themselves as required.
Then you could have any number of TagFilter folders that would sort your information for you!
Now to add automatic tagging based on content and the display of your information gets very dynamic. Although I'd always want to be able to turn on my Tree View if I wanted ;)...
Regs,
Perry
it automatically looks for relationships between notes based on keywords and content-tonyp (March 07, 2006, 09:59 AM)
Another product in this category is AskSam (http://www.asksam.com/).-dajo (March 08, 2006, 09:33 AM)
And, rjbull, as far as fully indexed searching, well...YES! Why? Because fully indexed searching will allow the program to have the search-as-you-type filter-superboyac (March 08, 2006, 09:47 AM)
I don't understand what Dialog does...I'm on their page right now.-superboyac (March 08, 2006, 09:58 AM)
--In the tree on the left where the categories are, I'd like to be able to show some kind of title text for each note so I can see which notes are included in that category. Right now, notes have no titles, it's just the content of the note. Sometimes, when there are a lot of notes in the category, you're not sure where exactly that note is, or even if it's in that category, and if the notes themselves are large notes, you have to scroll around forever to find it. (I know the search can quickly filter the notes down, but sometimes you're not even sure what to search for!)Superboyac,
--There's something weird about attaching pictures to the notes and trying to resize them. Usually they are too big, and resizing them was really difficult. It should be a matter os simply grabbing a corner of the picture and dragging. Now, you have to go into fullscreen mode, and do some fairly non-intuitive dragging around the border or something.
whether or not a note contains specific keywords.-EverMike (March 11, 2006, 05:17 PM)
EverMike,
Do you really mean "keywords," i.e. specially assigned words, or do you mean searching full text for particular words?
if that keyword is anywhere in the note, that note will automatically be placed in that category.-superboyac (March 13, 2006, 10:54 AM)
OK, thanks; I think I see and that could be quite useful. But, do you have to know in advance what your keywords are going to be? Or can you decide at some later date that you need new/different ones and have EverNote build new categories?
OK, thanks; I think I see and that could be quite useful. But, do you have to know in advance what your keywords are going to be? Or can you decide at some later date that you need new/different ones and have EverNote build new categories?
No, you don't have to know in advance. You can do it whenever. Once the category is created, all the notes will be automatically placed there. I think that is the benefit of fully indexed searching (I may not know what I'm talking about here!).
zoot looks quite nice. (http://www.zootsoftware.com/)-mouser (March 13, 2006, 09:51 PM)
EverNote not only tags all past notes you ever created with that keyword; it also tags any future notes with that keyword you might create.-EverMike (March 14, 2006, 01:03 PM)
PS (what's with the 16-bit look? and that price tag? eesh!)-superboyac (March 14, 2006, 05:01 PM)
By the way, can someone please explain what the big deal about Ecco Pro is? I understand that it was an awesome program back in the day, but is it still all that awesome even with our modern expectations?Here lies one of the big problems in UI programming. Ecco Pro is an example of Functionality over Form. The foks who still use and swear by Ecco don't want or need eye candy; they want to get a job done. More than that, Ecco works in a way that they relate to very well. It makes sense to them. (You can substitue any old Loved app here. Word Perfect is a good example).
I've tried it many times, and I'm always left wondering what's so great about it. Yeah, it's outlining is nice, but the whole thing is so old fashioned, I can't get over it.-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:40 AM)
By the way, can someone please explain what the big deal about Ecco Pro is? I understand that it was an awesome program back in the day, but is it still all that awesome even with our modern expectations?Here lies one of the big problems in UI programming. Ecco Pro is an example of Functionality over Form. The foks who still use and swear by Ecco don't want or need eye candy; they want to get a job done. More than that, Ecco works in a way that they relate to very well. It makes sense to them. (You can substitue any old Loved app here. Word Perfect is a good example).
I've tried it many times, and I'm always left wondering what's so great about it. Yeah, it's outlining is nice, but the whole thing is so old fashioned, I can't get over it.-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:40 AM)
A lot of bad software starts with the phrase, "Wouldn't it be cool if..."
A lot of really great software starts the same way. The tricky bit is that the great software also has a good answer to "Why would that be cool?"
So, what are your "modern expectations?" That it do something really well and solve your problem or that it look like puffed candy and have more features than you'll ever use? Or something in between? :D-Rover (March 15, 2006, 10:56 AM)
By the way, can someone please explain what the big deal about Ecco Pro is? I understand that it was an awesome program back in the day, but is it still all that awesome even with our modern expectations?
I've tried it many times, and I'm always left wondering what's so great about it. Yeah, it's outlining is nice, but the whole thing is so old fashioned, I can't get over it.-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:40 AM)
I was really surprised at mouser's comment on Zoot!you mean when i said it looked nice?
And why aren't I getting e-mail notifications about these posts?maybe when we upgraded the forum the notifications got reset?
I'd like to ask the exact same question, but replace Ecco Pro with Zoot or Keynote first. I was really surprised at mouser's comment on Zoot!
I really feel we gotta get out of the whole tree-heirarchy thing.-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:36 AM)
- You know what you want but not where to find it (search)-kfitting (March 16, 2006, 08:48 AM)
Right, but dont forget outlines! I did my college papers in Keynote...-kfitting (March 16, 2006, 10:57 AM)
I've toyed with the idea of getting InfoSelect over the years, but I can never quite get past how breathtakingly expensive it is. However, it has a lot of features that I think are pretty useful and unique. Many of these are PIM features like ticklers and reminders, and so are probably not germaine to this discussion.-Jimdoria (March 16, 2006, 04:04 PM)
I'm coming in a bit late to this conversation, but I was surprised to see that with all the discussion of tools old and new there hasn't been more mention of InfoSelect. http://www.miclog.com (http://www.miclog.com). From what I recall this was the product that spawned the whole outliner/notes application genre. (Or at least the grandson of the product. Tornado Notes for DOS was arguably the first outliner/indexed organizer, and InfoSelect is the suped-up Windows version.)-Jimdoria (March 16, 2006, 04:04 PM)
Hi All,
There is one program which I have noticed has not been mentioned yet and that is Compendium. This was produced by the Open University here in the UK and it is very unusual but very good. I would highly recommend it. You can grab a copy here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/ and view their excellent video tutorials here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/training/videos/index.htm There are also version for Windows, Mac and Linux. The best thing is it is completely FREE!
Regards
Othalian-Othalian (March 17, 2006, 01:27 PM)
-be easy to get information into[evernote]
-be easy to locate information in and get information out of [evernote]
The items look like they're multiplying like rabbits Furthermore, the ability to assign more than 1 tag to an item is perhaps more convenient when you're tagging, but when it comes time to understand the landscape of your data in terms of all your tags, the ramplant multiplication of items showing up in multiple tags can make a mountain out of a mole hill of data.
once Zoot can use the typical rtf stuff (outlines, bullets, changing fonts, font sizes, colored text, etc)-superboyac (March 18, 2006, 03:07 AM)
We've been discussing these notetaking software for a while now, and this thread has become quite lengthy.
End of thread? Why? How could you summarize?-kfitting (March 20, 2006, 07:29 AM)
@rjbull: Keynote revolutionized the way I work and organize things. I totally understand that note-taking is slightly different from the writing end of things... but I dont think the two are mutally exclusive!-kfitting (March 17, 2006, 07:22 AM)
for the type of writing I do, Keynote 1.6.5 is fine. For notetaking, Keynote was fine, until I saw Opera's email approach.
@ thomthowolf.-be easy to get information into[evernote]
-be easy to locate information in and get information out of [evernote]
Could you elaborate on where you see Surfulater falls short here and what you'd like to see done to improve it.-nevf (March 18, 2006, 05:18 PM)
End of thread?!! Don't end this thread, I love this thread! :-* \
We've been discussing these notetaking software for a while now, and this thread has become quite lengthy.
Maybe it's time for an executive summary and <END OF THREAD> ??-superboyac (March 18, 2006, 03:07 AM)
Black Hole Organizer has had RTF for ages, and seems to have a good deal of "mind share." It looks more like a database for text scraps than an outliner.
I don't think this discussion can be complete without mentioning the venerable but incredibly expensive Info Select from Micro Logic (miclog.com), which I believe pioneered this category. IS began under DOS as Tornado Notes, and has evolved into a very useful but somewhat bloated program. I've stuck with it for two reasons: I have so much information stored in it (used it continously since ~1985), and some features are so intuitive (type N for new note, G for get, i.e., search).
This category is different from most in that switching among programs isn't just a matter of installing a new one; importing data usefully is often impossible.
Other programs to try include TreePad (various flavors including free) and GemX's TexNotes/TexNotes Pro and do-Organizer (full-fledged PIM with notes).
nevf, that article you posted last week has really got me thinking about what the solution to organizing notes really is. I thought tags and categories were the solution, but now I see that they each have distinct advantages and disadvantages. There must be a way that is the BEST solution, but what is it? And I think that the solution has to be more than just simply offering both options, that is, both tree heirarchies and tags. I'm thinking that there's some way to come up with a new system that is better than both of them. But I can't say what that is at this point.-superboyac (March 20, 2006, 03:26 PM)
that article you posted last week has really got me thinking about what the solution to organizing notes really is. I thought tags and categories were the solution, but now I see that they each have distinct advantages and disadvantages. There must be a way that is the BEST solution, but what is it? And I think that the solution has to be more than just simply offering both options, that is, both tree heirarchies and tags. I'm thinking that there's some way to come up with a new system that is better than both of them. But I can't say what that is at this point.Superboyac,
If that is all you want, you really need to try evernote.
I guess my point is that I really don't want to spend a lot of time maintaining a database or tree structure. Just let me find things the way they make sense, and let me assocate some general relationships quickly and easily. Is that too much to ask? :D-Rover (March 20, 2006, 09:02 PM)
Just installed Evernote. First impression... Eye candy, mouse centric. thumb down
I don't see where to change the basic color scheme quickly, I'll check the manual.
Shows promise... we'll see
I've been thinking about this topic since the thread was stared and I think I know what I want, I just don't know what it looks like... so here it goes in words.
...-Rover (March 20, 2006, 09:02 PM)
I've been thinking about this topic since the thread was stared and I think I know what I want, I just don't know what it looks like... so here it goes in words.-Rover (March 20, 2006, 09:02 PM)
for the forseeable future I will continue with Keynote.-kfitting (March 20, 2006, 09:05 AM)
(Cost does factor in... I cant afford to spend $100 on this!)
I'll have to figure out how to convert all my Keynote files over.
PS - regarding your comment about this thread: I kind of agree with you, sifting through this is going to be hard for a newcomer.
Looks like someone needs to develop better software for forums too!
Black Hole Organizer has had RTF for ages, and seems to have a good deal of "mind share." It looks more like a database for text scraps than an outliner.
I'd like to try this out, but they have no trial version. And to be honest, it doesn't look like it offers anything special. But that's an empty statement because you really have to just get your hands on these things to know for sure.-superboyac (March 20, 2006, 10:54 AM)
[...] I watched a guy who was in love with it show off a bit. He talked about finding a topic quickly pressed a couple of search keys and started typing his word. (He knew where the cursor would be and that he could type right away [...]Where did you watch me working with AutoHotkey?!? :o-Rover (March 17, 2006, 12:07 PM)
In the future you'll likely see automated article classification added, which should be interesting indeed.Sounds great! Based on keywords in the articles already saved that should be possible with a good hit ratio.-nevf (March 21, 2006, 01:52 AM)
Thank you for letting us know of this discussion. It is interested.
We currently do not have a login account with the donationcoder.com forum, but
we'll have a short note about mybase freeform database software.
Mybase 5 incorporated the 'label' system and the 'symbolic link' feature, which
might have been missed on the forum discussion. the 'label' system works as the
mentioned 'Tag' and 'keyword' system does, you can assign any info items with a
label name. the 'symbolic link' feature allows you to create 'virtual item'
linking to another item, so you can have one item appearing in any other items
without producing duplicates; To create a symbolic link, simply drag-drop an info
item with the 'Alt' key hold down;
Mybase is basically intended to be a powerful personal freeform database
software. A good information management software requires a stable, efficient,
flexible database engine, and then define specific applications on the basis of the
database. note-taking is one of major applications of mybase database.
Mybase offers the addon API, so any utilities related to import/export (or
capture/share) can be designed as addons. this makes the program structure clear
and help improve the main code's performance.
Unlike others, mybase pack is incredibly small even if you have all plugins
packed into; The v5 is even smaller, the main code is only 1MB in file size, while
it contains most of the major components; More important, it is fast. There's
No delay at startup. We try to keep things efficient, uncluttered, flexible yet
simple as much as possible;
If you have any questions using mybase, please let us know. Thanks.
Best Regards,
wjjsoft support ( [email protected] )
Mybase Freeform Database ( www.wjjsoft.com )
Thank you for your postings; That is a good place unbiasedly discussing
software, we like it; You may post our notes anywhere you see fit. Here's another note
for mybase software;
We've built a very flexible infrastructure for the freeform database platform,
so we can develop over the database as many applications as possible, and users
can manipulate their own database as easily as possible. Our goal within the
main code is to provide a substantial number of powerful 'Organize' utilities,
'DB maintenance' tools, 'Fast search' capabilities and an efficient, intuitive,
uncluttered user interface, while the addon/plugin API makes limitless
posibilities for making the 'Capture, Share' utilities. All this are based on our solid
database engine. Unlike others, we've put majority of our energy on the
database engine and the flexible infrastructure, rather than focus on a bubbly bulky
UI design. We hope our customers understand all these hidden work done within
the product, as results, we've received a lot of positive words for the freeform
database applications. some of words listed on our website:
www.wjjsoft.com/mbs_testimonial.html some can be found on the yahoo groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MybaseForum
For later versions, we planned to make more utilities on the basis of the
'Capture, organize, share, edit, search' concept, and improve existing addons, and
maybe the UI if that is really necessary and valued for customers;
As for the flexibility with our database, you might have seen that we've
developed some other minor code for GNU Linux and FreeBSD, all these applications are
based on the freeform database engine. We've ever planned to make a series of
programs across Windows, Linux, and Pocket OS like palm/ce; Currently our focus
is still on the Windows platform.
BTW, as to edit webpages, there's a 'HtmlEdit.dll' plugin for this task within
v4,8x, but now, if you've tried the v5 beta, you'll find we've seamlessly
incorporate the 'Inplace HTML EDIT' into v5 without launching a third-party tool. To
edit a webpage, press F2 on the webpage, the webpage goes into edit mode, and
you can make modifications to the webpage, just like the RTF edit;
I find this thread very interesting. I have been looking for the ultimate note taker for years and am not satisfied with my current choice (one note). Someone talked earlier about Memorymate (a DOS program) and this is still my reference today (although I can't use it any longer because of the format restrictions).-tokjdm (April 27, 2006, 12:53 AM)
Another important factor is unicode compatibility
Infoselect and Inforecall are just tree-based programs, like treepad
I really wish MemoryMate had been better adapted to the Windows environment. The current version released by Brownbag simply does not work-tokjdm (April 27, 2006, 05:08 AM)
Scrapbook is nice and I used it for some time but the search and formatting functions are too limited (and I had problems with bugs at the time, v2.20 may be better).
Treepad Asia does not really work with Asian languages. It works only if you have that language version of Windows installed.-tokjdm (April 27, 2006, 06:02 AM)
As I understand it, it is Opera's fault. Opera does not copy HTML to the clipboard like IE or FF, just plain text. This also means it doesn't copy RTF either... I don't understand why, it does get cumbersome to always open another browser when I want to save something... but, there you have it.
Kevin-kfitting (April 29, 2006, 08:42 AM)
WikidPad is a wiki-like notebook for storing your thoughts, ideas, todo lists, contacts, or anything else you can think of to write down. What makes WikidPad different from other notepad applications is the ease with which you can cross-link your information. Links in a wiki are created by typing in WikiWords. A WikiWord is any mixed case word (also called CamelCase) typed into the editor. TodoList or JohnDoe are example WikiWords. The term wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian, and wikis are all about quickly linking your information together. Wikis are not a new concept, in fact there are many web based wiki servers available.
Real-time wiki WikidPad is not a web server, or application server, or groupware solution. WikidPad is a standalone notepad like application.
IDE for your thoughtsSoftware developers have grown accustomed to certain features from their editing environment that make their jobs easier. Features like auto-completion, outline views, incremental search, easy source code navigation. IDE's that provide these features can greatly increase developer productivity. WikidPad attempts to utilize some of these features to address the problem of personal information management.-from the site
NEWS: Onfolio Acquired by Microsoft
New release of Onfolio free in the Windows Live Toolbar
March 8th, 2006, Microsoft announces the acquisition of Onfolio and the release of a new version of Onfolio with the Windows Live Toolbar.
It is an add-in for the Windows Live Toolbar, which you can download from the Windows Live Toolbar download site. (http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=f53eeee8-de38-45c8-bc6d-a4749e827cc5)
NEWS: Onfolio Acquired by Microsoft
New release of Onfolio free in the Windows Live Toolbar
March 8th, 2006, Microsoft announces the acquisition of Onfolio and the release of a new version of Onfolio with the Windows Live Toolbar.It is an add-in for the Windows Live Toolbar, which you can download from the Windows Live Toolbar download site. (http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=f53eeee8-de38-45c8-bc6d-a4749e827cc5)
Probably free because it's labelled a beta.-rjbull (May 03, 2006, 10:11 AM)
I don't remember seeing this mentioned anywhere and I did a search that came up empty....so don't give me greif if you've talked about this 3 billion times :)
WikiPad is an interesting creature: http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad/ (http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad/)
...-Rover (May 01, 2006, 09:28 PM)
John Buckham's been mentioned here a couple of times, since he has a webpage summarizing the different outliners available (although it's a bit dated).-superboyac (May 09, 2006, 10:35 AM)
I recently tried Jot+ which he calls the best two-pane outliner, but it's nothing special.
combine them into one perfect notetaking utility. Kind of like Frankenote, or "The Ultimate Notetaker"
I wish I had a secretary to do my non work related tasks.
I mostly agree with Jim, except for OneNote's shortcomings. It's a great program in so many ways,-zridling (May 10, 2006, 01:12 AM)
Do any of these programs work with Google Desktop?-tim254 (April 18, 2006, 02:55 PM)
We may have talked about this before... it seems that "Note-taking" has a couple of different meanings.I think you have stated the problem beautifully. Kind of like having a long term memory and a short term memory mode. I am currently very happy with Evernote for the "dump it in and find it later" stuff, but there is no good way of really "massaging" the information within that program. It may be that what is wanted is something that works and plays well with evernote.
Zaine mentioned outlining capabilities and that seems like a good thing for taking notes on purpose....like at a meeting or training session.
I've seen a lot of other comments regarding grabbing a bit (byte) of information to tuck away for later -- easy -- retrieval. We're looking for a dumping ground for information so we can "put this somewhere" and still find it when it suddenly becomes important again.
Since I assume meetings notes might fall into the same category, what we really need is a dumping ground that has two distinct interfaces. 1 for the one-note type, on-purpose stuff and 1 for the Evernote, grab-this-stuff-and-remember-where-it-came-from type.
In both cases, we want to be able to find the information by searching (keyword, date, category), timeline, and some sort of tree view.
Does that sound about right?-Rover (May 10, 2006, 09:04 AM)
So it seems to me that the "ultimate" note taking software either can't exist, or would have to be some kind of super-morphing application, with the user taking a hand in the construction (or selection) of the UI. Perhaps this would look like some kind of free-text database back-end coupled with a dead-simple GUI builder front end that shipped with a number of common GUI configurations out of the box. Maybe you'd start out with pages or tabs (a la KeyNote or OneNote) but you could choose a default UI for each one - the "tree on the left" UI, the "sticky notes" UI, the "scrolling column" UI, the "cloud of tags" (del.icio.us) UI, etc. Then you could tweak the templates, mix and match, or construct your own from scratch. ...
--How do you deal with notes you wish to keep private, or only accessed by password? If each note is a separate file, wouldn't someone be able to look at it any time, without the use of a program?With this approach to organizing I don't think the Virtual File Manager would be responsible for that. If a file you accessed through it was otherwise password protected (ie: by Windows, or a compression/encryption application) you would be prompted by the OS or the associated program for the password. A feature of the VFM could be to keep such files open as long as you were using the file manager so that you wouldn't need to re-enter the password every time you switched away from and back to the same note. If you wanted a whole bunch of files to be password protected you could just store them on an encrypted drive instead.
--What do you do about captured content? Like Surfulater, which can capture content from webpages and other applications...how do you incorporate that into a format where each note is a seperate file?There are already a number of web capture programs that save web pages as HTML and their associated files directly into a Windows directory rather than into a database. The Firefox Extension- Scrapbook for one. The VFM would work with these files.
In my opinion you are better all around to a) maintain (auto) synchronized copies of your external files within the database,..I think this solves the key problem of how to search file content and your added metadata simultaneously- and this is probably where my idea breaks down. On the other hand, as far as I can see, the problem of tracking external files still exists- only now it's for the purpose of syncing the internal copies with the external files.
- dtSearch. Google them. They build an index to quickly search everything.-Rover (May 19, 2006, 10:43 PM)
Following up on this "Virtual File Manager" idea ... have you guys discussed Soft Gems before? In particular, Virtual Treeview http://www.soft-gems.net/VirtualTreeview/ (http://www.soft-gems.net/VirtualTreeview/)
This project looks like a genuine attempt to develop a fast, efficient and fluid engine for data management / search / recall, based on "nodes". In other words, this kind of engine used within the context of note-taking software, hot-rodded PIMs and the like, could be extremely versatile. I like the idea here - trees that morph into other trees ...
Btw, there is a related site: http://www.mustangpeak.net/ (http://www.mustangpeak.net/) with a demo of List View, based on VTV (or maybe it was was the other way round).
Andre-Plasma Man (May 20, 2006, 02:23 AM)
"A tree component that can display information directly from the XML engine. Windows applications typically have to copy information between the tree and its data store and build the hierarchical tree. These processes can dramatically affect performance, especially as trees get larger. Surfulater does not have these performance impediments."
...This project looks like a genuine attempt to develop a fast, efficient and fluid engine for data management / search / recall, based on "nodes". In other words, this kind of engine used within the context of note-taking software, hot-rodded PIMs and the like, could be extremely versatile. I like the idea here - trees that morph into other trees ...-Plasma Man (May 20, 2006, 02:23 AM)
Andre, I'm afraid I'm at a loss as to your point here. A Tree is just one part of the puzzle. I can't see any mention of a "fluid engine for data management" when I read their site. BTW It sure would be nice if the site rendered poperly in IE.
FYI my product Surfulater (http://www.surfulater.com/) uses a Virtual Tree that I've written. This is a very important core component and enables me to morph the tree quickly and easilly.-nevf (May 21, 2006, 04:41 PM)
yeah, I'm not thinking on a final monster-application that borrows from each of these... I'm just posting what I do right now, in case it is of any use. I just don't care about rtf, images, etc, that's why a text-only outliner with lots of shortcuts works for me.
Actually, with my 'system' in place, I don't feel the need to test any of the applications described. Do you think I'm missing any fundamental functionality?-urlwolf (May 25, 2006, 04:09 AM)
Onfolio by ISI (the guys behind the destruction of endNote from v.7 onwards) has a similar application, onFolio, reviewed here:
http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/sofrev21/sofrev21.html-urlwolf (May 31, 2006, 02:41 PM)
superboyac,
I see the screenshot of MyBase on their Web site contains lots of graphics, but I recall seeing a comment on the Keynote site to the effect that RTF is a bad format for graphics because it has to be read line by line, so is slow. What's your experience of that?
Does MyBase have good Boolean searching, and is it indexed? Did they fix the searching bugs now that the 5 beta seems to have turned into a full release?
Thanks in advance...-rjbull (May 28, 2006, 03:56 PM)
Mybase uses IE as it's web-viewing engine, so take that for what it's worth.-superboyac (May 31, 2006, 04:10 PM)
Someone mentioned before that for notetaking, it is wise to stick to text as much as possible, instead of embedding webpages and pictures, etc.
By the way, o good evernoters community, did you ever hear of a product called MyInfo (see http://www.milenix.com/). It's an amazing product which adds a OneNote-like organisation over the EverNote-like categories. Kinda best of both worlds, even though the produc lacks the Tablet PC Ink support.
And maybe, maybe... Well, maybe they live in a country far away where the good people care about their customers and deliver new versions on a monthly basis with new features and can then expect to draw confidence and mindshare, which basically means market share and survival. Oh well...
Seriously, Literary Machine is a program that 90% of the users would have a hard time beginning to do even basic things. LM is a very abstract thing, I don't think it would fit in at all as far as a general notetaking program. It's even more difficult to grasp than Zoot. LM is strictly a poweruser tool.I don't know about that. I have been playing with it a little today. In fact, I wrote the post you are responding to using it. At it's heart, I think it is just notecards. The trouble may be that the author thinks of it as a thinking tool, and is fascinated with the 3 dimensional discovery of new ideas. If you just want to take notes and then arrange them into a coherent draft document, I think you can learn to do that fairly quickly.-superboyac (June 01, 2006, 04:12 PM)
(I'm moving this topic back into the brainstorming thread, since I think it applies)I tried this a couple of months ago, but got frightened away by the interface. I will also try to give this an honest chance
OK, I just went back and looked at Taonotes again. It's very interesting for sure.
--I like how there's several ways to organize data.
--The filter-as-you-type feature is awesome!-superboyac (June 01, 2006, 05:58 PM)
Personally, as far as working with web content, EverNote does it the best of all the programs I've tried, by far.-superboyac (May 31, 2006, 04:10 PM)
LM is just too different. I guarantee you most people will give up on the software in the first 10 minutes, if their intention is to find a notetaking application. I mean, just imagine, a user downloads several programs to try, say, Surfulater, Evernote, Mybase, Keynote, Onenote, Myinfo. And then he comes across LM...how long do you think he will stick to it?:up:Yeah, you have a point. I think I will still do a mini review, mainly because I think I see some personal usability for this program, and I might as well share what I learn.-superboyac (June 02, 2006, 02:29 AM)
rjbull, when I'm talking about web-capturing in this thread, I mean web-capturing capabilities of notetaking programs, not dedicated web-capturing programs. In this context, I think Evernote does it the best.-superboyac (June 02, 2006, 10:13 AM)
I'm not sticking this thread into a notetaking app or something like that, if that was what you meant.
Actually, rjbull, I meant that Evernote is NOT primarily a web-capture application (sorry! :-[). Evernote is notetaking application that can capture webpages.-superboyac (June 05, 2006, 12:37 PM)
Black Hole Organizer:
I tried this software just now, and it's ok. It's really nothing special. There were some reviews on the web that give it really good ratings.-superboyac (June 08, 2006, 10:19 AM)
for the average user it's a good mix of simplicity and nice power features.
There was something very interesting about it, and that is that it is laid out very similarly to Zoot! [...] Unfortunately, it doesn't have all the powerful features of Zoot like auto-categorizing and filtering and stuff.
(One question, nevf...what's the difference between the 2nd button which shows "no articles", and the 1st button where you can turn the articles off? I don't see a difference.)The first button "normal" shows the tree in the state you've set. ie. With whatever folders you've expanded or collapsed. There are also the options to hide/show all articles in this tree view or just the articles in a selected folder. The second button shows every folder and doesn't show any articles. ie. The tree view is fully expanded. This view lets you quickly locate a folder.
Anyway, like I said, it's the best implementation of a tree in all the main softwares in this genre.The Surfulater tree has been designed and written (by me) to be very flexible and fast which you can easily see by the various tree views. I'll be adding more views and filters in future.
OK, I was just doing some preparation for this summary, and I decided to try Zoot out again.I've looked at Zoot several times and just don't get it. It has a loyal and enthusiastic following with folks hanging on for a modern version. One day the penny might drop. SB maybe you can summarize what Zoot is about in your eyes.
Being a Dr. File Finder pick probably gave it a boost.
The Surfulater tree has been designed and written (by me) to be very flexible and fast which you can easily see by the various tree views. I'll be adding more views and filters in future.That's great to hear. It's great how you're pushing for innovation in that area. Thanks for the explanation on the two buttons, it's kind of subtle, but very useful.
I've looked at Zoot several times and just don't get it. It has a loyal and enthusiastic following with folks hanging on for a modern version. One day the penny might drop. SB maybe you can summarize what Zoot is about in your eyes.You have to look at Zoot from a purely text-based point of view to appreciate it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're (nevf) more of a webpage kind of person (text, images, links, formatting, etc.). That's why those that love Surfulater love that they can capture virtually anything and preserve the "look". At the same time, for more simple users like me that pretty much just do text, that's not as big an issue, so programs like Zoot are still viable options. But it's always better to have more options and turn additional features off than to be incapable of doing modern things, and that's Zoot's problem for now. But Zoot is interesting because it's email-like interface which I like, and it's powerful auto-filtering feautres, and it's fantastic live search feature. In fact, if you take out the web-capturing feature of Evernote, and reduce it to a simple text format, it's almost just like Zoot, except less powerful. Also, Evernote and Surfulater use scrolls, while Zoot does something completely different, which is to organize the notes like an 3-pane email program. It's all a matter of preference. For some situations, I prefer the scrolling, and for others, I prefer not scrolling.
Dr. FF is a Surfulater fan and uses it himself. See: http://www.tucows.com/article/848 and-nevf (June 09, 2006, 05:00 PM)
— imagine if you will a OneNote “writing pad” where the “things” you put in wherever you want would be components from today’s overall Office suite — XL, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, what-have-you.
....
Also, Evernote and Surfulater use scrolls, while Zoot does something completely different, which is to organize the notes like an 3-pane email program. It's all a matter of preference. For some situations, I prefer the scrolling, and for others, I prefer not scrolling.-superboyac (June 09, 2006, 08:36 PM)
Dr. FF is a Surfulater fan and uses it himself. See: http://www.tucows.com/article/848 and-nevf (June 09, 2006, 05:00 PM)
That's the trouble; he's enthusiastic about more or less everything he mentions. Doesn't much help anyone looking for a comparison.-rjbull (June 11, 2006, 10:53 AM)
For the same reason I don't take much notice of "awards." Nearly every program that isn't a complete disaster seem to end up with a load of awards. >:(
Every few days a new one seems to spring up and I get e-mails saying I've got 10 elephants, 6 monkeys or 5 giraffes.
Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished.
Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished.
Haha! I know exactly what you're talking about. That one little strip on the side of the dialog where if the mouse hovers over, the dialog automatically closes. That's exactly the reaction I had the first couple of times. I'm like "what the heck did I just do?!" Too funny.-superboyac (June 13, 2006, 04:33 PM)
> If you don't have the time to really document the app, perhaps you could just be a little more judicious in your default settings. Turn off as much of the "gee-whiz" as possible by default. Let your users get used to the basic features. Then, IF THEY WANT TO, they can track down and enable the more "out-there" kind of stuff.
I already release new update 3.18....So, I've added options to disable what you do not like..... see Tools->Options->Notifications->... and see Tools->Options->General->Use Mouse Gesture On Item Saving....
Now I have some spare time and I will use it to write the proper manual.... ;)
> BTW - I still can't quite figure out how or why you'd "execute" an item. :-[
May be it's not obvious but you can store your URL bookmarks here and effectively use them.... Set Link type for those items and they are ready to be used as bookmarks for quick launching..... Just select the items you want to browse in outline or in the Navigator (they are grouped by context there).... and press F9 to launch them....
>And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add an option to disable those balloon tips! :D
Already done! :O)
Vadim
[/list]-Jimdoria (June 13, 2006, 04:10 PM)
If you want, you can open different notes in their own tabs. And when you have a bunch of tabs open, you can save that configuration as a "group". I don't know how useful this is but it's kind of cool. However, even though it has this tabbed feature, it's not like you can open different databases up at once. In fact, AM can only have one database open at once.-superboyac (June 13, 2006, 04:33 PM)
In AM, you can encrypt the whole note. The only problem is that once it's unlocked and you go to another note and you come back, it's locked again.
There's a clip/templates feature on the program that I have no idea what it does and I couldn't find any documentation for it. But I'm curious...
Ah! aignes is the author of AM himself! Welcome!
I still can't figure out how to open multiple databases even when using groups and tabs.
Sorry, I did not notice it mentioned earlier - I read thru most of he posts - but here were many alright!-hornet (July 02, 2006, 05:42 PM)
I vote willyram, for bestest first post ever :DThank you everyone! I will try to keep up to the expectations :)-urlwolf (July 05, 2006, 04:14 PM)
One thing I haven't seen mentioned (apologies if I missed it) is scanner support/document imaging.-longrun (July 05, 2006, 05:32 PM)
Why should there be any conceptual difference between items I capture from the web and those I scan from printed matter?
I have just finished writing the first official roundup of this thread.-superboyac (July 05, 2006, 05:05 PM)
Add various OCR options and the data gets very usable.-pmowbray (July 06, 2006, 04:32 AM)
I'm keen to see the final output!! Is it something that will be developed into a working brief to be developed (here)???
Reviewing what I’m after: A Personal Information Management System
Let’s put some order behind what I’m after.-willyram (July 05, 2006, 03:14 PM)
The for-pay version of Evernote has OCR built in. They say it's for handwriting recognition, and support various pen input devices; no immediately obvious mention of scanners.
You might want to take a look at the user forum. I know this linkThe for-pay version of Evernote has OCR built in. They say it's for handwriting recognition, and support various pen input devices; no immediately obvious mention of scanners.
I didn't read the whole manual, but searching on scanner, TWAIN, and OCR gave no results, and use of scanner as an input option isn't listed. I don't actually care much about OCR, but do care about scanning articles, etc.-longrun (July 06, 2006, 10:48 AM)
Michael Lunsford has recently accepted the offer from another company and will leave EverNote Corporation by the end of this week.Micheal's (known to this forum as evermike) departure does not fill me with confidence in the ongoing development of this product. :(
As a VP of Product Management, Michael was instrumental in shaping the EverNote's product line to make all applications more user-friendly. He also set up a high standard in customer's support and showed us all what a real customer care is about.
We shall all miss Michael and wish him success in his new role.
Just to keep everyone updated here, I have just finished writing the first official roundup of this thread.This sounds wonderful. When can we see it?-superboyac (July 05, 2006, 05:05 PM)
Having said all that, the program I am using more than any other in recent months has taken me by surprise — because I didn't install it either as a notetaker or as a data capture tool. It's Clipcache, one of many clipboard enhancers.
currently I am a big fan of both Ultra Recall (http://www.ultrarecall.com/ (http://www.ultrarecall.com/)) and nevf's excellent Surfulater. Both good in very different ways.-johnk (July 13, 2006, 02:31 PM)
johnk,currently I am a big fan of both Ultra Recall (http://www.ultrarecall.com/ (http://www.ultrarecall.com/)) and nevf's excellent Surfulater. Both good in very different ways.-johnk (July 13, 2006, 02:31 PM)
I'd be interested in how you compare them with the other two of superboyac's Big Three, MyBase and Evernote?-rjbull (July 14, 2006, 05:43 AM)
I keep jumping from specialist programs (e.g. the elegant but expensive Notemap (http://www.casesoft.com/notemap/ (http://www.casesoft.com/notemap/)) for outlining, the well-designed Notesholder (http://notes.aklabs.com/ (http://notes.aklabs.com/)) for on-the-fly notetaking) back to all-in-ones.-johnk (July 14, 2006, 09:13 AM)
I waste too much time trying out programs, and not long enough making the most of them.
I currently have a self-imposed ban on trying new note-taking/data capture programs
A while a go I came across the GemX range of pims / notetaking products
[...]
Do-Organizer http://www.gemx.com/doorganizer_features.php (http://www.gemx.com/doorganizer_features.php)-Plasma Man (July 20, 2006, 11:33 PM)
Willyram - reading again your excellent set of criteria reminded me of a suite of products that I don't think any one has mentioned thus far.
A while a go I came across the GemX range of pims / notetaking products which I never had time to fully test out but I'm going to look at again. They are certainly feature packed but whether or not they have the qualitities that would inspire regular use I'm not sure yet. If anything they seemed very busy with tons of customization options.
http://www.gemx.com/products.php (http://www.gemx.com/products.php)
Their three key products are:
Do-Organizer http://www.gemx.com/doorganizer_features.php (http://www.gemx.com/doorganizer_features.php)
Tex-Notes Pro http://www.gemx.com/texnotespro_features.php (http://www.gemx.com/texnotespro_features.php)
Surfgem - which has some parallels with Surfulator http://www.gemx.com/surfgem_features.php (http://www.gemx.com/surfgem_features.php)
Anyone else here tried these out?
Andre-Plasma Man (July 20, 2006, 11:33 PM)
Hi doublewitt,
You might find do-Organizer not suitable to be classified as "Bloatware" or "Fatware" due to its application nature or your personal feel, however, that is not an appropriate reason to deny the fact that some "Bloatware" or "Fatware" do exist in the market.
Widen the scope or adding features/functions of an application from its initial objective does brings side effects, generally speaking it:
1) Cuts down performance or raises hardware requirements
2) Makes documenting more difficult - harder for newcomers to master
3) Lifts the price of the application - those who need only few features will feel not worth it.
In fact, from a software developer point of view, increase in #features or raise in hardware requirements is something inevitable along the evolution of an application, however, blindly/simply adds whatever requested by users is not always a SMART idea.
As a user, if A and B are 2 software which offer the same set of functions at the same price and both do well in what they have to offer except that A does everything more slowly than B, which one do you prefer? This is corresponding to 1) above
If A offers just the set of functions which you need at a lower price than B which has more to offer (which you don't need), which one do you choose? See 3)
IMHO, whether a software is "BLOAT" or a fatty, it all depends... it is more personal feel than an objective issue.-tslim (August 03, 2006, 06:29 AM)
Does any notekeeping program have a way of reconciling the files by importing new or changed nodes only, without overwriting the whole file? I assume that's the way Palm PDAs work, but I wondered if it were possible with USB keys.-rjbull (August 16, 2006, 04:56 AM)
No, seriously, you should check out NoteBox Disorganizer:
It's an amazingly useful program.
NoteBox Disorganizer is tailor-made for quickly jotting down notes and
ideas, organizing those notes and ideas, combining selected notes into a
document, and exporting that document for publication. It's truly my
favorite writing program, and I've tried pretty much everything out
there. Here are some of the things that make NoteBox Disorganizer so
outstanding:
* Notes are kept in a spreadsheet-like grid that is easy to understand
and navigate. And that means all your notes are spread out in plain
sight; nothing is hidden away in a database or lost in an outline
"tree."
* It's possible to name each column, so you can easily categorize your
notes under the columns where they belong. Have a note that belongs
under more than one category? Clone it! Change a clone, and that change
is reflected in all of the others.
* It's also possible to name each *row,* so you can lay out a book's
structure before you even start writing.
[...]
I love the side-by-sideness of all this, which gives me a sense of
overview, organization, and control that I don't get in any other
program.
* If you need finer "granularity" in categorizing notes, you can include
note ~keywords in the text (and keep an alphabetical list of those
~keywords) and then do a "bounded" search for them. In Boolean terms,
that's an "And" search, which finds notes that include all of the
specified ~keywords. Don't want to fuss with ~keywords? You can still
use a bounded search to find notes that contain several terms.
With regard to EverNote - I gave it a try as I was looking for something that could take all my varied odds and ends and then be searchable. I don't really care for "trees" and "hierachies".
My question is this - do hyperlinks go inactive in EverNote? They certainly did for me any time I copied one in.-Clive (August 23, 2006, 02:28 AM)
Tagging is a very interesting concept (seems well implemented in MyInfo). But, I wonder how fast and efficiently one can tag all notes. Ideally all should be done with keyboard shortcuts, otherwise tagging may be too much of a chore.
Which makes me think...
In a simple text file, everything is a tag! One can do a simple text search and avoid the pain of tagging implemented as a different concept.
Example, in my notes I have: IdeaGTD, ideaPost, ideaPodcast, etc. for ideas. tab completion makes it easy to tag things this way. If there's need for a non-text element, such as sound or an external file of some kind, a file:// url would do the trick.
Just thinking outloud...-urlwolf (August 21, 2006, 04:17 AM)
The idea of "you could somehow mark some words on the text, and those words would automatically be transformed into tags" is brilliant. No program that I know implements that. CamelCase is a way of hyperlinking, but this is different (tagging is not exactly hyperlinking) right?-urlwolf (September 24, 2006, 03:04 PM)
So, you are writing, and you want to file the note using a tag whose word appears on the note body, so you put the word between brackets beforehand, instead of having to type the word again on the tag fieldline.This is already a capability of evernote, which I make a lot of use of. Further, you can designate a word to be a category and automatically assign anything in your database that contains that word to that category. Let's say, for example you wanted to collect all your website passwords together into your evernote database. You can merrily drop them in, either typing or using web capture, and, since you probably used the Username: password: format, you can make "password:" a category and every note you typed or captured that contains "password:" will be connected.
So, you are writing, and you want to file the note using a tag whose word appears on the note body, so you put the word between brackets beforehand, instead of having to type the word again on the tag fieldline.This is already a capability of evernote, which I make a lot of use of.-thomthowolf (September 24, 2006, 06:17 PM)
A OneNote 2007 60-day trial is available for download from the MS site. It does require activation for the trial.Thanks, I will check it out. I got a free copy of the old Onenote several years ago, if only I could remember how...
I don't know if it can be installed stand-alone or if it requires other Office 2007 components.-dbrosius (December 06, 2006, 01:30 PM)
I am puzzled by the consensus that favors MyBase and Surfulator, yet complains of the difficulties managing large trees. Considering the problems users experience with trees, you would think that the leading programs would provide solutions. There are two solutions available, netheir well represented among the reviewed products. Since users want a usable tree, programs that make trees more accessible deserve a close look. One of the requirements for managing a large tree is the ability to move multiple headings simultaneously. Multiple selection in the tree is one basic property of modern outlining programs, and almost none of the trees have this capacity. Ultra Recall provides this modern outlining feature in its tree, in its most advanced incarnation, which it calls logical linking. This means topics can be subordinated to multiple headings (cloned).
Another program that allows creating a tree with multiple selection--this one, unlike UltraRecall, definitely definable as a "notetaking program"--is ndx Cards.I will take a look at those programs and add them to the next roundup. Just from a first glance, ndx cards seems to be unconventional about it's note organizing, which may be very efficient, but also may present an unfamiliar interface for users. But I'll say more when I have messed around with it a little more.
On the other hand, perhaps the tree isn't the best way to go about organizing notes. Then programs that use keywords exclusively and in a slick fashion might be the ticket. Here PersonalKnowbase, which has good notetaking features, thought not as good as ndx Cards, should be considered.
As to the process of creating a single note, Microsoft OneNote can't be beat. It has outlining within notes (that no other program currently in development has) and adapts to inputting notes in a variety of ways.
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)
The problem I've been having recently with Mybase is that even though it has a lot of features, something is mentally preventing me from using a lot of the more interesting ones. It has to do with how they are implemented, some slight annoyances just make me say, "forget it, I don't need to use it anyway." More on this later. TexNotes seems to do some of these things better (at first glance).
From a quick look at TexNotes Pro product tour, it doesn't seem to support tagging, interactive search, or attachments. Is this wrong?-alexey_r (January 15, 2007, 12:09 PM)
edit:
i've thought of a way of doing what i requested by using directory opus. just create a 'collection' folder named 'notes' (or whatever) then just 'send to' this collection the txt files, regardless of their location.-nudone (January 30, 2007, 05:34 AM)
One of the better notetaking programs. It is efficiently designed and has several unique and important features. The only programs listed here that has a built-in spreadsheet capable of simple calculations. Also supports individual note encryption. Could very well have been included in the "Big Three" but it's closest competitor, Mybase, has too many additional features that AM doesn't have. AM is also the only program that keeps each note as a separate file, and the tree structure for the database is an actual folder structure on your hard drive.
So, there's my rant, largely incoherent since I've left out most of the background to save time inputting it into this forum post (I hate inputting data!!).
is there a note taking program that uses individual txt files as the individual notes AND has a tree structure type view so you can see all the files/notes. even more than this i'd like the program to be able to show a tree view of txt files that are in different locations on the hard drive - and the ability for it to remember this each time i run it.-nudone (January 30, 2007, 05:34 AM)
anchor | Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 2:40 am Post subject: Source Code Viewer Plugin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source Code Viewer is a freeware plugin for Directory Opus. It provides an enhanced viewer pane for viewing your source code using the freeware Scintilla control (http://www.scintilla.org). This control provides a host of features including syntax colouring, line numbering, code block folding, word wrapping and brace matching amongst others.
The plugin also allows you to edit your code, search for text, goto lines, add your own languages, etc.
FileType NEW=.txt
When the file is created, the name of the file is \"New Text Document.txt\" with the name already highlighted in F2 rename mode.
Instead, I'd like the file to be created with the name \"Notes YYYY.MM.DD.txt\" and not be in rename mode. Is that possible?
FileType NEW=.txt
When the file is created, the name of the file is \"New Text Document.txt\" with the name already highlighted in F2 rename mode.
Instead, I'd like the file to be created with the name \"Notes YYYY.MM.DD.txt\" and not be in rename mode. Is that possible?
nudone, see this thread for making new "button" for to make new text file (dopus):
http://resource.dopus.com/viewtopic.php?t=2262&highlight=default+title+file+current+date
You can then make your own shortcut in customise mode ..-tomos (January 31, 2007, 07:20 AM)
from this point you can edit it how you like. just make sure you put the command in the "function" field bit.
PS: Is it me, or is the options panel in Dopus just crazy convoluted?
or don't use even though it is there on the hard drive
It IS a bit like running around in circles chasing one's tail. I've kind of settled into a cocktail of DOpus, X1, Locate, Evernote, TNP, and Net Snippets.-Darwin (February 01, 2007, 02:26 PM)
I'll talk more about the philosophy of the programs, and relate them to what program is suited for what user
believe it or not, i think i'm going to give EverNote a try.-nudone (February 01, 2007, 06:30 AM)
Publisher's Description
A new software tool designed for authors of fictional stories. It allows you to write creatively and intuitively without logical tasks interfering with the flow of your ideas.
Rather than using lists and tables to keep track of the various parts of your writing project, it works visually, just as Windows does.
You simply create new papels in the main project window, name them and set their type (described below). Papels are easily identifiable, as each type has it´s own icon, and the descriptive name you gave it is displayed with it.
Papel allows you to keep track of all the scraps of writing you create along the way, and instantly reminds you of what goes where by the way you group them in your project. Papels can be moved around with your mouse, renamed, and the type changed if you wish. Once everything is ready for publishing, you simply import the text files into your word processor for final formatting to the desired publishing standard.
Features:
* Visual on-screen representation of your writing project sections.
* Drag & Drop interface for easy grouping of related pieces of work, notes, etc.
* Individual icons for each piece of work, including Chapter, Scene, Male Character, Female Character, Plot Outline, Dialogue, and Note.
* Simple papel naming system, with automatic file saving under the given name.
* Find, Replace, Word Count,Spell Checking & Thesaurus in editor.
* Multi-sizeable project window with up to 8 times your screen size.
* Configurable and saveable Editor font and size.
* Saveable default Application and Editor window positions.
Corel WordPerfect Lightning joins the scene, with its usual flair. What, no applause?-paulobrabo (February 27, 2007, 08:21 AM)
I think a killer feature would be one that has a "scanning" module which would crawl a bunch of directories you choose, find all the myriad documents in formats it can read (the more the merrier, if possible even word processor or other organiser files), then give you a list where you can tick all the ones you want to import, then import them...
Looking back the tool(s) i used the most to capture snippets of information have been local website archive, clipcache (i used the demo a lot, was going to register, then the database got corrupted)-iphigenie (February 27, 2007, 02:25 PM)
I think a killer feature would be one that has a "scanning" module which would crawl a bunch of directories you choose, find all the myriad documents in formats it can read (the more the merrier, if possible even word processor or other organiser files), then give you a list where you can tick all the ones you want to import, then import them...
yes, most can import, but one document at a time - and usually the import has more steps than opening the original file and using cut and paste.-iphigenie (February 28, 2007, 05:16 AM)
I'm trying Clipboard Help+Spell but I can't see how I would use it for more than to speed up multiple cut and paste - it doesn't have the organising features that clipcache had.
PS: every piece of software I try, I do a "features" page snapshot with LWA, write down price and some extremely terse test notes.
I have searched the forum and found no reference to my "main man" note taker tool! All this good info and no mention of my favorite tool. Wild!JohnFredC, welcome to the discussion. Yes, I missed quite a few programs in my review; some more prominent than others. What's wild is that after all this discussion, more and more programs keep coming up that I had no idea about. It's just insane how many of these there are out there.
I still keep up with TreePad. It is a little garish to look at but whiz bang with features. The Lite version is free.-JohnFredC (March 13, 2007, 03:16 PM)
Q: I tried to use SmartSearch to find phone numbers and part numbers with dashes in them, but I get strange results. How can I get SmartSearch to work as I want?
A: You're having a problem because EverNote uses the Dash symbol (-) as a Minus (-) delimiter to mean (#AND NOT#). So, for example, if you enter CHICAGO-ATLANTA, EverNote will find all notes that have Chicago but don't have Atlanta.
There is a solution, however. Simply enter your phone number or part number in quotes. In fact, you only need to start with quote marks. Thus, to find L-1234, you would enter "L-1234 and to find 650-555-1234 you would enter "650-555-1234.
Hi,
For me, what is important is very small footprint (better so if the application remains closed but can be fired open in negligible time using Directaccess or Activewords hotkey), allowing me to jot my notes and gets closed in a jiffy.-ganrad (April 15, 2007, 08:28 AM)
Of late, I am using simple .txt files (windows notepad) to capture the notes and use a simple activewords macro to "saveas" using text in the first line of the note.
Ideally yes. But I hesitate to commit myself to any propereitary format for obvious reasons.
I found this little gem of minimalism: it's called Mempad.
http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/wmem.htm-paulobrabo (April 15, 2007, 12:56 PM)
CONS(?):
(1) Imports txt files only as far as I can see (not counting its own file format)
Looks like Notelens meets the need. OK sofar.
[...]
But saves notes as separate .txt files
Possible to import existing .txt files. Notelens just indexex these files. Does not change the location-ganrad (April 15, 2007, 07:46 PM)
My constant "problem" with it (if I remember correctly) was using Ctrl-F Find, then tabbing between note pane and tree pane when I should have Ctrl-tabbed. In that case, it replaces "found" text with a tab character, losing data. That happened so often that I abandoned it.-rjbull (April 16, 2007, 05:14 AM)
Strange JeffK - I got the upgrade for free.
I emailed them a while back out the version 2 beta and they sent me a copy. It upgraded itself to version 2 with no problems (using the internal link to check for update).
I am sure that they posted out an email ages ago that version 2 was going to be a free upgrade for current customers - I can't find it now, maybe it was just if you took part in beta testing? (my participation consisted of downloading it and installing it!)-Carol Haynes (April 23, 2007, 04:41 AM)
My constant "problem" with it (if I remember correctly) was using Ctrl-F Find, then tabbing between note pane and tree pane when I should have Ctrl-tabbed. In that case, it replaces "found" text with a tab character, losing data. That happened so often that I abandoned it.-rjbull (April 16, 2007, 05:14 AM)
Oh yes, I could replicate that - ahem - feature.-paulobrabo (April 17, 2007, 03:21 PM)
New Toolbar
Node move buttons: To parent level as next node, To child level of preceding node
Page memory stack: Remember page ("M" button); Recall ("R" button) to jump back
Lock Editing: Option to lock all pages, button to lock/unlock the current page (only locks editing, not index manipulations)
Auto Save option: save to file every 4-5 minutes, if there are any changes (no backup)
Set Tab size (width) by Ctrl+Alt+TAB (at intended first tab position)
Custom popup menus to select and insert words, phrases: by right mouse click + Shift or Ctrl key. Menus are read from plain text files InsCtrl.txt, InsShift.txt
Tab key behaviour changed: normal step thru control elements in visible order, except in editor, where TAB inserts tab space; Shift+Tab = reverse; Ctrl+Tab: to first button in toolbar
Internal: Bugfix ReadOnly switching, enhanced load/save handling
I think the problem was in the RichEdit control the author used. The latest beta of MemPad 3.2 offers a work-around by making nodes lockable, so you can't change the text by accident:-rjbull (April 30, 2007, 06:12 AM)
Updated already.-paulobrabo (May 02, 2007, 08:09 AM)
Regarding EverNote's new 2.0 release...-superboyac (May 01, 2007, 04:51 PM)
rjbull, if I understood your question correctly, you are asking what I use for notetaking? Well, here:Regarding EverNote's new 2.0 release...superboyAC,-superboyac (May 01, 2007, 04:51 PM)
467 posts in this thread, no definitive answer... Given that Frankenote doesn't exist (yet), and sometime you have to get real work done, which program(s) have committed to? One can't run several equivalents side by side indefinitely.
<gulp> I just realised I do something close to that :-[-rjbull (May 03, 2007, 05:41 AM)
rjbull, if I understood your question correctly, you are asking what I use for notetaking?-superboyac (May 03, 2007, 10:37 AM)
If I come across something that I want to save (random text, internet article), I'll usually just dump it in evernote. I don't organize at all beyond this point, just dump it in because I know it's easy to find later
That's what I currently do. I don't have a problem using several applications. I'd rather use 3 very good applications than one sort of good application, even if it means spreading out the information.
If it's something more important that I know I need to keep long-term (passwords, software license details, important information about music, etc.) I'll stick it in my favorite tree-hierarchy program.
Another much requested capability which has been added in this release is the ability to use Surfulater as a Free Knowledge Base Reader. This lets you share your Knowledge Bases with friends and colleagues who aren’t necessarily interested in purchasing Surfulater.-nevf (May 07, 2007, 06:32 PM)
Just noticed this today at Google Labs:
http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html (http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html)
Seems like a lightweight solution compared to some of the apps discussed here, but an interesting idea anyway.-Jimdoria (June 13, 2006, 04:10 PM)
Based on all of the above, few of the apps qualified. I have put them to the test for years and none has failed me ...
- MyBase: Almost 4 years of usage with not a SINGLE crash. I have not lost a single word in all my databases. I have collected over 5 GB of data and they are as safe today as they were 4 years ago. The developer truly has spent over 2 years working on the DB engine itself and it paid off. Top of bread.
- UltraRecall: Again, over 2 years of usage and I'm happy with it. Using solid rock DB engine and great deal of DK development, the team has delivered a fine product to the world. The fact that I can dump thousands of articles in one folder and later tag this content is absolutely great. On top of this content, sits almost a hundred view and subviews. The logical linking they provide is unparalleled.-cnewtonne (May 20, 2007, 08:11 PM)
Surfulator to be offered thru Bits du Jour http://bitsdujour.com/blog2/wordpress/?cat=7 on May 22, 2007. Don't know the discount yet, but 40% or more is not unusual-JerryH (May 17, 2007, 08:16 PM)
MB has only 2 virtualization levels, the tree itself and the labeling system.-cnewtonne (May 22, 2007, 12:29 AM)
Armando, what do you mean by "note titles"? I'm not sure I've found that feature in my Evernote.
Jeff-JeffK (May 23, 2007, 02:26 AM)
I'm finding it quite good also. Sometimes I buy software on a whim, and then weeks later sit down and work out how to use it. I bought EverNote on the basis of its handwriting recognition and now find I am using it daily more to keep web page contents of some web searching I am doing.-JeffK (May 23, 2007, 03:11 AM)
Superboyac : would you know about EverNote’s encryption format?Armando, I don't know anything about the format specifically. I noticed you asked this already in Evernote's forum, hopefully you get an answer. Here's something I found on the forums:
A user-entered password is an arbitrary non zero length text message which is used to produce a 128-bit 'digest' or 'fingerprint' using MD5 algorithm. This 'fingerprint' is used as a seed to build 64-bit RC2 effective key by RC2 expansion and effective key bit size adjustment algorithm. After encryption or decryption is finished, keys, 'fingerprints' and passwords are physically erased from memory and there is no way to restore encryption key except providing the correct password again. (Even our own engineering team would not be able to help you recover if you forget your password.)
Superboyac : would you know about EverNote’s encryption format?Armando, I don't know anything about the format specifically. I noticed you asked this already in Evernote's forum, hopefully you get an answer. Here's something I found on the forums:A user-entered password is an arbitrary non zero length text message which is used to produce a 128-bit 'digest' or 'fingerprint' using MD5 algorithm. This 'fingerprint' is used as a seed to build 64-bit RC2 effective key by RC2 expansion and effective key bit size adjustment algorithm. After encryption or decryption is finished, keys, 'fingerprints' and passwords are physically erased from memory and there is no way to restore encryption key except providing the correct password again. (Even our own engineering team would not be able to help you recover if you forget your password.)-superboyac (May 23, 2007, 10:37 AM)
I remember telling myself it needed a NOT function ie "show me all notes except xxxxx category).-JeffK (May 23, 2007, 08:09 PM)
PaperPort is a paper management software package that helps you organize, access, share, and manage documents and image files on your personal computer. From PaperPort, you can:
- Create, edit, and manage PDF documents.
- Scan documents and photos directly to your desktop in popular file formats, such as PDF, JPEG, and TIFF.
- Get photos from your digital camera and use PaperPort tools to organize and index them for easy retrieval.
- Print documents to image or PDF files.
- With a single click, take a snapshot of an Internet web page and place it on your PaperPort desktop.
- Drag a scanned document to your word processing program, and let PaperPort automatically turn it into editable text.
- Use image editing tools to improve the appearance of scanned documents and make photos picture perfect.
- Add annotations, sticky notes, highlights, arrows, and stamps to your documents and photos.
- Stack and group related documents and photos, just as you would with papers on your desk.
- Convert documents and photos to other file formats.
- Create and organize folders for filing your documents and photos.
- Find documents based on their textual content using PaperPort's powerful All-in-One Search tool.
- Share files, documents, and photos with others.
- Send items to other programs without leaving PaperPort. PaperPort supports word processing, spreadsheet, fax, Internet e-mail, graphics, OCR, and online services programs.
- Scan in blank forms and let PaperPort automatically detect the form fields so that you can easily fill in the online forms.
What programs come with PaperPort?
In addition to the PaperPort program, your software purchase includes these additional programs and components:
- FormTyperTM — Available on the Send To bar, FormTyper lets you fill in any type of form that you have scanned as a PaperPort Image (.max) file to the PaperPort desktop. FormTyper automatically recognizes the blank areas in which data can be entered and creates blank fields for the data.
- FTP — Available on the Send To bar, the FTP program is included with PaperPort so that you can quickly copy files in PaperPort to and from an FTP site.
- PageViewer — Located on the Start menu and available from within PaperPort, PageViewer is a standalone program that opens the Page View window separate from the PaperPort desktop.
- ScanDirectTM — Located on the Start menu, ScanDirect displays a small control panel you can use to scan items directly to PaperPort or other programs on your computer without first running PaperPort.
- Web Capture — Located on the PaperPort Tools menu, Web Capture lets you quickly capture web pages while you are viewing them online—and place them on your PaperPort desktop as PDF files or as PaperPort Image files, depending on your preference.
- Web Publisher — Available on the Send To bar, Web Publisher is a PaperPort program that helps you format your image items for viewing and publishing to a web site.
The following programs are available only in PaperPort Professional:
- DesktopDeliveryTM — Available from your PaperPort folder's shortcut menu. DesktopDelivery monitors network or local folders for incoming PDF, TIFF, JPEG and MAX files.
- Index Manager — Available from the PaperPort Tools menu or the System tray. The Index Manager lets you create, modify and schedule indexing tasks for a given local or network folder.
- ScanSoft PDF Create! — Available from the PaperPort Print dialog box, and also from Microsoft Word or Excel (2000 or XP) with the Print to PaperPort (PDF) menu item on the File menu. ScanSoft PDF Create! enables you to quickly convert text documents to PDF files.
Anyway, here are three features I think an future, ideal such system should have:
A. co-location: notes should be inputable/viewable right next to the relevant source section. So underlining, adding margin notes and so should be possible in or in the context of the pdf-viewer, not (only) in a separate document in a separate window. And even additional notes in a separate document should somehow be (hyper)linked to the source text parts that they concern.-Nod5 (June 06, 2007, 05:38 AM)
B. independence/portability: notes should be easily portable between different users, computers, operating systems, applications.
C. systematicity: cross-document searching, indexing, tagging and so on of notes should be supported.
Combining A-C seems like a very hard task. B seems to require some standardized format for such notes, a format that different applications can follow or at least import/export from/to.
One way to tackle this design problem would be to find an area with similarities to on-the-page note taking and that already has working solutions with features A-C. An interesting such comparison that I thought of is plain-text .srt-subtitle files for video: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip . These contain a list of paired timestamps and dialog text snippets. Put "movie123.srt" in the same folder as the movie file "movie123.avi" the subtitle was made for, start the video and chances are your media player will recognize and display the subtitle automatically.
Also, multiple notes for one single pdf file could potentially be combined and switched on/off individually, like layers in Photoshop ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layers_(digital_image_editing) ). Imagine a pdf viewer window with two panes. The left displays the pdf and also has a row of tabs/checkboxes on top. Someone studying ancient literature has a free pdf version of the Iliad. She then adds and compares on-the-page notes on the Iliad from scholar 1, scholar 2 and so on by clicking on the different note layer tabs. It would be as easy as browsing through the various audio tracks on a DVD disc! The right pane contains more extensive and general notes. Some hyperlinking systems connects these panes, so double clicking on a section in the right pane jumps the left pane the the related pdf section and vice versa.
Also, users could in the pdf viewer customize the display style for one and the same basic note file (like what a .css can do for a .html). For example, switch underline display color from red to green.
more powerful product.
Yes I'm also sceptical about using EndNote for pdf notes since it can't really do margin notes, underlining and so on on (or overlaying) the pdf pages, right? It can connect separate note files and pdf files in its bibliography database. But maybe the best solution will be a tagteam of Acrobat and some database/organizer tool and so maybe EndNote could be that tag partner.
You say the notes can be searched. Does that include "cross-document" searching? Also, when using an external indexing search tool like google desktop search, are such notes in pdf files also indexed or only the original pdf text?-Nod5 (June 10, 2007, 03:20 AM)
When googling I found this post on a feature for summarizing notes in freestanding pdf files. That sounds very useful. Have anyone tried it and have comments? http://blogs.adobe.com/acrobatineducation/2006/02/using_acrobat_for_summarizing.html
Could make things easier to find without putting a lot of tags in a (long) filename.
Armando,
"If I could find another reliable strategy which is sufficiently portable (I don't want to loose years of tags and annotation by just changing software or OS), I'd give it a try..."
Well you could do what I do with journal articles but for any other types of files also. That is, create a .txt file with the same name as the file you want tagged (but perhaps with "_tag" at the end) and put the tags and keywords in that .txt. I think any indexing search tool will find those tags and due to the same filename you then find the file you're searching for. If you have a consistent and unique format for your current tags in filenames that a script can isolate (like using [tag1 tag2 tag3] only for tags) then you could probably make a batch script that migrates to the ".txt system".-Nod5 (June 12, 2007, 02:23 PM)
That is, create a .txt file with the same name as the file you want tagged (but perhaps with "_tag" at the end) and put the tags and keywords in that .txt. I think any indexing search tool will find those tags and due to the same filename you then find the file you're searching for. If you have a consistent and unique format for your current tags in filenames that a script can isolate (like using [tag1 tag2 tag3] only for tags) then you could probably make a batch script that migrates to the ".txt system".-Nod5 (June 12, 2007, 02:23 PM)
I disliked the fact that every single file was doubled : always had to make sure that I moved both files when I had to move them around, had to check both files when I renamed them, etc. ... Maybe there could be a way of doing it in a way that’s much more simple and automated.I try to never rename the pdf files, keep them all in one giant folder and never move that folder. Then the problem doesn't occur very often.
But in a scenario where file renaming is often necessary, scripting could help. I made a AHK script you could try. Use it-Nod5 (June 13, 2007, 06:45 PM)
I like having all my reading notes in one place, where they're easy to find : my hard drive.-Armando (June 13, 2007, 08:28 PM)
InfoKey: Author
InfoValue: x
InfoKey: GTS_PDFXVersion
InfoValue: PDF/X-1:2001
InfoKey: Producer
InfoValue: Acrobat Distiller 6.0.1 for Macintosh
InfoKey: Creator
InfoValue: InDesign: pictwpstops filter 1.0
InfoKey: ModDate
InfoValue: D:20070613112031+01'00'
InfoKey: GTS_PDFXConformance
InfoValue: PDF/X-1a:2001
InfoKey: Title
InfoValue: 14.6 News 758-759.indd NS new.indd
InfoKey: CreationDate
InfoValue: D:20070612095515+01'00'
PdfID0: cee3243181236aabefbac383315fda1f
PdfID1: 3ab8e10f7074409da8a4fc9d6eb3a2
NumberOfPages: 2
PageLabelNewIndex: 1
PageLabelStart: 758
PageLabelNumStyle: DecimalArabicNumerals
While most of the larger publishers provided an acceptable method of authentication, the PDF files they produce are obviously not optimised for ease of use by the reader. It's almost impossible to build a tool to automatically fetch PDFs for papers [---] The implementation of all of these features could be automated with little change to the publishers' systems, but would be a major benefit to researchers struggling to deal with large amounts of literature.(BTW, a comment on that page links to http://quosa.com/solutions.html , a tool for easy, massive article downloading and EndNote importing. No price is listed on the site (only this note on discounts http://www.quosa.org/support/helpdocs/mac/pricing.htm ). So I suspect it is very expensive. )
I think I can address some of what you requested using UltraRecall (http://www.kinook.com). Here is how...
UR has a feature that I have not seen in any other PIM system. It allows you to link (or store) any document on your system e.g. pdf, doc, xls, OL items, anything. You can actually store the doc within UR database and delete it from the OS.-cnewtonne (June 06, 2007, 10:32 PM)
Darwin & others,You can bet on that.
Adding an entire archive of PDFs to EndNote items manually must be extremely tiresome. Given the popularity of EndNote I bet many researchers are doing just that anyway (they probably curse a lot in the process ;D).-Nod5 (June 14, 2007, 03:47 AM)
Embedding DOI numbers according to some standard seems like an obviously smart thing. If available it would not only allow adding a pdf to the corrent EndNote items but also the reverse. Start with a pdf, autoresolve its DOI online, then import all the resolved metadata into an EndNote item, rename the pdf according to some format and import/link it to the EndNote item.
But it wouldn't really surprise me if DOI is not embedded at all. The electronic journal systems still seems rather ineffective and user-unfriendly.
from atom prober in the comments:
PDF supports XMP. XMP allows all the dublin core metadata that Zotero, refbase, OpenOffice.org, and other products are using.
We just need to have publishers care enough to put this data in and more end-user tools to index/view/search/edit it.
One question about Endnote users:
Would you use Endnote for keeping track of your pdf's and documents if you weren't using it for research? Like, if you didn't already have Endnote for school purposes (or some other academic application) you wouldn't go out and buy it for it's ability to annotate your documents, right?
I'm just trying to get a feel who is using Endnote this way. In my case, I'd probably go with Surfulater or something a little less expensive, especially if I didn't it for a properly formatted bibliography.-superboyac (June 14, 2007, 10:19 AM)
A possible solution would be to implement fingerprinting for pdf (like what musicIP does) [---] Now we only need someone to code/maintain a central repository of pdf metadata, and mappings fingerprints -> ids.This is a great idea that completely bypasses the need for DOI extraction. One way I can see it happening would be if some popular application like Zotero implemented this as an opt in feature that works automatic in the background. That is, every time someone downloads both article metadata and a pdf through Zotero, Zotero silently uploads pdf fingerprint and matching metadata to some server. As the database grows, downloading just pdf files will be enough since the metadata is already available in the open archive. Zotero seems like the kind of tool that is innovative and community driven enough to be ready to pioneer something like that.
There should be a beta of Zoot v. 5 (32 bit) coming these days, at last.-alxwz (July 08, 2007, 08:24 PM)
However, I did register for the beta testers list a while ago, but didn't get any notice up to now.
I like locate also. And for searching inside documents, archivarius. Combine that with a good web capturing and notetaking tool like Evernote, or surfulater, or something else, and you have a pretty good overall system.-superboyac (June 13, 2007, 12:00 PM)
Sorry I didn't put this precisely enough.
This is most likely a non-public beta and I'm not exactly sure who qualifies as a beta tester.
Please see the original announcement (May, 31) by Tom Davis on Yahoo groups:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ZootForum/message/11696
and this post from June, 21
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ZootForum/message/11726
and the ongoing discussion.-alxwz (July 09, 2007, 06:26 PM)
Public Release 2.1.0.327 (June 25, 2007)http://www.evernote.com/en/products/evernote/releasenotes.php
New Features:
NEW NAVIGATION FUNCTIONALITY
• Ability to sort the Note List and underlying tape notes by Note List's columns significantly simplifies navigation.
• Category Intersection Panel can be opened from the View Menu.
• New shortcuts have been added for Categories Window, Note Lock, Delete Note for keyboard-oriented users.
IMPROVED EDITING
• Each note can be converted into a To-Do item with a new checkbox available in Note Bar.
• Basic image editing in the notes has been added - a new right-click menu item "Edit Picture" provides various image editing options.
ENHANCED CLIPPING
• The clipped content can be instantly sent via email using a new button in the Notification window for all EverNote clippers including Universal Clipper.
NEW UNIVERSAL CLIPPER FUNCTIONALITY
• Ability to add ink markup to image has been added. This feature allows writing over the selected screen area and then saving the annotated image to the EverNote tape or as a separate file.• EverNote application will be launched automatically during clipping even if it was not running.
• Ability to specify target database has been added. It can be done either inside of the My.EverNote.com context menu or while clipping by holding Shift.
• The Universal Clipper now determines whether EverNote is busy at the moment of clipping and sends an appropriate message (instead of previous "Can't clip" error message).
• The highlighted screen area can be saved using the Ctrl+S shortcut.
NEW EXPORT AND IMPORT FUNCTIONALITY
• New Import Wizard sets up automatic addition to the tape of the content from any folder and its subfolders, including folders on feature and camera phones connected via USB port.
• Auto-import for POP3 emails has been added. It allows importing snapshots sent from camera phones.
MISCELLANEOUS
• Silent installation mode for EverNote Clippers for Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird has been added. Installations will be done for "current user" or for "all users" depending on the selection for the whole setup.
Bug Fixes & Improvements:
LOOK AND FEEL
• Short/full note height is now saved in the note.
• Screen location of the Notification Window is now saved in registry.
CATEGORIES
• The ability to create sub-categories with the same name in different hierarchies has been restored.
• Fixed a bug that prevented dropping keywords onto categories.
• Fixed a bug that prevented a note from becoming "Uncategorized" after all assigned categories have been deleted.
EDITING
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect handling of the Ctrl-Alt-V shortcut in the full-screen editing mode.
NAVIGATION
• Fixed mouse-wheel scrolling issues with IntelliMouse driver for Windows Vista.
EXPORT, IMPORT, AND BACKUP
• Fixed a bug that caused Auto-import memory leaks.
• Fixed a bug that caused EN crashes during database restore operation if no database is open.
• The backup file name origins from the database name instead of previously used numeric combinations.
• Fixed a bug that prevented restoring a database from a "read-only" backup file.
ADVANCED NOTES RECOGNITION (ANR) FOR INK NOTES
• Increased recognition accuracy by using more advanced algorithms.
• Implemented automatic title generation for ink notes (in EverNote Plus only).
• Fixed a bug that caused interruption of ink collection during auto-saving of the database.
• Fixed a bug that caused EverNote crash after a long ink note has been created.
CLIPPING
All clippers
• All EverNote Clippers are integrated with EverNote Outlook Extension.
EverNote Universal Clipper
• Fixed a bug that caused unblocking Win+A while the Resize Selection dialog box is open.
• Fixed a bug that caused Universal Clipper to crash if selection area was extended beyond the screen area using keyboard.
• Fixed a bug that caused Clipper to always start minimized.
• Fixed a bug which caused memory leaking after each insertion of captured image into the EverNote tape.
• Fixed a bug that caused improper positioning of settings window in a multi-monitor mode.
EverNote Clipper for Microsoft Outlook
• Clipper now adds "Subject" line in the clipped email.
• Ensured that a clipped portion of email is stamped by clipping time rather that the time of email receipt.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Outlook Clipper from clipping into a database opened in EverNote Outlook Extension.
EverNote Web Clippers for Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird
• Fixed a bug that distorted clipped messages from Thunderbird.
• Fixed a bug that assigned different titles to clips of whole mail and its portion.
INSTALLATION
• The setup suggests to close Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird before it can install/update/uninstall the EverNote Clippers for those applications.
• Fixed a bug that prevented EverNote from starting under a limited user profile after a successful installation.
• The setup checks disk existence if the media was changed during the installation.
MISCELLANEOUS
• Help file has been updated for this release.
• The seed database has been updated - all broken links in sample/welcome notes have been fixed and orphaned categories have been removed. Text Notes category has been removed.
• Updated Demo Flash Movie - fixed typos and date format.
For more information also see the Known Problems page.
________________________________________
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/397/0/web-research--wow-Armando (July 13, 2007, 02:08 AM)
Folks might be interested in taking a look at that site, http://www.outlinersoftware.com. It's a discussion forum for people "interested in outlining, PIM, and knowledge management software."-twinkler (July 15, 2007, 04:36 PM)
Folks might be interested in taking a look at that site, http://www.outlinersoftware.com. It's a discussion forum for people "interested in outlining, PIM, and knowledge management software."-twinkler (July 15, 2007, 04:36 PM)
I'm sure folks over there would be very happy to see you all!
"Outlinersoftware.com" was originally "outliners.com/discuss," a forum set up by Dave Winer in the 90s to exchange views about outliners (mainly single-pane ones). Nowadays, as well as outlining, it touches on other aspects of researching and writing as well - web clipping, pims, note-taking, editing, word-processing, etc. It has a big searchable archive going back many years. The move to a new server somewhat disrupted the little community, but it is recovering well.
DBC-DBC (July 27, 2007, 10:27 AM)
I'm starting to like evernote
In a way it is a path i am on which relies less on my having to impose structure, and more on tag and search.-iphigenie (July 28, 2007, 10:17 AM)
Zoot's organization features are so powerful, no other program offers it. It's automatic rules, filtering, categorizing, etc is really great (I would liken it to a really powerful email filtering system). Evernote is doing a decent job in this area, but once Zoot is finished in the 32-bit version, Evernote will just be eye-candy.-superboyac (July 30, 2007, 11:50 AM)
@SuperboyacZoot32 doesn't deal any differently with graphics than Zoot16 (yet). In other words, there is no graphics functionality other than linking to a graphic file. I want to emphasize that at this point, there are no tangible differences between Zoot32 and Zoot16 other than the underlying base being 32-bit instead of 16-bit, which is ultimately transparent to the user. The author has only mentioned RTF support as an added functionality in the works for later beta versions.
How does the Zoot 32-bits deal with graphics ? Evernote is/was much stronger in this area. Graphics are not that much of a big deal for me, but we live in 2007.
"Organizationwise" we'd need something like "Zoot meets X1", but for the whole file system.-Armando (July 30, 2007, 04:58 PM)
I think Evernote's big strength, at least in my usage, is in saving webpages. I like it for saving things like purchase receipts.-Darwin (July 31, 2007, 10:06 AM)
I know nothing about Surfulater (http://www.surfulater.com), but note that it is going to be on offer at a discount here soon (sorry - read about it this morning and cannot now find the link!).-Darwin (July 31, 2007, 11:46 AM)
Zoot is for people who have an enormous amount of text they need to organized in a pretty uniquely powerful manner.-superboyac (July 31, 2007, 01:39 AM)
Zoot meets X1 is nice to think about, but don't bet on it. I don't think Zoot will be an indexer of any type in the near future. I like Archivarius for indexing.-superboyac (July 31, 2007, 01:39 AM)
I know nothing about Surfulater (http://www.surfulater.com), but note that it is going to be on offer at a discount here soon (sorry - read about it this morning and cannot now find the link!).-Darwin (July 31, 2007, 11:46 AM)
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=9218.msg68253#msg68253 :)-Wordzilla (July 31, 2007, 12:00 PM)
But I’m a bit sick of having to import my stuff into different databases (and loosing formating and other usefull tweakings in the process) to be able to use the organizing power of some software. That's the main reason why I never really bought into any of the Ultra Recall, myBase, etc. solutions... And even EverNote, to some extent, since I only keep around 40-50 notes max in there, for very practical reason (at some point, I had 800 notes in there — which, I’m sure, is much less than other EverNote’s users — and it literally became a nightmare; I really *hated* to work with such a a big amount of “pseudo classified” notesin evernote,-Armando (July 31, 2007, 12:21 PM)
TreeDB is another EATKS* software. It does everything, and is more of a PIM than a notetaking program. Just its toolbar is enormous! So many buttons! It is pretty powerful, but it does way too much for me to say that it's a good notetaking software.
Your focus is: *ILLGC softwareI'll ignore this, i can understand why you felt that way. The "ILL" part hurt my feelings...but I don't know what a goose chaser is. If you explain that, then I can be properly insulted by it. (I mean that all in fun :P).
inefficient, low, level, goose chaser
At least you extracted some conclusions of 25 pages of discussion... something that superboyac (I think) couldn't achieve through the thread. Well, I have seen +1000 pages threads, so let's keep going for some other 25 :)Wait....what? I didn't come up with any conclusions? I don't get it...-Lashiec (September 18, 2007, 03:16 PM)
Ah! I see. Well, that's not so bad.
Maybe our quest for the perfect notetaker is a wild goose chase, but at least we can try, right? Let the goose chasing continue for another 25 pages!-superboyac (September 19, 2007, 04:52 PM)
Let the goose chasing continue for another 25 pages!-superboyac (September 19, 2007, 04:52 PM)
Thanks. Yes I'm a long time Ecco user and designer of SQLNotes (code name) which takes the Ecco outline/grid concept and improves on it. Currently SQLNotes is missing some PIM aspects, but it already is a great Note-taker, 1 or 2 pane outliner with grid, and overall flexible database. Everybody is welcomed to download a free copy at www.sqlnotes.net. (and please report any problems to help clean it up.). Runs on Windows and Mac under Parallels.
I have seen and read that thread with great interest, along with the summary at https://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/NoteTakers1/index.php :
Great work, perhaps it could be updated with some SQLNotes info :)
Pierre-PPLandry (September 17, 2007, 07:27 PM)
On my personal quests I have found many decent programs for #1 and #2 - all of which have been mentioned somewhere on this thread. But for #3 I haven't found anything, tried many outliners and write-oriented word processors... and end up not using them after a first "burst" of activity. And I don't have a mac so I cant try the sexiest program in that category :S-iphigenie (September 19, 2007, 04:08 AM)
It is the information manager that I use for the last 2 years (replacing Ecco), for note-taking, time-management, contact-management, billing, todo-lists and so features have and will be added, in part, because I need them for my own information management!-PPLandry (September 19, 2007, 09:03 PM)
Plus unlike just about all other 'innovative software' the SQLNotes data is not locked up in some proprietary format. It now uses JET and could use another (SQLServer, mySQL, SQLite, SQLServer Express) eventually. So if dev. stops (it won't happen, but let us suppose), all your data is completely accessible.-PPLandry (September 19, 2007, 09:03 PM)
[…]
- any given app must use an INDUSTRY known storage system or database. Do not let the eye-candy stuff distract you from how the app is storing data. Unfortunately, this information is not typically put on the front pages. Most of the time I have to dig deep in the web site to find it. But, I ALWAYS search this fact as the very first step. I can tell you at least of 5 apps I used where I lost my data in full or part.
- Do not use or invest in apps that are either dead of dying away. Unless you see and hear from the development team, do not even bother looking.
[…]-cnewtonne (May 20, 2007, 08:11 PM)
...a very good sign.
Quote from: PPLandry on September 19, 2007, 09:03:51 PM
Plus unlike just about all other 'innovative software' the SQLNotes data is not locked up in some proprietary format. It now uses JET and could use another (SQLServer, mySQL, SQLite, SQLServer Express) eventually. So if dev. stops (it won't happen, but let us suppose), all your data is completely accessible.
Now, this is very positive.
Armando, I see that you've downloaded SQLNotes. Did it install correctly? Were you able to explore its features? Version 0.9.16 will be out in a few days, fixing bugs and improving many aspects, including outline fonts and charts-PPLandry (September 20, 2007, 01:26 PM)
Yes it did [install correctly]!
I didn't have enough time to get familiar with SQLNotes to make intelligent comments about it, but I will...
Probably during the weekend!
Let's just say that I'm impressed with what I saw. I'm eager to see the calendar functionnality when it's integrated.
Thanks for joining the discussion PPLandry! (and... my last post -- #661 --was supposed to be posted in the other thread... a mistake. :-[ But not all that bad, after all...)-Armando (September 20, 2007, 02:12 PM)
One of the biggest problems with this kind of software is the lack of Unicode support. Only NoteCase, EverNote, myBase, CyberArticle and IdeaMason support Unicode right now.-muntealb (September 21, 2007, 03:06 AM)
Romanian has two characters that are correctly displayed only with Unicode. These are U0218 (S with comma below) and U021A (T with comma below), both being part of the Unicode Latin Extended-B subset.
I use TexNotes Pro, but I'm afraid GemX is having too many problems.
Want to try TreeDBNotes Pro, but their site never works right.
Does anyone else have trouble downloading from:
http://mytreedb.com/download/treedb/setup_treedbnotes_pro.exe
Thanks.-Ted M (November 02, 2007, 07:26 AM)
Signed in and tried to download sqlnotes, but all I get is You Do Not Have Permission To View The Requested File :huh:-Dormouse (November 02, 2007, 01:06 PM)
Signed in and tried to download sqlnotes, but all I get is You Do Not Have Permission To View The Requested File :huh:If you are still having problems, I can send it to you by email.-Dormouse (November 02, 2007, 01:06 PM)
If you are still having problems, I can send it to you by email.-PPLandry (November 02, 2007, 02:19 PM)
Hi All,Awesome list! Wow, look at all the options, that's ridiculous. Maybe there's something better than MindManager out there for Mind Maps. Sometimes, I feel like MindManager is lacking certain things, but the only other one I was aware of was Freemind, which is worse (although free).
This may have been mentioned before to sorry if it has. Have a look here http://www.mind-mapping.org/ and feast your eyes on a massive list of note-taking software, knowledge management and information organising software. Some of it is free and some commercial. I hope this helps.
Regards
Othalian :)-Othalian (December 02, 2007, 06:12 AM)
(BTW : to be as good a "note taker" as... I don't know... EverNote, it should be extremely fast and painless to insert notes and web clips. Those clips should have an automatic reference (web page address, etc.) "attached" to them, + instant creation date and "automatic title", etc. Everything else is already there in SQLNotes : tagging, etc.)You are quite right that this aspect of SQLNotes does need improvements It should be as simple as: Select text in your browser > right-click > Send as a new item, or > Append to the current item
You are quite right that this aspect of SQLNotes does need improvements It should be as simple as: Select text in your browser > right-click > Send as a new item, or > Append to the current itemThe auto-search is cool. The difference with Evernote's search is that evernote will search all text in the database, not just the first word like the auto-search seems to. Also, as each letter is typed in evernote, any item (note, in their case) that doesn't match the search disappears from the list, so all that is left is a short list of matching items with all the matching terms highlighted. If your auto-search gets to this level, it would be amazing. Maybe that's what your filter-as-you-type will do, I'm not sure.
@ superboyac and Armando: Thank you both for such encouraging words.
@ superboyac: The SQLNotes grid does have a search-as-you-type mode. It is called auto-search. Check it out! Also Filter-as-you-type is coming soon-PPLandry (December 05, 2007, 08:44 PM)
>Will the filter-as-you-type be able to search the html pane?Great! That means I can use SQL as an Evernote replacement if I want. This program continues to amaze me.
The HTML pane uses a field just like all others (ItemHTML, a text field), but with a specialized editor. So yes it will work. A related field is ItemHTMLText which contains the text part of the HTML (without all the markup). I recommend using that one for searching since formatting markup will not get in the way.-PPLandry (December 06, 2007, 12:53 PM)
Great! There are a few things missing to be an Evernote replacement, one of which is IE and FF (and hopefully Opera) right-click menu to copy content...I believe Opera is a major problem for everyone that way - it's the reason I use FF - Surfulater cant manage Opera (or should that be the other way round :))
Does anyone at DC know how to do that? Initial search of the web did not give much...-PPLandry (December 06, 2007, 01:07 PM)
No problem! I'll have to check MonkeyPirateTidyWiki (http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/) out for myself (though I'm awash in notetakers already :o)-Darwin (December 13, 2007, 01:03 AM)
All paid versions and all better at some things than the others, but none that seem to do it all well.Would you care to share what are the relative weaknesses of each of these 3 ?
Someday I'll find that perfect note-taker!-J-Mac (December 13, 2007, 02:02 AM)
I see that Wikipedia mentions the slowness of Tiddly Wiki based programs, which is likely to be especially troublesome in Mozilla-based browsers. I'm interested, but slow I don't need. I'll be following this thread to see what kind of experience others have.Tiddly Wikis are javascript and (generally) XML based. Since they don't use a database to store the content (unlike real Wikis), they don't scale very well. They'll work fine at first, but will get slower and slower as it grows.-melitabel (December 13, 2007, 09:23 AM)
PPL, will SQLNotes have any slowdown as the database grows larger?
I've noticed this with a lot of notetaking programs. The speed of SQL is pretty good right now, and it's important that it doesn't slow down significantly because the program's power and flexibility is suited for keeping large databases in it. Will SQL support storing additional content in the future, like displaying pictures and so forth, because things like that cause slowdowns.-superboyac (December 13, 2007, 12:17 PM)
All paid versions and all better at some things than the others, but none that seem to do it all well.Would you care to share what are the relative weaknesses of each of these 3 ?
Someday I'll find that perfect note-taker!-J-Mac (December 13, 2007, 02:02 AM)-PPLandry (December 13, 2007, 07:29 AM)
- The "endless tape" format is pretty cool when you start using it, and can be useful if you have the time to play, but at times, if I'm in a hurry, the "tape" format can drive me nuts!
-J-Mac (December 13, 2007, 01:31 PM)
- It [EverNote] does support about as many categories as you could ever want, but no tagging. The explanation from users on their forum is that Evernote's search powers are so good and that tags basically suck anyway. Matter of opinion, I imagine; I don't have to have tags but I do like them.
-J-Mac (December 13, 2007, 01:31 PM)
“Although "tagging" is often promoted as an alternative to organization by a hierarchy of categories, more and more online resources seem to use a hybrid system, where items are organized into broad categories, with finer classification distinctions being made by the use of tags.”
There's no good answer because the pros and cons of each system are different enough where neither has a significant advantage over the other. I suggested that the best program will allow the user to choose between different organizing methods. Sometimes tagging is better. Sometimes a tree is better.-superboyac (December 13, 2007, 01:50 PM)
- [OneNote] Good tagging support, but you cannot add your own - something that can defeat the purpose of icons, which IMO is to allow finding notes at a glance due to instantly recognizable icons.
Sorry, long post… Readable I hope...-Armando (December 13, 2007, 08:34 PM)
I just came across this thread. I was interested in Whizfolders and followed a link from a lifehacker article to this page. Very interesting. Seems the thread stopped around xmas. I thought I'd fire up a note to see if folks are interested in keeping it going.-philosopherdog (April 19, 2008, 08:49 AM)
The one thing I found a bit disappointing about this discussion was the rather brisk dismissal of InfoSelect. InfoSelect, despite its many flaws, is probably still the most powerful note programs around. It can handle a tree structure with both automatic and manual tagging, filtering of tags and blisteringly fast search as you type. One thing that's very nice about it is the ability to float any number of windows even outside the program and pin them. Of course the program is a bit pricey and it does have some bloat (but you can shut off email support and other things). IS can readily split longer imported .doc files, which I haven't seen any other program be able to handle quite as powerfully.-philosopherdog (April 19, 2008, 08:49 AM)
Recently I've been using Evernote 2.2. It's amazing for webcapture, and I love the tagging feature. But like others have observed, the fact that you can only display your list chronologically is a serious limitation. But it's superior to Onenote by miles.-philosopherdog (April 19, 2008, 08:49 AM)
For me the ideal notetaking application would build on the strengths of MS Word. I would love the power of Word, especially Word's outline view, and styles. From there all I would need is the ability to tag paragraphs is unlimited ways, and the ability to filter my information and search it quickly with the ability to display this either strictly according to my paragraph tags or according to some combination of tags and headings. Anyhow, right now I still don't see anything more powerful out there than Infoselect, although I'm checking out SQLNotes and hoping this will be it!-philosopherdog (April 19, 2008, 08:49 AM)
Thanx for the feedback on SQLNotes. I'm wondering... is there a quick start guide somewhere? One thing I found difficult right away was the inability to adjust font sizes. It seemed to be defaulting to something too small in the text windows. The thing with Infoselect that's so powerful for me is the ability to set up smart folders that will take any search strings, and I just add tag words to text items, and it filter them into a folder. This is the same basic functionality that Evernote has. It will also allow automatically filtering based on keywords that you set using boolean operators. So, I can just dump a big word research note document into Infoselect and break it up into card sized chunks of info by tagging it with two dashes, and then filter however I wish using keywords. If I could get SQLNotes up and running with this sort of simple filtering I'd love to have a look at it. Is this difficult to do? Can you breakup text items easily or join them easily? The other thing I noticed was the inability to just import a .doc file. I gather this will be added soon. I'm certainly looking forward to the release of this program. It sounds like it might be that legendary program we're all waiting for. From what I understand Devonthink is such a program in the Mac world, but I've never actually worked with it. So far I think InfoSelect is definitely the most powerful thing I've seen. I think it's true that synching is poor and it's not pretty, but it's bloody powerful. I was going to also thank you for the Evernotes tip. I do like EN, but somehow it seems too crude for serious research writing. I'd love to hear how you use SQLNotes for research. If the details are too much for the list we can always take it to email or chat. I concur that Endnote is amazing, and I'm using it. Thanx for your post.-philosopherdog (April 20, 2008, 09:16 PM)
BTW, EverNote allows you to display your list in other ways, not only chronologically. If you go into view-->note list, and click on the "title" heading of the note list, all notes will be ordered alphabetically by their title.-Armando (April 19, 2008, 11:49 AM)
Has anybody tried just using Word Docs/Pdfs/Excel/text notes to store their information and using a desktop search engine to tie them all together? I am considering just using a well thought out directory structure and individual documents. The structured folders would do just as well as tagging would in say Evernote and it seems that Copernic would be able to get me just as quick access as any of the dedicated programs do.
The portability of this is very appealing to me. Not to mention that I don't have to have another program running in the background. It is just as easy to print a web page to pdf as it is to clip to OneNote or Evernote.-edbro (April 30, 2008, 09:51 AM)
Tobu is a freeform information organizer. It can be used to organize notes, todo lists, files, clips, code snips, diary entries and more or less any type of intformation that can be entered as text or stored in a file; its goal is to make very large number of items of information (hundreds of thousands or more) easily manageable, but it's also well suited to managing smaller collections of data.
Tobu revolves around tagging each item of information and using filters to create lists of items, to sort and filter them further as needed; the aim of Tobu is to avoid organizing data as it is added and instead to limit the job of adding items to describing them with tags and sortable tags (more on that below), it is only when user is looking for data it is organized on the fly by filtering tags and sorting resulting lists.
incollector: a desktop note-taking app that uses tags to structure information[ You are not allowed to view attachments ] (http://www.incollector.devnull.pl/)
Posted July 22, 2008
Description: Incollector is a freeware note-taking program that runs in the background and offers simple notes on demand from the system tray. It uses user-defined tags and saved searches to structure information rather than a traditional folder/category hierarchical structure.
Wish list:
* Any or all of the items mentioned in “what it does not offer” above (http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/07/22/incollector-a-desktop-note-taking-app-that-uses-tags-to-structure-information/) would be good.
* The ability to define the location of the saved notes file on the hard drive.
* Portability; although I imagine that might be difficult to achieve with an app that requires the .NET Framework.
The verdict: there aren’t many free non-hierarchical, tag-based desktop-note taking programs out there, which is what makes Incollector so interesting. You will appreciate Incollector if you are (a) not looking for a lot of bells and whistles necessarily, but (b) are interested in a good, straightforward desktop note taking program with the ability to structure information based on your own user-defined tags. A very nice program overall.
Version Tested: 1.1
Compatibility: Windows, Linux; no info on Vista.
Requires .NET 2.0 Framework for the Windows version,
requires Mono and GTK-Sharp to work on Linux.
via the comments:-
PPLandry (dc member/author of SQLNotes) has put- (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14188.msg122045#msg122045))
this list in an online spreadsheet, with read/write access to all, as in this one where I’ve imported the original list:
http://www.editgrid.com/user/pplandry/List_of_Outliners
Anybody can add/edit the info, sort, etc-tomos (July 24, 2008, 03:36 AM)
Related to the subject of thi mega thread, there's super list of Outliners (http://www.editgrid.com/user/pplandry/List_of_Outliners) announced there (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14188.msg122045#msg122045)-Armando (July 27, 2008, 04:15 PM)
Related to the subject of thi mega thread, there's super list of Outliners (http://www.editgrid.com/user/pplandry/List_of_Outliners) announced there (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14188.msg122045#msg122045)-Armando (July 27, 2008, 04:15 PM)
Yowsers!! Now that is a list!! Thanks Pierre, now I know where to go to for a reference.-superboyac (July 27, 2008, 06:40 PM)
Actually I have very little merit.-PPLandry (July 27, 2008, 07:01 PM)
I'll do it this afternoon during my coffee break.-Armando (July 28, 2008, 10:43 AM)
Haha! Yeah, I know. Don't do it Armando! I don't want to be responsible for a heart attack.I'll do it this afternoon during my coffee break.-Armando (July 28, 2008, 10:43 AM)
;D [except I'd nearly believe you could Armando] ;D-tomos (July 28, 2008, 04:37 PM)
As a daily VERY enthusiast user of SQLNotes, I think it's important to remember that SQLNotes is still beta and will have rough edges, bugs and missing features (for some) until V1... but less and less as the software gets closer to release time... ;)-Armando (August 03, 2008, 09:02 PM)
urlwolf, as you wrote earlier Office 2007 can now run via Wine. Here's a thread specifically on Onenote 2007 under Wine in Ubuntu: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=744743 . The core seems ok, but some features do not work. I haven't tried it yet myself, but plan to do so sometime. If it runs well enough, and especially if there are no problems saving/opening Onenote content across the "OS border", then I will probably commit to Onenote as my primary notetaking tool. If you or anyone else here has by now tried it then please post your impressions here.-Nod5 (July 27, 2008, 06:10 PM)
This way, when you are in a class or a lecture and you wish you could stop the professor, rewind him, and hear it again, you can! It's instant replay for your life. If you're interested, check it out at http://www.perfectnotes.com.-perfectnotes (December 27, 2008, 10:46 PM)
Using mouse on timemark buttons means a lot of movement away from keyboard & writing.-Dormouse (December 27, 2008, 11:41 PM)
What do you mean by clickable checkboxes? I'm not familiar with those. Do you mean a checkbox on the timeline that you could mark off that you have listened to that marker?-perfectnotes (December 28, 2008, 12:41 AM)
You can use the keyboard shortcuts to create markers quickly on the fly without having to use the mouse at all. If you click on Options and then My Timemark Hot Keys, you can configure the keyboard shortcuts to create markers in the timeline. There are many options including the Pause key, function keys, and others. You can optionally type in a short label in your marker.-perfectnotes (December 28, 2008, 12:41 AM)
The price will be $9.95 per month with automatic upgrades. A microphone and CD will be shipped to each customer when they subscribe.-perfectnotes (December 28, 2008, 12:17 AM)
Yes, we've used it. But it's very difficult to use quickly in real time and the audio is not good at all.-perfectnotes (December 29, 2008, 01:45 PM)
I just bought livescribe Pulse pen for notetaking and recording. I think it is an amazing tool for note taking.-kartal (January 10, 2009, 01:36 PM)
Well this thing does not fit any simple definition but let me give you little insight-kartal (January 10, 2009, 04:00 PM)
Here is a nice list of the research tools:
http://www.researchresources.info/-sciagent (February 17, 2009, 07:40 PM)
Cianoc,I have a copy of it if anyone needs it. Evernote gave it to me themselves when i asked.
would it not be possible to get another copy of Evernote out there somewhere ? (then again, if you want something in development)
I'm not in no way a heavy user of these apps but I'm using IQ/SQLNotes for work, web-clipping, and now am organising my notes from evernote in there too.
I'm still using Evernote as a "scratchpad"-tomos (April 11, 2009, 08:13 AM)
Found Chandlerproject (http://chandlerproject.org). Not sure if it fits for every needs.-mahesh2k (August 26, 2009, 07:56 AM)
If you are looking for note taking software for studying have you considered Wiznotes?
Eli Cohen
Wiznotes-EliCohen (August 26, 2009, 03:14 AM)
Hi Eli and welcome to DonationCoder! So Wiznotes is your creation? It looks interesting. I like the graphics - large icons with a kind of cartoon look to them! Appears to be geared almost exclusively toward students. (Correct me if I'm wrong!). Not inexpensive, though.That is correct - it is geared for students. Wiznotes is a productivity tool specifically designed to help students to take notes, save time and succeed in their exams. Wiznotes 3.0 will be coming out within the next few weeks. Version 3.0 will be free to university/college students. If you have any questions we will be happy to answer them.
Maybe someone here will take a closer look and review it.
Thank you.
Jim
Edit: Thought I'd add a link for those who want to take a look: http://www.wiznotes.com (http://www.wiznotes.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx)-J-Mac (August 26, 2009, 11:39 AM)
I have read this thread and all or most others on organizing and I wanted to get some feedback.There aren't too many of these that I have encountered. It is a feature that has been discussed in this thread somewhere in these gazillion pages. I think the feature is useful, also.
What has been on my mind is finding a note repository or PIM that is capable of presenting a view of all my saved notes or appointments or tasks and to me this is important, not just their respective titles or headers but a more detailed view. There are examples that come close like Do-Organizer and others which have 'reports' but I believe these are more tailored for printing purposes. May be what I am looking for is to have my notes arranged on the screen like a mind mapper but again may be.
Any thoughts? Point me to one discussed in this or other threads that may come close? :)-rgdot (October 25, 2009, 11:10 PM)
I looked at Notezilla and it says "Stay Neat: Organize sticky notes inside folders to avoid clutter on your Windows Desktop." Does that mean I can view stickies within the program window instead of on the desktop?-rgdot (October 26, 2009, 10:11 AM)
SNow I am getting Windows update prompts for '2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service pack 1', Who says I have 2007 Office installed? :huh: And 2007 office is not listed as a requirement for Onenote 2007 but maybe it is? then again Onenote seems to be working, at least the few minutes that I have tried it.By definition,if you have OneNote installed, MS will see that as Office; no idea how integrated the updates have to be, but maybe it is just the way they describe them.
I have a fully patched version of Office 2003, may be I should have downloaded Onenote 2003?-rgdot (October 26, 2009, 07:14 PM)
@Dormouse, Thank you, makes sense. Just made me laugh when I got a service pack that was ~194MBI don't like Evernote's web version. Not because of the features, but more because I strongly prefer using localized software. I still use Evernote's version 2. Keep at Onenote, it may be just the thing for you. The consensus is that Onenote is one of the few applications that Microsoft got right.
Onenote and Compendium look nice, in different ways, may be I will look into Onenote 2010 somehow. Going to play with them more. Keeping my eyes open for others as well, including Notezilla and Evernote.-rgdot (October 27, 2009, 10:47 AM)
I don't like Evernote's web version. Not because of the features, but more because I strongly prefer using localized software. I still use Evernote's version 2.-superboyac (October 27, 2009, 11:05 AM)
I have read this thread and all or most others on organizing and I wanted to get some feedback.
What has been on my mind is finding a note repository or PIM that is capable of presenting a view of all my saved notes or appointments or tasks and to me this is important, not just their respective titles or headers but a more detailed view. There are examples that come close like Do-Organizer and others which have 'reports' but I believe these are more tailored for printing purposes. May be what I am looking for is to have my notes arranged on the screen like a mind mapper but again may be.
Any thoughts? Point me to one discussed in this or other threads that may come close? :)-rgdot (October 25, 2009, 11:10 PM)
I'm going to have to compare Text Block Writer with OneNote. THey seem very similar. What are the strengths of each one?I have read this thread and all or most others on organizing and I wanted to get some feedback.
What has been on my mind is finding a note repository or PIM that is capable of presenting a view of all my saved notes or appointments or tasks and to me this is important, not just their respective titles or headers but a more detailed view. There are examples that come close like Do-Organizer and others which have 'reports' but I believe these are more tailored for printing purposes. May be what I am looking for is to have my notes arranged on the screen like a mind mapper but again may be.
Any thoughts? Point me to one discussed in this or other threads that may come close? :)-rgdot (October 25, 2009, 11:10 PM)
I almost posted a link for Text Block Writer - well why not - Text Block Writer (http://softwarebybrian.com/cms/content/view/20/2/) which I havent tried yet but came across at this great blog here (http://www.rgdot.com/bl/2009/11/06/text-block-writer/) which it turns out is yours :-[ lol-tomos (November 20, 2009, 03:52 PM)
Guys,
The more I use wave for notes, the more I realize one thing:
Collaboration is the future, and it's here already.
Writing notes with more people is superior.
Notes to oneself are ok, but one should design for the more general
case, then n=1 is an special case.
Now, office 2010 offers collaboration in real time. Wave does that too.
My prediction is that from 2010 on, everyone will be used to documents
that can be changed in real time by more than one person.
Right now, a notetaker that offers real-time collaboration, and works
fine offline too is the way to go. I think Microsoft oneNote will get there first -they have it working already in their beta-, or someone doing a desktop client for wave.
If the latter, it could be open source and useful in more platforms.
Anyone using wave for notes here?-urlwolf (October 26, 2009, 12:08 PM)
I've been using OneNote more and more lately. it's a really great program. Nice interface, and fast to work with. I guess the three programs I am using for notetaking now are InfoQube, OneNote, and EverNote (v2).
Evernote is still great for just jotting random bits of stuff down and forgetting about it. because it will be super easy to find. But I use Evernote very little overall.
Onenote is taking the place of Evernote. I'll stick any clips, any random information in it. And the way you can freely place stuff all over the place is the best.
Infoqube is what I use in the most formal manner. Meaning I know for sure I want to keep this information and it's important. The problem with Infoqube right now for me is that I use it a bit too seriously. Like I said for Evernote and Onenote, I use those two programs to just slap in information. I never do that with Infoqube. With IQ, I always think a little more about where to put it. It has to do with the interface. IQ is much more business like and hardcore than the other two. It makes me feel like I don't want to make a mistake. I almost treat it like this: I'll stick some info in Evernote or Onenote quickly, and when I'm really ready to store it for good, i'll transfer it to IQ somehow. IQ is my true information database. I wouldn't call the other two my "database". They are more like post-its. But that's good and bad for IQ. But Pierre is continually adding features to IQ. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually adds a Onenote-like feature where you can just freely insert notes in a whiteboard-like space.-superboyac (February 11, 2010, 07:53 PM)
Does IQ work under Linux properly, even under Wine?-kartal (February 12, 2010, 01:32 PM)
In evernote, you just start typing in the permanently docked search bar on the top. As you typed, the list of notes got shorter and shorter to just the matching ones. More importantly, every matching result was highlighted.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 05:21 PM)
Now, IQ does the same search as you type with the ctrl-f window. But it's not as simple to use. First of all, it's a separate window. I recommend having a permanatly docked search bar that will filter the displayed grid and not the entire database (or have an option for either/or).-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 05:21 PM)
The other complicated factor is that unlike EverNote, the information in IQ is stored in a variety of fields, not to mention the html pane. So how can the results be displayed, with all the matching terms highlighted, AND all the fields (inlcuding the html pane) being visible? That's a tough one, and I can't figure out a solution to that yet. With Evernote, there was only one 'field", which was the box the notes were in. So it was easy to highlight and display the matching results...there was only one thing to show. But with IQ, there are multiple.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 05:21 PM)
Actually, I just came up with a solution, here is my stab at it:
--First, have a permanantly docked search bar (like Evernote) that searches the current grid only (just to keep things simple).
--As you type in it, the actual grid will be filtered down to only the matching results. This would work the same as if you picked the "Show selected items in search grid" feature already present in the ctrl-f window. The difference here being that everything is happening in the current grid. No new windows, no special find dialog...it's all in the same window. And as you backspace or clear the search box, all the grid items would reappear as normal. In essence, it's the ultimate grid filter.
--Thirdly, ALL matches are highlighted. The matches in the normal fields are highlighted, and the matches in the html pane are highlighted. Multiple word searches would have different color highlights for each word (like Evernote and Google's highlighting features).-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 05:21 PM)
Now, as for Onenote, there is only one feature about it that makes me want to use it over IQ in some cases. That's the whiteboard idea where I can just write anywhere, place pictures anywhere, there is no structure to it. Other than that, I see no other reason to choose it over IQ. Here is an example of something I can do with Onenote that I can't do in IQ. I'm buying a new suit and I have pictures and bits of information all over the place for it, but I need to move them around freely: (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.msg195762#msg195762))
Well, I hope my suggestions prove to be useful.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 05:21 PM)
I noticed the new hoisting thing, but I didn't know what it was for. I have to play with it, I don't quite understand what it does right now.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 10:25 PM)
Maybe something to think about in the future is to consolidate all these search and filter features to some degree. You know the Bat (email program) did this quite recently. For years it had a very powerful find feature. Just recently, they added a "google type" option for the search dialog that essentially just searches everything. So it's not date specific, or regex specific, etc. like it was before (which is still available). They just added this search everything option, and now I use it almost exclusively. so maybe all the alphanumeric filter, column filter, date filter, etc...all these things can be consolidated in a simpler and smarter interface. Linkman also deals with the issue in a similar manner. It has one search box, and there are many checkboxes below as to what fields to search. Now, I know Infoqube offers all these features and more, I'm just talking about interface issues and implementation. In other words, i can get IQ to do whatever it is I'm thinking (usually), but maybe we can package all these features differently and more simply.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 10:25 PM)
Pierre is really great in that there is no feature he won't add to his program. i guess it's our job to help him with all of this whenever we can. It's amazing that with each new release, there are more and more things added to the program. I feel like at some point, Pierre is going to devote maybe a year or so to just interface things. There is just so much going on with the program. but I love it. It's the notetaker we were all waiting for for years.-superboyac (February 16, 2010, 10:25 PM)
CaptureSaver® - Professional Internet Research Tool
CaptureSaver lets you gather and permanently save information into an off-line research and reference library while you are surfing the Internet. It ensures you stop losing valuable information and always have what's important at your fingertips.
Save, organize and search anything with this internet research tool:
Web Pages, Blogs, Wikis, RSS News, Email, Images, Newsgroup Threads, and Other Internet Content
Text from Window, Screen Shots, Rich format text from Application such as Microsoft Word, Notepad, Adobe Acrobat Reader or others
I think I misread this thread title. But I wanted to offer that I have been using Google WAVE for Note-Taking and Brainstorming.
It is great for collaboration; although it requires a little patience getting accustomed to it - because it is so 'different'.-parkint (May 10, 2010, 08:15 PM)
Also be warned that there is no way (currently) to export / print a wave :down:-PPLandry (May 10, 2010, 08:23 PM)
Nice redesign nevf. Did you ever fix that issue were Surfulator files weren't syncing well with Dropbox?
I also read something about Free Reader mode. What's that? I haven't really been monitoring the site.-Paul Keith (July 05, 2010, 04:24 AM)
I did hope that there would be aversion of OneNote for Mac-melitabel (October 11, 2010, 03:03 PM)
Thanks! I missed that when I read the book (I confess to reading more to find out what happened than for detail, need to go back). I will tell this story when I talk about it.-melitabel (October 12, 2010, 03:52 PM)
It looks more like EverNote than OneNote at first glance, but I'll take a longer look later. I do need to find products which can work with both because we have people working on teams with both machines. When this discussion started in 2006, note talking was entirely personal. Now, there is little that I do without thinking, how will I be able to share this if I want to?
I have just written a blog post “Your Information in 'The Cloud' - Safe, Secure, Available or Not?” (http://blog.surfulater.com/2010/12/20/your-information-in-the-cloud-safe-secure-available-or-not/) which I thought may interest some here.-nevf (December 19, 2010, 04:56 PM)
Save and organize any texts with rich formatting.
Free-form personal notes organizer with tree-like structure. Sometimes this kind of software called outliners. Main purpose is to store many notes with hierarchical structure in single file.
* Main features: Modern easy-to-use interface
* Full rich text support including images, tables, bullets, etc.
* Powerful encryption
* Full-text search engine
* Organization with hierarchy and by keywords (tags)
* Export to HTML or RTF
* Spell checker
* File attachment to any nodes
* Portable mode support
* Multilanguage interface
Smereka is a freeware program that allows you to organize your data in an hierarchical, searchable database stored in a single file.
Your files and notes can be stored in a single file - Smereka database. This file is being indexed on the fly, so you can search your information items as soon as they are added to the database. All information items - files, notes and even folders - can be tagged to create "alternative hierarchy".
The search capabilities of "Smereka" are extended by a hierarchical system of item storage (in a tree). This allows you to sort your items into a tree-like structure. You can move, copy items from branch to branch, assign icons to them and more.
Your information (text, offline webpages) appear on the screen instantly, as soon as you click a tree item - you do not need to run an external program in most cases.
And of course, you can share the database. Having received a single file, your peer may instantly browse all the array of your data, search it or export information items to disk.
Here are typlical cases of freeform database usage:
* organizing snippets of text information: you are accumulating small, independent text files and saved webpages. They are used to store ideas, notes, article archive, etc.
* data mining: you are researching some topic. You need to save and analyze a lot of diverse information, which is located on different webpages, in different text files. You also want to save relevant discussions, IM chats etc.
* project management: you are leading a project, which requires organizing and storing a great quantity of artifacts: documents, important e-mails, chat transcripts, ideas, brainstorm protocols etc. In addition to specialized tools, such as MS projects, CMS or bug trackers, a personal database helps a manager to put pieces of informationtogether, which otherwise would not "fit" into these large and formal tools. Flexible reminders can be attached to any item and keep you track your project.
* structured information exchange: you need to send your colleague a set of file together with some relevant instructions. You can attach files to the database as info elements, and insert text items as child (or parent) nodes.
Aml Pages is tree-structured notes organizer for Windows. It contains all your notes, information, web pages, passwords, URL-address in the form of a tree, so you can quickly find what you need. The Aml Pages can easily save web pages (or fragments) from the Internet and provides a sticky for quick notes. Manage megatons of your notes with ease at work and at home.
Support plain text, rich text and web pages, tables and figures, attachments, and many plug-ins for expansion features. At any moment you can instantly record the important information in a sticky note, not looking up from the important cases.
Aml Pages allows you to store absolutely any information in its database: texts, images, screenshots, files, URLs and etc. Moreover, you can store both links to files and files themselves.
Aml Pages Home License
Organize Notes In a Tree Structure
By now, we've all gotten used to the intuitive effectiveness of the tree structure for navigating file systems. It all makes so much sense, having nested folders to organize your data for easy retrieval - so why not adopt this same approach to your notes? With today's discount software promotion, Aml Pages, you can!
Aml Pages lets you keep all of your notes, information, websites, passwords, and other data in a convenient and intuitive tree structure. With Aml Pages, you'll be able to capture information quickly as you perform your research, making your workflow more productive and efficient. Capturing a complete web page is as simple as pressing a hotkey, or dragging and dropping selected text. There's native support for plain text, rich text, images, screenshots, tables and figures, attachments, and more. Anything you need to save, you can save with Aml Pages!
Beyond just the tree structure, Aml Pages also helps you by letting you customize each node of your tree with its own font, size, style, and color. On top of that, you can use tags to further categorize your information. When it comes time to find anything, a powerful search engine lets you quickly locate your target, and you can create adjustable filters to include or exclude specific criteria. Bonus features include password protection for all data and backup copies, and autosave that ensures that your notes are always safeguarded!
Promotion Written by Derek Lee
Well, that's something, anyway. We aren't going to adopt Office 2010 anytime soon, on the grounds that it's a memory hog, so I won't worry that I'm missing anything. I did hope that there would be aversion of OneNote for Mac, but I think I would have heard of that by now, if so.
Thanks!-melitabel (October 11, 2010, 03:03 PM)
Hmm, I'd recommend Excel 2010 because you get to make *custom* ribbons which changes the whole Ribbon discussion for me at least!-TaoPhoenix (May 16, 2012, 05:58 PM)
I'm not sure what the ribbon has to do with note-taking, but it is one of the most annoying inventions ever. For one thing, there's nothing ribbony about it. One dictionary definition is "notion consisting of a narrow strip of fine material used for trimming." The MS ribbon is hardly narrow; it takes up a practically a third of the screen.-longrun (May 16, 2012, 11:34 PM)
The MS ribbon is hardly narrow; it takes up a practically a third of the screen.You have tried the standard Ribbon-minimize/hide feature? Double-clicking one of the tabs enables/disables that state.-longrun (May 16, 2012, 11:34 PM)
Cause someone mentioned a favorite program being better now because of the ability to customize its ribbon... Surely you saw that?-J-Mac (May 17, 2012, 11:01 AM)
You have tried the standard Ribbon-minimize/hide feature? Double-clicking one of the tabs enables/disables that state.-Ath (May 17, 2012, 11:10 AM)
Cause someone mentioned a favorite program being better now because of the ability to customize its ribbon... Surely you saw that?-J-Mac (May 17, 2012, 11:01 AM)
What I saw was that Excel 2010 now had that ability, so I wasn't sure how that pertained to note-taking. Maybe I missed something.-longrun (May 17, 2012, 12:16 PM)
Cause someone mentioned a favorite program being better now because of the ability to customize its ribbon... Surely you saw that?-J-Mac (May 17, 2012, 11:01 AM)
What I saw was that Excel 2010 now had that ability, so I wasn't sure how that pertained to note-taking. Maybe I missed something.-longrun (May 17, 2012, 12:16 PM)
Well, I've mentioned it about Excel 2010 now too. Meanwhile, depending on "what a note is", if you don't need the tree concept, then Excel is stunning for other kinds of notes - its very "chartiness" lets you make endless little tables of info, but now with the new Customizable Ribbon all the excruciating top-down misery of 2007's ribbon goes away, and scary-to-me, some unseen pain of the old menus does too. So sometimes speed is a feature in note taking, and with a custom ribbon, on certain types of notes you can blaze like Ghostrider through your information because of all of Excel's Info-Shuffling.-TaoPhoenix (May 17, 2012, 05:25 PM)
Speaking about taking notes in Excel, you can try XLnotes add-in that allows to take notes with Word documants, web pages and attachments. Great if you wanted to have pictures/documents in your comments.-excev (July 27, 2012, 02:57 AM)
+3 Addict too. And Editors. Actually spent $250 on SlickEdit because of my addiction- even though I love it, that's a lot of scratch.-wraith808 (July 27, 2012, 06:22 PM)
(Opening Post)
Posted by razorboy - Aug 25, 2012 at 06:40 AM
I have two concerns: the software, and the forum. The forum - http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoSelect/ - was last posted to on 23 July, 2012. Many discussions were about leaving for Evernote. I applied/registered, as one must do so in order to be accepted by the list owner. However, it has been several days, and I have heard nothing. So: is there another Info Select group, preferably one with living members?
I had IS 3, a long time ago, and loved it. (I still have the disk.) I now need IS again for organizational purposes. I will probably only need the basic features, with which to create, save, and organize, zillions of pieces of information and data. IS 10 has bad reviews from users, so no thanks. This brings question #2: what is the oldest version of IS which can be run on Windows 7 64-bit? Officially, IS 2007 – which I take it is version 9 – can run on it, but “full functionality is not guaranteed.” OK, I’m sure I could live with that. So, is there anything earlier which will run on that OS?
And finally, if there is any competing software which has a tree structure and search structure exactly (or nearly) the same as IS? I know there are all kinds of organizers, outliners, and PIMs, but I don’t know them. If IS’s tree and search features are duplicated by another software, I will take a look. Otherwise, I will probably live with the oldest version of IS which will run on my laptop OS.
Thanks very much to anyone who can address any of my questions.
Posted by Slartibartfarst - Aug 26, 2012 at 01:58 PM
@razorboy: Just some hasty notes. Not sure whether this might help, but here it is in case there is something useful to you from my experience - some of which may be common with yours.
I was a Lotus Agenda user since 1990. I have been an InfoSelect user since 1997.
I still very occasionally use Agenda(!), and I regularly use InfoSelect 8, and the latter runs just fine on a Win 7-64 laptop (Home Premium).
I also subscribe to the Yahoo IS User Group you mention, and have noticed that it has started to look pretty moribund. The IS developer (who took over the Admin/Manager role for it) seemed to have a Cavalier approach and scant regard for users’ needs, and this has apparently upset some users, who were saying they were looking to emigrate to Evernote. I don’t know how many may have made the switch. I had already been investigating Evernote by then anyway.
A query in a discussion in that group, about IS5, led me to reinstall my old copy of IS5 as an experiment, to prove that it too works just fine on a Win 7-64 laptop (Home Premium). I reported on that to the User Group.
Though it feels like I have trialled (and still trial) almost every PIM out there, I have not yet come across any other hierarchical 2-pane PIM (Personal Information Manager) that is quite as well-designed, consistently stable and useful as IS8. It is very good at what it does. Later versions that I tried looked pretty hopeless by comparison, and I did not consider them worth the investment - so I have stayed with IS8.
I also use NoteFrog (and before that, its predecessor Clip Guru), and have been a ß tester for it. It is an excellent Clipboard Information Manager, but it is not designed to be a PIM like IS8. It is NOT hierarchical, by the way.
A couple of years back, I started to use and compare Evernote and Microsoft OneNote. I have since settled for OneNote, since the OneNote database allows me to store ALL my data - including image data with any text in it, and the spoken/sung audio data (Yes!) - and index/search through it all (OCR for the image data), with the database being on a local hard drive. This all suits my peculiar needs, though it might not suit other peoples’ needs.
Incidentally, for a while now, I have been trialling Jello - which Integrates with Outlook, which integrates with OneNote. The possibilities seem endless, but I am just exploring.
Posted by Slartibartfarst - Aug 26, 2012 at 11:51 PM
@razorboy:1. So, you tried IS 9 (2007) and 10, and found them inferior to IS 8? IS 10 has really bad user reviews, I see.Yes, I couldn’t see that IS9 was necessarily any better than IS8 - at least, not from my perspective. I don’t have any notes written up about it, but I recall that I thought IS9 seemed a bit of a regressive step. I very briefly played about with an earlier prototype version (I think it was) of IS10, when the IS/Yahoo forum was active (but again, no notes, sorry, though I did put my thoughts into the forum thread and you presumably can still read that material).
I couldn’t see the need for half the changes that were made/proposed for IS10, a good many of which seemed to be removal of previously otherwise stable functionality. Then there was the introduction of the feature of the “ribbon” interface.
The developer (and the forum users/members) seemed to be fixated on features (e.g., “ribbon” interface) rather than whether the functionality met their needs. Neglecting NEEDS is usually a classic error in software design/development, so if IS10 got any bad reviews (and it definitely did), then it’s arguably because of that rather than that IS10 is a “bad product” per se.
The needs never were defined (to my knowledge) and the classic step of prioritising them into A, B, C (A=mandatory, B=highly desirable, C= nice-to-have) seemed to have been omitted throughout. The whole exercise thus seemed appallingly confused and almost purposeless, and it was apparently being driven this way by the developer (go figure). Sadly, in restrospect, it seemed to have been an exercise in missed opportunity to improve the design in line with users’ needs.
I don’t think the IS10 developer produces “bad product” per se - at least, not from my experience. Even an egregiously bad design can be made operational, but that won’t necessarily make the design any better - e.g., the Maginot Line.
______________________________2. …led me to reinstall my old copy of IS5 as an experiment, to prove that it too works just fine on a Win 7-64 laptop (Home Premium).~~~~ How did you do that? Did the installer do its job, or did you have to resort to hackery?It was no problem at all - piece of cake. As with all my trial or old software, I deliberately install the software into a special directory of my own choosing and thus avoid installing the software into the Windows “Program Files” or “Program Files (x86)” directories - thus bypassing the need for extra system privileges that the OS puts on proggies using those directories. The only difficulty I recall was in ensuring I had the appropriate InfoSelect v5 (and later) English spelling and thesaurus files. I also have the IS database in a specially defined data area (for targetting of backups).
______________________________3. Do IS 9 and 10 not save audio (note) files? Does Evernote?I don’t know of any other PIM that handles words spoken/sung in audio files as text data AND that handles text embedded in images as text data. Furthermore, the smooth and uncluttered way in which OneNote does this is amazing. I only discovered a few days ago that if you put an mp3 song in OneNote, and paste the text of the lyrics below it, then when you play the mp3 in OneNote, it automatically tries to step down through and highlight the lines of the lyrics as they are being sung. That’s pretty smart. Of course, being able to search through the words in an audio file when you have no transcript is also pretty damn smart, and arguably just what you’d need in a note-taking PIM tool.
I think that in this regard OneNote leaves Evernote in the dust. Evernote would not be so far behind OneNote if they hadn’t crippled their client application so that you couldn’t have an OCR store of your text images - you are locked-in to being dependent on the cloud-based store for this. I detest such archaic business models that use lock-in in any shape or form.
______________________________4. I confess that I don’t know what It is meant by “hierarchical” in the context of describing these softwares. Please explain. (..blush..)A flexible hierarchical categorisation tree is an immensely powerful tool for organising information into categories and for marshalling and communicating your thoughts on a complex subject - e.g., in writing a book or a report in sections and subsections, on a particular subject.
For IS8, imagine a diagram of a structured set of categories and sub-categories - e.g., an organisational hierarchy diagram - then turn it on its side, and what you have is a linear view of that in the LH pane of IS8 (the categories can be anything you want, and there is a way of mapping unstructured cross-categories too, which can be rather handy). The RH pane contains the relevant content material for each point in the hierarchy.
EXAMPLE:
1.0 Parent (e.g. CEO)
1.1 Child of the above parent. (e.g., Vice President #1)
1.2 Child that is a parent (e.g., Vice President #2)
1.2.1 Child of 1.2 (e.g., 1st Deputy Vice President to #2)
1.2.2 Child of 1.2 (e.g., 2nd Deputy Vice President to #2)
1.2.2.1 Child of 1.2.2
2.0 Another parent - etc.
______________________________
As with all my trial or old software, I deliberately install the software into a special directory of my own choosing and thus avoid installing the software into the Windows “Program Files” or “Program Files (x86)” directories - thus bypassing the need for extra system privileges that the OS puts on proggies using those directories. The only difficulty I recall was in ensuring I had the appropriate InfoSelect v5 (and later) English spelling and thesaurus files. I also have the IS database in a specially defined data area (for targetting of backups).
I'm confused Paul -
what programme(s) are you talking about?
Ah, okay, it's *all* about Knowsy Notes
http://www.knowsynotes.com/Home.html
EDIT/ looks very nice (looking at their videos now)-tomos (September 20, 2012, 04:40 AM)
Bought it yesterday, and very pleased to find that it clips from Opera; also like the Evernote linking. Haven't properly explored it yet, but think I will probably use it extensively. Doesn't replace TreeDBNotes, which I prefer for writing, or Ultra Recall, better for email etc, or Evernote, better for stuff that doesn't need to be organised & web availability, but it looks as if it might be my be my main app for info heavy uses.-Dormouse (November 27, 2012, 03:47 PM)
@Dormouse:
I'd be interested to hear more detailed comments on why you prefer your different apps for different things, perhaps in the General brainstorming for Note-taking software (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.msg16135#msg16135) thread?-rjbull (November 28, 2012, 02:43 PM)
@Dormouse
Windows word processors seem to lean too much towards desktop publishing rather than efficient text creation and editing.-rjbull (December 02, 2012, 03:07 PM)
I too use several programs, never finding one I was happy to commit to exclusively. My usage is mostly data storage, especially of web clips, for which EverNote 2.2 is very good, especially when you need graphics and live hyperlinks.-rjbull (December 02, 2012, 03:07 PM)
I was interested in your use of TreeDBNotes for writing, and wondered if you'd ideally have preferred a single-pane outliner like Noteliner (http://www.noteliner.org/i/Main.html)? Which seems a more natural way to operate than two-pane?-rjbull (December 02, 2012, 03:07 PM)
I use Evernote and Simplenote/Resophnote/everything that syncs with simplenote. I guess it really is a matter of what you need and your priorities, and since Syncing across platforms is my number one priority, those are the ones that I continue to go back to.I agree with that; it is very much about individual need and preference.-wraith808 (December 03, 2012, 01:10 AM)
I use Evernote and Simplenote/Resophnote/everything that syncs with simplenote. I guess it really is a matter of what you need and your priorities, and since Syncing across platforms is my number one priority, those are the ones that I continue to go back to.I agree with that; it is very much about individual need and preference.-wraith808 (December 03, 2012, 01:10 AM)
I was intrigued by your using Simplenote. Why do you use that as well as Evernote?-Dormouse (December 03, 2012, 01:47 AM)
I never knew about Simplenote. Looks very cool, definitely would consider it vs the current Evernote.-superboyac (December 03, 2012, 05:53 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.-Dormouse (December 01, 2012, 02:51 PM)
Have you checked the Free version lately? Their TreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature CompareTreeDBNotes FREE vs PRO - Feature Compare (http://www.mytreedb.com/free_vs_pro.html) 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 (http://www.mytreedb.com/purchase.html) 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?-rjbull (December 07, 2012, 03:20 PM)
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.-rjbull (December 07, 2012, 03:20 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.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.
[...]
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.-Dormouse (December 07, 2012, 06:40 PM)
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.-Dormouse (December 07, 2012, 06:40 PM)
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.-Dormouse (December 07, 2012, 06:40 PM)
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 (http://www.clicktoapp.com/) as a helper app? The author of All My Notes Organizer (http://www.vladonai.com/) 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] (http://www.vladonai.com/forum/how-do-i-f5/allmynotes-to-work-with-click-to-for-better-web-clipping-a-perfect-evernote-replacement-t552.html). Maybe something similar might work for UR.-Dormouse (December 07, 2012, 06:40 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).-rjbull (December 09, 2012, 05:19 PM)
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'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 (http://www.clicktoapp.com/) as a helper app? The author of All My Notes Organizer (http://www.vladonai.com/) 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] (http://www.vladonai.com/forum/how-do-i-f5/allmynotes-to-work-with-click-to-for-better-web-clipping-a-perfect-evernote-replacement-t552.html). Maybe something similar might work for UR.-Dormouse (December 07, 2012, 06:40 PM)-rjbull (December 09, 2012, 05:19 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.-rjbull (December 09, 2012, 05:19 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 thingsThe 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 :)-Dormouse (December 09, 2012, 07:32 PM)
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.-Dormouse (December 09, 2012, 07:32 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.-robinsiebler (December 10, 2012, 06:03 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.-rjbull (December 12, 2012, 03:30 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.-rjbull (December 12, 2012, 03:30 PM)
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 (?)-rgdot (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.-rjbull (December 12, 2012, 03:30 PM)
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 (?)-rgdot (December 12, 2012, 05:10 PM)
Exactly. Conceptually, hierarchical tags can be used in exactly the same way as folders-Dormouse (December 12, 2012, 06:48 PM)
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.
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).
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.-J-Mac (December 28, 2012, 10:09 PM)
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.-J-Mac (December 28, 2012, 10:09 PM)
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.-Dormouse (December 29, 2012, 06:14 AM)
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.
Just a quick note to say that I'm very happy with Scrivener as a notetaker.I've been looking at Scrivener, but it doesn't do clipping does it? Even on the Mac, it seems quite long-winded from what I have read. And it isn't good to store lots of info long term - reports suggest it getting bogged down before 1GB (not sure how others would stack up on that though).
In linux :)-urlwolf (December 29, 2012, 01:25 PM)
Sorry, I'd meant that UR has the note pane, when MyInfo doesn't.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!-J-Mac (December 29, 2012, 11:00 AM)
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.-J-Mac (December 29, 2012, 11:00 AM)
I agree with applauding a developer for supporting a new OS, but not quite to the tune of $50 for a no-new-features upgrade! Just can't do it!-J-Mac (December 29, 2012, 09:39 PM)
You would prefer the alternative that he didn't offer the update at all - realistically that is the alternative?-Dormouse (December 30, 2012, 05:45 AM)
It is not. C'mon, you make this into a Hobson's choice when it is no such thing! So there are only two alternatives? What makes that "realistic"?-J-Mac (December 30, 2012, 05:56 AM)
Neither Black Hole Organizer (http://www.starresoft.com/index.htm) nor Aml Pages (http://www.amlpages.com/) are in anything like the same class as UR, but they share a feature obligate mouse jockeys might like. Both have a floating drag-and-drop target. You mark a block with your mouse and drag it onto the target, when the program automatically creates a new note. Aml Pages includes the URL, BHO doesn't, but BHO stagnated a long time before the new developer took it over.-rjbull (December 30, 2012, 02:51 PM)
I vaguely recognise the name BHO from the (very) dim and distant past, but I'm note sure if I have ever used it. I might have another look.I don't think you'd like it in its present form. It's unusual if not unique in being three-pane, and having a drop target "basket," but it needs considerable updating. E.g., Web clips and RTF clips both transfer as plain text, despite BHO having RTF editing; entering internal note-to-note links is a pain, and so on. I've lodged some comments with the new developer, who says his list is growing...-Dormouse (December 31, 2012, 06:44 AM)
While I have been messing about looking at these programs again, I decided to install the latest version of Zoot (which I don't think I have ever tried before). Seems seriously weird/different and its not obvious exactly how to manage itIf you look hard enough on DC, maybe even in this very thread, you'll find superboyAC saying much the same thing about an older version of Zoot, and taking quite a while to "get" it.-Dormouse (December 31, 2012, 06:44 AM)
I can understand why the trial period lasts 90 days, and I'm not sure that will be quite enough. No idea if there is any sense in the perception, but it felt as if it might be more like IQ than the other progs I have used - I've never been able to get into IQ, but always had a lot of respect for what it seems capable of doing.Pierre kindly sent me a free personal license for IQ, but it has a reputation for being hard to get to grips with.-Dormouse (December 31, 2012, 06:44 AM)
@Dormouse: Scrivener does web clippings just fine.
It even has the floating clipboard window that onenote has.
Doesn't work well on linux, though.-urlwolf (December 31, 2012, 01:52 PM)
As I'm looking through the programs I have, I find few that will take clips from documents and record the source document with the clip. The three I have found are CH+S, Cinta Notes and Zoot.
I was wondering whether there are any others that people use regularly that can do that?-Dormouse (January 01, 2013, 06:54 AM)
I've found atlantis to be killer for notes. Having the filesystem do indexing and versioning is the right way. You are not locked in, and the features for writers are beyond anything I've seen. Totally worth paying for, and displacing scrivener.-urlwolf (May 07, 2013, 05:26 AM)
...
Some of the dubious links:
...-IainB (May 07, 2013, 07:54 AM)
This is what I do now.Convoluted, but reliable, crossplatform, and full featured.
- I created an 'app' from the 'create new gdocs' link. It placed an icon on the desktop. I assigned a global shortcut to it. It takes 1-2 seconds to create a new note (a gdoc). Not as fast as simplenote or resophnotes, but it'll do
- Create a new gdocs when the inspiration comes, with the global shortcut
- Install syncdocs, so you have a local copy to every gdocs you create. Make sure that explorer index the syndocs folder. Then, when it's time to search, open an explorer window; the explorer search is damn fast, indexes the text, and the results are displayed with context; they are better than how onenote does it
requires only easy to find software (your file manager, gdocs).
Everything works on and offline. (create new .doc instead of gdocs when offline)
The gdocs editor is way better than any of the native .doc editors (or rtf, or odt)-urlwolf (May 12, 2013, 05:59 AM)
Where you say "...the results are displayed with context; they are better than how onenote does it", do you mean how Win7 indexes the OneNotes Notebooks' content documents for search? I thought that worked the same - i.e., not differently, so neither better nor worse.
...I've found a killer notetaker: wiznote (http://wiz.cn). Chinesse-only website, but chrome does a decent work translating it.
It does many things right:
- Security. Notes encrypted locally before sending it to server-
- Multiplatform
- Very flexible interface (2/3 columns)
- Plugins
- Android app that beats even onenote
- Tables
- good paste from web, with url included next to the paste (like onenote)
- Can publish to blog straight (!)
- Very clean Html. Beats word, gdocs. No inline css.
- Word count. Press 'i' icon, then details
- Tagging
- Very flexible tree, you can disable showing notes in subfolders (Apple-styple only one level deep)
- Export is not an afterthought.
- Live search, highlights matches, shows small window of context (like rightnote, evernote). Beats onenote
- Web access (www.wiz.cn), in chinesse :)
- Autolink urls
- Beats any local wiki, no silly formatting, all wysiwyg
- Can add a note without opening main app (like cintanotes)
- Saves version history, for free (only in paid evernote)
- Can set paragraph line height (1.5x improves readability)
- Multi-search match highlights
And many things wrong:...
- No autocapitalization of sentences
- Fonts kind of suck; no cleartype, no smoothing whatsoever. As horrible as office 2013.
- Have to get out of edit mode to search
- Changing from one note to another is slow (subsecond, but slow)
- Not easy to move with kb on the right side tree
- No spellcheck
_____________________________-urlwolf (May 16, 2013, 02:45 AM)
a VIP version which has a monthly bill of 600 yuen or something.-IainB (May 17, 2013, 12:36 PM)
FWIW, I think it's a killer app.
A pity the forums, and the rest of the site, is not in EN.
There seem to be many plugins.
I could run the android app on my 2.3 phone, but on my 4.2 tablet it doesn't seem to even be listed on the app store.
How this flew under the radar, I have no idea. It does many things right.-urlwolf (May 17, 2013, 03:13 PM)
VIP restore the original price notification (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://blog.wiz.cn/vip100.html&usg=ALkJrhjhuAfN5dWdn6OW_C4mXp6KxbPZKg)
Posted on May 6, 2013 by admin
Dear know:
Hello! To know the notes VIP service will be held on May 9, 2013, formally restored to the original (100 yuan / year, 10 yuan / month), 40% discount promotion is no longer carried out. May 9, you can still enjoy a 40% discount on purchase of VIP services, known to the new and old customers! Thank you for your continued support!
VIP service purchase Address: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=24859296691
Meanwhile, in May, we will carry out more promotions to give back to the new and old customers, so stay tuned official microblogging @ know notes Events!
From known notes (Wiz)
So can anybody send me the exe? Spanning days, several computers and a couple of ISPs, no dice. The site is slow to dead for me, download barely starts.-rgdot (May 20, 2013, 12:36 PM)
dear，
i'm so exciting for receiving your mail， sorry i took so long to reply.
I also think wiz is very interesting,more and more users taking wiz. we have over 2 million users by now. They love wiz, using wiz and discussing wiz eveyday. if you are also interested in wiz , we can take a discunssion for it, and also you can mail us some using experiences . we'll show them on our "weibo" and website, also if you need ,we can give you the others helps.
thx!
[email protected]
Would it be a good idea to create an EN forum for wiznote?@urlwolf: Good idea about the forum. Would you like to set one up? In light of the interest expressed in the above email, I reckon that (a forum) could be a useful/collaborative thing to do.
It's a deep program... just found that alt + drag shows a tiny formatting floating window.-urlwolf (May 20, 2013, 09:43 AM)
I also think wiz is very interesting,and more users taking wiz.
I also think wiz is very interesting,and more users taking wiz.
:P :D
There's no doubt that their English is better than my Chinese...but I still got a laugh out of that.
On a more serious note, as one of those wiz-taking users, I recently installed 'wiznote-windows-x64-2013-07-15'. But I also immediately uninstalled it after seeing the login screen on startup--at least until I'm happy with the answers to the following questions:
1. What am I signing up for?
2. What are the terms/conditions of the cloud provider?
3. Who (besides the NSA) will have access to the data that I store "in the clouds"?-cschw (July 24, 2013, 10:09 PM)
...I'd like to do my best to help English users to know and to use wiznote better.-xbeta (July 25, 2013, 09:24 AM)
Btw, I'm still amazed by wiznote. It's one of my reasons to stay on windows, even though there are significant downsides... killer app.-urlwolf (August 10, 2013, 01:45 PM)
, so what does Atlantis offer that scrivener doesnt?-wraith808 (May 07, 2013, 02:16 PM)