Author Topic: Xobni beta - Outlook Mail indexer and organizer (Read 54155 times)

Darwin · « **on:** February 23, 2008, 09:07 AM »

iphigenie drew my attention to Xobni several weeks ago in this post:

One add on I have been testing at the moment is xobni, which mostly analyses contacts and emails to produce nice little profiles, for each contact, showing not only the history of interactions (and the wonderful "files exchanged with x" section listing all attachments sent or received, which means I only need to find an email from that person to find any attachment they sent me, i like that!) but also social features like who they are connected to, emailing patterns, and some quick overview tools

Sounded interesting so I googled it and applied to join the beta programme. My e-mail inviting me to the beta party came in yesterday and I am now using it. I'm interested in other users' experiences with it so am starting this thread.

If you are intested in trying it out, I have 5 invites to give out. Let me know if you are interested (it took me several weeks to get a spot through signing up at the website) via PM or e-mail and I'll send you an invite. First five across my inbox will be served.

From my limited experence with it so far, I'd defintiely like to see more user customization allowed - particularly colour scheme and indexing.

Xobni beta - Outlook Mail indexer and organizer

EDIT: switched to inline thumb attachment...

Darwin · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2008, 09:29 AM »

Here's a screenshot of Xobni on my system:

Xobni sidebar-50%.png

Gives an idea (I hope) of what Xobni looks like - and makes the case for my desire for some control over the colour scheme?!

ThalSwe · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2008, 10:26 AM »

Just have to make a tiny comment about the not-so-clever name Xobni (revered Inbox). Dont generally mind playing with words etc. but that was almost a bit too tacky for my taste. And personally I dont see much problems with the color schemes but guess it could use some tweaking or even user customization.

Other then that it looks like an alright piece of software. Dont use Outlook myself so doesnt suit my needs.

Darwin · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2008, 10:43 AM »

Yeah - I noticed after I posted my second screenshot that the colour scheme looks ok in it... However, in real usage it is very garish compared to the muted colour scheme that I use... C'est la vie. Thank you for commenting

Darwin · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2008, 01:14 PM »

FWIW - I had to send out a bunch of e-mails to students the AM and found Xobni VERY useful in finding addresses and old correspondence. One thing that is great about it is that it brings Live Search functionality to Outlook. I might just have to learn to live with that colour scheme... (if they don't bite on my suggestion to either provide some skins and/or make the interface more customizable.

Grorgy · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2008, 01:35 PM »

hehehe this xobni looks like fun anyway, and anything that makes email fun has to be good. I now have some invites to if Darwin runs out

Darwin · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2008, 06:16 PM »

I'm really enjoying the functionality but do note that over time RAM use creeps up and more irritatingly stays up. Where Outlook will release RAM when it is minimized to tray (or if it is maximized from tray and reminimized), Xobni's service hoards it. I shouldn't fuss... I have 2 GB of RAM and rarely have under 900MB free (and usually 1.3 Gig or so), but I can't help it. Years of conditioning have left me a paranoid about RAM utilization!

Grorgy · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2008, 10:12 PM »

Yeah, I know what you mean about the conditioning Darwin, but, for the functionality I am thinking it could be worth the additional RAM, besides, I don't leave my mail on all the time when i am at Uni, and when at home its about all the laptop does, mail and IM, so its not really a problem.

iphigenie · « **Reply #8 on:** February 24, 2008, 11:44 AM »

One thing xobni makes really easy to find is attachments sent to or received from a person.

It even remembers the attachment after you have deleted it, which can be handy when checking history of things

jgpaiva · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2008, 11:46 AM »

It even remembers the attachment after you have deleted it, which can be handy when checking history of things
-iphigenie (February 24, 2008, 11:44 AM)

You mean it keeps the attachment even though you deleted it in outlook?
Honestly, i don't think that's a "feature", when i delete something, i expect it to be gone.

Grorgy · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2008, 12:11 PM »

when i delete something, i expect it to be gone.

In the brief bit of testing i've done so far, it is gone, but it still lists the file as one that has been sent to you. So instead of saying "nooo you never sent it!!!" you can ask for it to be resent and apologise for losing it

jgpaiva · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2008, 12:13 PM »

Oh, i see, it keeps the filename. I guess that makes sense and might be useful

Darwin · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2008, 01:17 PM »

Basically means that I can lost three current plugins - Lookout for indexing, EZDetach for Attachments, and EZMessage to back up my messages... I'm not uninstalling anything, for now, though... Still testing, but I am very impressed.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2008, 02:36 PM »

Initial impression of Xobni are it is quite a nice plugin. It isn't clear thought - does it auto update its database or do you have to do it manually?

Two issues I am not sure about -

since installing it Outlook doesn't fully exit any more (it stays in the task list when I close the app)
less importantly it doesn't do a good job at connecting basically similar email names or users with different email addresses (eg. I currently have numerous emails from Amazon some of which I will keep, receipts etc, and some of which I will delete, newsletters etc. but it doesn't connect all the Amazon email addresses together - which is apparently what it should do)

WRT to tracking deleted attachments - is that just because the Xobni index has not been updated?

Grorgy · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2008, 02:55 PM »

My outlook has closed completely most times, it never has closed every time but xobni doesnt appear to have had any effect on this behaviour.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** February 24, 2008, 03:24 PM »

I have not had problems with Outlook 2003 not exiting but with Xobni neither task (Outlook or Xobni Service) exit when I close Outlook - ever!

Add to that that if I leave the apps running in the task manager with no further action taking place memory usage increases rapidly for both tasks (I have just monitored them and in 10 minutes Outlook's memory has tripled and Xobni Service has more than doubled).

I have also experimented with deleting emails with attachments and even after do a manual synchronise the deleted emails with attachments are still in the attachment list. This must surely be a bug - but if it is a 'feature' then surely it should be optional! I don't want to find references to non-existent emails and attachments when I search!!!

I have reported these issues on the Xobni forum but until they get resolved I am going to remove Xobni from Outlook as I have found one sure way to get PST problems is being forced to exit Outlook in the TaskManager.

Darwin · « **Reply #16 on:** February 25, 2008, 11:40 AM »

Crumb! I have Outlook minimized to tray *most* of the time and hadn't tried shutting down Outlook while Xobni was running... I can confirm that Outlook's process remains running when Xobni is installed. I don't have time right now but I'll post on the Xobni forum to this effect as well. I like this addon A LOT but can't risk PST file corruption (and I resent having multiple processes running needlessly).

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #17 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:03 PM »

The bigger worry is the memory leak which could also cause data corruption (this has been flagged a number of times on the forum but the developer seems reluctant to admit there is a problem).

Grorgy · « **Reply #18 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:38 PM »

Perhaps it isn't playing well with another addon, it has only not closed outlook completely once in the 2 or so days I've been trying, but I dont use other addons, the ones I like seem too expensive for the added functionality to me and the free ones haven't offered a lot.

Darwin · « **Reply #19 on:** February 25, 2008, 03:22 PM »

Heh, heh - I'm actually one of the posters on the Xobni forum regarding the memory leak... None of my posts had been responded to, the last time I checked. Heading over there now...

Darwin · « **Reply #20 on:** February 25, 2008, 06:14 PM »

Incidentally, I literally JUST updated to Office 2007 Enterprise (work provided the software - I', totally backed up in case I hate it) and I can confirm that the problem above re: Outlook shutdown doesn't affect 2007...

BigJim · « **Reply #21 on:** February 25, 2008, 06:47 PM »

That's pretty interesting, Darwin. I've been experiencing most of what's been discussed above (running XP/SP2 with 1.4 Gb RAM, Outlook 2003) and although I, too, have found that I REALLY like many of Xobni's features I can't afford the resources cost or not being able to shut down Outlook cleanly.

Does your recent discovery imply that these other problems are 'fixable' if we can get the authors' attention? A little alarming that they might seem to have their heads in the sand!

Darwin · « **Reply #22 on:** February 28, 2008, 03:23 PM »

Does your recent discovery imply that these other problems are 'fixable' if we can get the authors' attention? A little alarming that they might seem to have their heads in the sand!
-BigJim (February 25, 2008, 06:47 PM)

I *hope* so... I've been following the forum discussion and I think that the developers are keen to get this sorted out. However, I uninstalled the version I was running last week (I miss the functionality of Xobni) for a variety of reasons. However, running Outlook 2007, while it breaks LookOut, works wonderfully with LookOut's successor Windows Desktop Search. I'm pretty happy with it, for now. Still, I'll be following Xobni's development

BigJim · « **Reply #23 on:** February 28, 2008, 04:50 PM »

That's cool. I will be following this thread closely as well as the Xobni forum. I, too, had to uninstall it a couple of days ago. I couldn't cope with the memory leaks or not being able to close Outlook without rebooting. In fact, I had to do a "Detect and Repair" of Outlook to get it back to normal. Xobni certainly does do some useful stuff, though. I'm anxious to get it back!

Armando · « **Reply #24 on:** February 28, 2008, 07:22 PM »

[off-topic] Darwin : I'd be interested to know your opinion about WDS -- compared to Archivarius or X1 for instance -- mostly in terms of accurateness and resource consumption (but also in terms f file compatibility, size of index... if you checked that of course). Maybe in that thread ?[/off-topic]