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TreeSheets - an interesting and innovative note taker (freeware)
kartal:
Well linebreak-indents and grid cells are different things. Having no real linebreak will make organization of infocells very hard in my view. I personally prefer a hybrid approach rather than creating a grid cell for every line or an indent. So my points are very valid from my point of view even after you explain or me going through the tutorial in the first place. The grid idea is great but it is not that new. There are alot of people who use Excel(or alike) for note taking.
My main argument against indenting or line breaking via grids is readability. The information that is organized under such organization looks more structured less informative. It might work for some people but not for me I guess. I am not against structured blocks but readability and information relationship is very important when one needs to go through notes(adding or reading).
I personally have an issue with applications that do not have support for drag and drop, image copy pasting. In that respect bringing an image via file dialog is not very productive approach in year 2009 especially one needs to use it as a "note taking " application. If I need to go through menu maze to bring information into my note taking application, I would not call it a note taking application anymore.
Beside all my negative take on it, i really like the zooming into the grid idea. It is really intuitive.
After evaluating 100s of note taking applications(you name it) in last 4 years, I have decided upon
-Wikidpad for bulk note taking (plain text based, freeform tagging, easy and non limiting topic connecting)
-Onenote for specialized-sharable (drawing, freeform layout, peer to peer notebook syncing, easy notebooksharing)
-Freemind for organized note taking (freefom, easy branching, image support, drag and drop support, html support)
kartal, you're impatient, aren't you?
-No image support
-kartal (March 25, 2009, 09:30 PM)
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In fact there is, just not by copy-pasting yet. Inserting image file does work, though.
-It looks like "enter" does not make linebreak
-kartal (March 25, 2009, 09:30 PM)
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In fact it does. Every cell is a line, and hitting [Enter] does end it. Try hitting [Enter], then start typing again, and you'll see.
-No way to use tab for indenting
-kartal (March 25, 2009, 09:30 PM)
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Try [Ins] (to add a sub-grid), for in TreeSheet, an indented paragraph is like a sub-grid.
I did say its approach is unorthodox, didn't I? You really have to follow through the sample file (tutorial.cts) to know what it's doing, which took me 10-20 min., top. I've never seen an application with so unfamiliar an UI that I could learn in such short time, and got me hooked so quickly.
I have my editor (EmEditor) in the system tray all the time, so I could quickly open it and dump any random bits in it. Now, while EmEditor is still faithfully there, I find myself reaching for TreeSheet more and more often.
Now things would probably be different if I have a favorite power note taker. I'm still evaluating Rightnote, InfoQube, myBase, and MyInfo, but can't decide on one yet, since each has obvious flaws for my purpose.
-mwang (March 26, 2009, 10:21 AM)
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mwang:
My main argument against indenting or line breaking via grids is readability. The information that is organized under such organization looks more structured less informative. It might work for some people but not for me I guess.
-kartal (March 26, 2009, 12:22 PM)
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To each his own, indeed. It struck me as odd at first, too, but somehow grew on me quickly. I don't know why. I guess it's because it's similar to map tools (Google Maps, etc.), and I've always like maps (including paper-based maps).
I personally have an issue with applications that do not have support for drag and drop, image copy pasting.
-kartal (March 26, 2009, 12:22 PM)
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There are a number of improvements needed for TreeSheet to be a regular on my system, and image copy-pasting is one of them as well. I guess/hope this could be implemented quickly since its data structure supports images already.
I personally don't use drap-n-drop much, though. My main working window (Word, Powerpoint, Freemind, or Firefox) is almost always maximized, so it's hard to drag-n-drop things between applications.
After evaluating 100s of note taking applications(you name it) in last 4 years, I have decided upon
-Wikidpad for bulk note taking (plain text based, freeform tagging, easy and non limiting topic connecting)
-Onenote for specialized-sharable (drawing, freeform layout, peer to peer notebook syncing, easy notebooksharing)
-Freemind for organized note taking (freefom, easy branching, image support, drag and drop support, html support)
-kartal (March 26, 2009, 12:22 PM)
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I've also tried a lot (less than 100, but not too far behind), especially since I joined DC and read the several threads on note-taking, and SuperboyAC's review. Still can't find the one.
My main gripe is (the lack of) unicode support. Many otherwise powerful note-takers don't support unicode (Asian text especially) fully, making them useless to me. Big names in this category include MyInfo, Surfulator, ActionOutline, TreeDBNotes Pro, Zoot, and Treepad, just to name a few.
Wikidpad, unfortunately, is one of them, and it doesn't draw tables, which is quite important (though not essential) to me. RightNote, which I learned of only recently (from you, right?), also has some issues, though still tolerable.
OneNote is not considered because it belongs to the Office family, from which I'm trying to move away. I tried it briefly, and while it's powerful, it's too bulky for my system to stay on all the time.
Freemind is a newcomer on my system, but I like it a lot and it's one of my main working tools now. I've found it a surprisingly effective tool for presentation, replacing Powerpoint on many occasions. Especially since it's cross-platform, I could use it on my notebook (mainly on Linux). (Now all I need is something to really replace Word then I'm MS Office-free.) When I'm attending conferences or meetings, I use Freemind to take notes, since only it and Firefox need to be open at the time. On my main desktop, however, I would prefer something lighter, if I can find one.
Thanks for sharing, though. I appreciate it.
kartal:
You can try Keynote if you have not. I think it is good with unicode. Someone is maintaining the project.
http://code.google.com/p/keynote-nf/
I think that main the issue with Treesheets is that it is not freeform, maybe little bit as long as you have everything planned out before taking notes. When you are trying to take speedy notes you do not want to think about where and how you want to put the note.Having this grid structure creates invisible connections between cells that can make false impressions on the content of the notes. Other than this particular issue I think this is a fresh new approach to note taking.
mwang:
You can try Keynote if you have not. I think it is good with unicode. Someone is maintaining the project.-kartal (March 26, 2009, 10:59 PM)
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Unfortunately it doesn't handle unicode well, either. Thanks, though.
I think that main the issue with Treesheets is that it is not freeform, maybe little bit as long as you have everything planned out before taking notes. When you are trying to take speedy notes you do not want to think about where and how you want to put the note.-kartal (March 26, 2009, 10:59 PM)
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Not really a problem here. Alongside cells for structured stuff, I set up a unstructured notepad cell, where in my cursor mostly resides. I summon Treesheets from the system tray with a hotkey, then type away. Organization can wait.
Paul Keith:
Unfortunately this isn't for me either. It's interesting though how kartal says Freemind is freeform when these two apps is basically the same thing.
You could even say Freemind is the MS Word where as TreeSheets is the Excel of the same model.
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