Super lite PIM? Address book?

[sabot7726]

I'm an emergency / 911 dispatcher and several times during the day I need to very quickly transfer a call or look up a number or address while several things are going on at the same time.

Currently we've been using a number of loose papers filled with this kind of info, but as you can guess they very quickly get outdated, torn, lost, edited, scribbled on, etc. The built in address book on the phone system is extremely clunky with no search function whatsoever, so that's no help.

I've been daydreaming of a simple, yet extremely efficient application that can allow me to put all this info at my fingertips but so far all the PIM and Address book software I've been trying out are *way* too overpowered for what I'm looking for. I'm hoping if I list out the small wishlist I have that someone can point me in the right direction or just whip it up

If I could wave a magic wand I'd create something like FARR or nDroid but made to scan a couple files of info and return matching lines rather than various directories returning matching files.

For example I could hit a hotkey to start the program, start typing Smith and any line in the file that matches what I type would show up as I type (rather than a submit button).

I'd also need just an input text box that would allow me to copy paste info into it to add to the file of phone numbers, emails and whatever other misc info.

Extra credit would be a way to arrow key up and down the list of results and be able to hit a hotkey like alt-e to edit that line directly rather than having to manually go edit the overall file.

Extra extra credit would be if the program could convert urls and email addresses to links which would be displayed if that line matched the search query somehow.

Anyone know of a program that can do this that I can try out?

I wish I had better programming skills, this seems like something someone can make very quickly if they were so inclined :p

[nogojoe]

I'm an emergency / 911 dispatcher and several times during the day I need to very quickly transfer a call or look up a number or address while several things are going on at the same time.

Currently we've been using a number of loose papers filled with this kind of info, but as you can guess they very quickly get outdated, torn, lost, edited, scribbled on, etc. The built in address book on the phone system is extremely clunky with no search function whatsoever, so that's no help.

I've been daydreaming of a simple, yet extremely efficient application that can allow me to put all this info at my fingertips but so far all the PIM and Address book software I've been trying out are *way* too overpowered for what I'm looking for. I'm hoping if I list out the small wishlist I have that someone can point me in the right direction or just whip it up

If I could wave a magic wand I'd create something like FARR or nDroid but made to scan a couple files of info and return matching lines rather than various directories returning matching files.

For example I could hit a hotkey to start the program, start typing Smith and any line in the file that matches what I type would show up as I type (rather than a submit button).

I'd also need just an input text box that would allow me to copy paste info into it to add to the file of phone numbers, emails and whatever other misc info.

Extra credit would be a way to arrow key up and down the list of results and be able to hit a hotkey like alt-e to edit that line directly rather than having to manually go edit the overall file.

Extra extra credit would be if the program could convert urls and email addresses to links which would be displayed if that line matched the search query somehow.

Anyone know of a program that can do this that I can try out?

I wish I had better programming skills, this seems like something someone can make very quickly if they were so inclined :p

-sabot7726 (May 08, 2008, 05:15 PM)

Can I suggest Yeahwrite.

www.wordplace.com

The addresss feature within yeahwrite has some of the requirements the you are after such as typing the first letters of a surname will bring you straight to that person/s . The up/down arrows will scroll through that persons address and you can enter/edit what you want.


All though it is a Word processor as such I think you will enjoy using it‘s features.
30 names are on immediate view as soon as you open the address book.
those 30 names have their Full Name--Work Phone--Work Ext--Home Phone--Company Name instantly available on that page.(or whatever you want to put under those headings)
Scroll down the page or enter the surnames first initials and it comes up with that name or those similar.
Hit enter on the name you want and use the up/down arrows and you can edit any part of the
Address to your hearts desire.
Add comments if you wish as well  .

Love to hear your response after you have tried this program as I think its the very thing you want.
It has a free lite version but I don’t know it’s limitations as the website is apparently down at present.
From memory the program is small enough to be downloaded onto a floppy disk.
Extremely fast loading up and one of its features is automatic saving of work done/entered.
Oops just about forgot TABBED address books which can be right there available with a click of the mouse.
Entries can be transferred easily from one tabbed address book to another.

The search/find feature will pick any thing that you want right through all the tabbed address books etc.
Either a part of the email nickname or even part of the isp’s name  very efficient

This is my second edit after reading your posts again.
I have espoused on the address book part of yeahwrite you will love the rest of the progams features as a copy and paste info .
Under the general tab you can copy and paste info.
It automatically saves info you paste under the headings of DATE DESCRIPTION TEXT again 30 entries are available for immediate viewing on opening the that tab. The text heading shows the 1st line of what you have saved the decription heading of that entry you can edit at a later date to suit your own needs
I think I have opened the Yeahwrite pasted-saved info closed again in under 4 seconds knowing that the info will be readily available the next time I open yeahwrite without having to look all over the place for it.

I’m back again for my third edit
If you use the address book in yeahwrite and under the companyname put reference to the data that you wish to locate such as Smith **** (****your reference) you will see a button at the bottom right of the page which says SORT click on that and it will bring the company name to the foremost heading allowing it to be accessed the way that you have described in your posting.

Now I realise how good yeahwrite is with its tab features.

You have an Address tab for addresses alone with the suname as the foremost entry Put all your info addresses,notes etc and under the company name put the surname and your ref.

Now have a second tab which you alter as above by changing the foremost entry via the sort button to the company namei.....it will bring the company name to the foremost heading allowing it to be accessed the way that you have described in your posting.

Now when you make a data entry in the first address tab you copy it to the second tab (it’s very easily done) five seconds at the most.

And another feature is the tab can be color coded to suit what you like so that one tab can be a light blue and the other a light green so that you will know in which tab you are in.

So you will have one  tab for surname reference and one tab for company name(your reference) for searching.

this will be the nearest that a program will get to your needs without someone writing one specifically.

 ENJOY

nogojoe.

[sabot7726]

Hrm it looks a little over the top for my uses, plus it was last updated in 1999, that's kinda scary :p

[nogojoe]

May

Hrm it looks a little over the top for my uses, plus it was last updated in 1999, that's kinda scary :p

-sabot7726 (May 08, 2008, 08:42 PM)

Well you can some thing made that will be buggy is that what you want it is very hard to get the exact program that you want.

You asked for speed easy entry, easy access to info etc

It is sound, read the reviews it is well made and doesn’t need updating for the sake of updating ,read who the people are who made this program and the reasons why they did.

How can you say it is over the top if you haven’t tried it.Are you scared to try it.

You have come on here asking for something and I,ve tried to help at least give it a go or are you not “techie“ enough to have a go

I am willing to answer any problems about the program to help you.

nogojoe

[allen]

Maybe they figured . . . if it does everything it's supposed to, why cram more crap in? I hate software that isn't updated, but then . . . realistically . . . it's usually features I don't need + bugs :)

I used yeahwrite obsessively back in '98 or '99, absolutely adored it.  I was trying to remember the name of it a few weeks back, but couldn't . . . so thanks nogojoe! Time to download it and take a walk down memory lane. 

Sabot--It's really not so much an "over the top" application, though all the colorful tabs can give that impression.  The reason its file size remains so small is that it's not so much feature-intensive as functionally flexible. All those eye-boggling tabs aren't different features so much as slightly tweaked ways of using the internal editor.  Pretty much everything in it does the same thing, it's just divided up into pre-defined sections to give you an idea how to use it. It's ultimately a union of a simplified word processor and a simplified spread sheet application. It's really quite simple and intuitive, as I remember it.  And cheap, 19.99 for life (after all, if it's never updated you'll never pay an upgrade fee :)

As for your issue, sabot, have you considered giving Evernote a try? It might work well . . . and the current beta version 3.0 syncs online so you can access the same data via the software, your online enabled phone, or any web browser.

Currently we've been using a number of loose papers filled with this kind of info, but as you can guess they very quickly get outdated, torn, lost, edited, scribbled on, etc. The built in address book on the phone system is extremely clunky with no search function whatsoever, so that's no help.

With evernote, you could actually photograph/scan in those hand written notes and they'd be searchable. Evernote has a pretty impressive OCR indexer.  The aforementioned online sync capabilities would make it somewhat usable with a smart phone type device, for added convenience.

I've been daydreaming of a simple, yet extremely efficient application that can allow me to put all this info at my fingertips but so far all the PIM and Address book software I've been trying out are *way* too overpowered for what I'm looking for. I'm hoping if I list out the small wishlist I have that someone can point me in the right direction or just whip it up

Using Evernote 3, moreso than evernote 2, is extremely simple/straight forward.  Just jot down notes which can be tagged, can optionally add checkboxes for todo stuff, and it's all find-as-you-type search.

I'd also need just an input text box that would allow me to copy paste info into it to add to the file of phone numbers, emails and whatever other misc info.

It comes with a "Universal Clipper" add on -- highlight any text, hit a hot key and that text will be inserted into evernote as a new note -- which you can then tag or edit as necessary.

Extra credit would be a way to arrow key up and down the list of results and be able to hit a hotkey like alt-e to edit that line directly rather than having to manually go edit the overall file.

If you make each entry its own note rather than compiling them all in a single note this would pretty much be inherently there for you.

Drop me an e-mail and I'll send you an invite to try the Beta.  For what you described as your needs, I think it might be a really good option for consideration.  It doesn't cost anything at present and what it will cost later on down the road is not yet known.  Something per month per the amount of storage you need, I guess.

[PhilB66]

Hrm it looks a little over the top for my uses, plus it was last updated in 1999, that's kinda scary :p

-sabot7726 (May 08, 2008, 08:42 PM)

That's incorrect. It was last updated in January 2005 and it works on all Windows versions.

[sabot7726]

Sorry if I offended anyone, the version I downloaded and tried said copyright 1999, maybe they just didn't update their little stamp

I did in fact download it and play around before I posted, and I do appreciate you replying with something that could help. I was too hasty with my response.

Thanks for the heads up on Evernote, I'll give it a try now.

[Armando]

I'll second Allen.

Evernote might be just what you need. Just type, enter anything you want in the main window (press ctrl+alt+n to open it), use templates if you want. Find everything back very quickly (search as you type).

Things CAN get a bit messy in EverNote if you don't think a bit of how you want to structure your category system, but never to the point where you can't find something. So you should be ok. 

Allen's point about syncing stuff online, taking pictures + ocr etc. are all good points.

IMO, you can't go wrong with EverNote - v2 or 3.

Alternatively, I think that Outlook + palm could also do a pretty good job. There are sooo many addons for Outlook, and you could even configure farr to open a contact form, create a note, etc. very easily. Then sync all that with your palm if you have one.

There are also a number of PIM/Outliners out there that would do an excellent job. But might be too overpowered.

[SKA]

3 Suggestions:

1] Treepad Lite (free) or Treepad Biz(paid) , maybe with PIM template:
    http://www.treepad.com/
    http://www.treepad.c...tes/template_pim.zip
    http://www.treepad.com/treepadviewer/

2] CustomAddressbook :  http://www.customaddressbook.com/

3] OpenContacts (free) :  http://www.fonlow.com/opencontacts/
    Contacts Express(free, but  needs Dot Net Framework 2.0) :  http://www.fonlow.com/ContactsExpress

SKA

[kartal]

EssentialPim has a nice adressbook as well

[sabot7726]

Evernote seems like it could be cool for me to utilize personally but not as something I could use in my workplace since the norm is still ie6 which is currently unsupported.

I definitely love how it can search on the fly as I type, that's a huge thing I'm looking for.

All these programs, even the tiny contactsexpress are too feature rich for what I was originally looking for. I should have named this thread "Looking for super duper tiny Lite basic version PIM?" :p

I was hoping there was a program that pops up with a hotkey, has a simple query search box and displays lines from a pre-existing file that match whatever you type. Then I could open the file, copy paste from all the data sources into it, make sure there's 1 entry per line and call 'er good.

I'll probably end up hiring someone to make a tiny custom app to accomplish my goal, wonder if this would be easier as a web application rather than a standalone desktop app? Sorry for the random way my brain works :p

[sri]

Can you please exlplain what you mean by IE6 and EverNote not working together? Which ver of EverNote are you talking about? EN is the perfect s/w for you.

[rjbull]

I've been daydreaming of a simple, yet extremely efficient application that can allow me to put all this info at my fingertips but so far all the PIM and Address book software I've been trying out are *way* too overpowered for what I'm looking for.

-sabot7726 (May 08, 2008, 05:15 PM)

Have you looked at AZZ Cardfile?  Cheap: only $19 for a personal license.

The last free version, 1.6, is available here, though I don't know the bona fides of this page.

[sabot7726]

When I loaded the newest version it said it needed firefox or ie7, and that ie6 was not supported.

[allen]

You talking about the web based version, or does the downloadable windows client also have the IE dependency? While the web based will certainly be handy, I think the windows client will best suit your needs with live find as you type and better hotkey support.

[sri]

Yes, you don't need to activate/use the web sync feature of EverNote. Are you facing problems getting the clipper to work from within IE6?

[kartal]

You can always use autohotkey hotstrings as adress and email book. Probably that would be the most efficient and stripped down adress book since it is text based.

[mouser]

If I could wave a magic wand I'd create something like FARR or nDroid but made to scan a couple files of info and return matching lines rather than various directories returning matching files.

I keep meaning to write this plugin for FARR or encourage someone else to write it.  A simple text-file information lookup plugin would be so useful and simple.  It's long overdue.

[sabot7726]

I keep meaning to write this plugin for FARR or encourage someone else to write it.  A simple text-file information lookup plugin would be so useful and simple.  It's long overdue.

I'll beta test it!

[Nod5]

Sabot, one thing you can do already with FARR: for each piece of information, create an empty textfile and put the information in the filename.

Example:
Smith, John , imaginary street 45 , Town , State , phone=12345 mobile=123456789 smith @domain.com.txt

Put all such files in some folder and set FARR to only search that folder. If the information is in the right format then a script could be made that autogenerates one such .txt file for each piece of information


Mouser, I just thought of a way to read textfiles in the FARR results window (not open them externally in notepad et al):

1. make a javascript plugin that when given a filepath as parameter parses that file and displays it in the results window

example: "plugin_name C:\folder\file.txt "

2. setup a custom hotkey that puts "plugin_name NNN" in the editbox, where NNN is the path of the selected match

To use it, we would:
1. do a regular search for a filename, like "file.txt"
2. select the target file in the results list (not needed if first match)
3. press the hotkey (shift+enter is an good candidate for hotkey)

I think we have the plugin tools already but do we have the path of the currently selected match as a variable for a FARR hotkey to use?

Also, such a hotkey wouldn't need to be global as the current FARR hotkeys are

edit: the Virtual Launch Strings "showfile" could also do this, right? So no js plugin is needed. The steps would be: hotkey is called, puts "SomeAlias SomeSelectedFilePath" in editbox, SomeAlias is set to do "showfile SomeSelectedFilePath", which displays the contents of the file in the results box. If only the hotkey could read and send the selected file's path.

[rjbull]

If I could wave a magic wand I'd create something like FARR or nDroid but made to scan a couple files of info and return matching lines rather than various directories returning matching files.

I keep meaning to write this plugin for FARR or encourage someone else to write it.  A simple text-file information lookup plugin would be so useful and simple.  It's long overdue.

-mouser (May 09, 2008, 10:56 AM)

Mouser,

Is that any different from using GREP?  If it isn't, why not just add a FARR alias for running a GREP?  I recommend BareGrepPro, already mentioned in several other DC threads.

[sabot7726]

I was checking out baregreppro and it looks like it would be great for this purpose, I just need to have all my various files in txt format and in the same directory.

[rjbull]

I was checking out baregreppro and it looks like it would be great for this purpose, I just need to have all my various files in txt format and in the same directory.

-sabot7726 (May 11, 2008, 05:15 PM)

BareGrepPro is practically impossible to outspeed    But I repeat, you might like to try AZZ Cardfile as it looks to be fast and appropriate for your situation, that is, all the features you need but still  easy to use in a hurry.

[phillfri]

Try AMNotebook. http://www.aignes.com/notebook.htm The Lite version is available at no cost for personal use. Commercail use requires a fee, which upgrades you to the Pro version. See http://www.aignes.co...pics/differences.htm

I spent a lot of time looking for this type of program over the course of several years before I found AM-Notebook. I usually won't pay a fee for utility type software like this because there are a lot of decent freeware and open source programs available. But after using AM-Notebook for about a month I broke down and paid the fee for a pro version. Best money I ever spent on a piece of software.

This has everything I want and most of what you've said you're looking for, and it can be installed on an external USB device, in case you move around a lot from PC to PC. The Pro version can also use network storage. It runs continuously and minimizes to the system tray, where it's easily accessible. It has a small memory foot print, and is very responsive even on low power PCs. The author want's to keep it clean, simple to use and fast.

I've been using AM-Notebook for about 3 years now and wouldn't trade it for anything. Download it and play around with it for awhile. I think you'll find that its a very versatile tool. 

[Edvard]

I made something much simpler in Autohotkey once called "phone", maybe I ought to dig it up and add some stuff to it, even though it works as it is, just go:

[Select]

phone add [name] [phone #]

to add a name

[Select]

phone [name]

to pull up a number

[Select]

phone list

to pull up the entire list in notepad

[Select]

phone del [name]

to delete a name.

Here it is in AHK code:

[Select]

; first put the most important command line options into variables
apb_name = %1%
apb_opt = %0%
; look to see if there is a phone file handy, if not, make one...
IfNotExist, phone.db
FileAppend,,phone.db
; figure out if there are too many options
If apb_opt >3
MsgBox,16,PhoneBook,The command you issued contains too many variables `nPlease use dashes or underscores instead of spaces `nin the Entry name.,
; this is in case you started Phone without options or from a mouse
If apb_opt < 1
InputBox,apb_name,PhoneBook,Please enter a name to find.,,300,150
; what did you say?
If apb_name = add
Gosub, add
If apb_name = del
Goto, del
If apb_name = list
Goto, list
; unless you asked for 'del' option, display info requested or info just entered
IniRead,apb_ph,phone.db,%apb_name%,phone, nonexistent
StringUpper, apb_name, apb_name, T
MsgBox,64,PhoneBook,%apb_name%'s phone number is... `n %apb_ph%,

ExitApp

; subroutine for adding names
add:
apb_name = %2%
apb_ph = %3%
IniWrite,%apb_ph%,phone.db,%apb_name%,phone
Return

; subroutine and exit after deleting names
del:
apb_name = %2%
IniDelete,phone.db,%apb_name%
; what have I done? :o
MsgBox,64,PhoneBook,All records of %apb_name% have been erased...
ExitApp

; open phone.db in Notpad
list:
Run, Notepad phone.db, C:/,,
ExitApp

Give it a shot, and I'll try to add some of your suggestions to it.
(here's the .exe to get you started...)