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Author Topic: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday  (Read 12148 times)

wraith808

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Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« on: August 17, 2009, 01:10 PM »
Tabbles is up on Bits Du Jour on Wednesday, and I was really excited about it, so decided to download it to see if it would fit the needs of a Virtual File System.  I'm sad to report that it didn't.  I didn't go into it enough to give a justified mini-review, so I'm just posting this short synopsis.

Tabbles is touted as a personal document management system that allows you to organize your files via visible tags.  While it has a lot of functionality, usability was dropped way off the radar.  When you open the program, you're presented with this full screen view of a folder that contains a visual browser for your file system, a folder with a sample tabble, and a few other folders.  First a bit about tabbles (the object, not the program).  Tabbles are these circular objects that are containers for folders, documents, or pretty much anything on your file system or in the cloud.  You can tag them, have them in more than one place (without duplicating the content), combine them (so that you open a group at once or manipulate a group at once) or, of course, open them.  It's a pretty interesting concept, and one that I was looking forward to trying out.  But the view of your tabbles is always this huge graphical bit- there's no details view or anything like that.  It's like only having variations of the icon view in explorer with all of the drawbacks thereof (only having a label, needing a huge amount of space, etc).  It is also very tied to having some other sort of file explorer to organize your files, at least originally- so imagine needing all of this room to see your tabbles, then having to have an explorer window up in addition- it turned me off pretty fast.

This impression was obtained over about an hour of messing around with it, and wanting it to be what I was looking for.  It was also after 3 days of trying to get it installed (I had a few problems trying to get the installer, then with crashes in the actual application and obtaining updates).

In short, it's very pretty, and seems to have a whole lot to offer in terms of the visual tagging, and relationship of documents.  But the viewing, organization, and manipulation of the documents really put me off.

t1_shot_1.jpgTabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
Main Interface

t1_shot_2.jpgTabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
Direct Manipulation Mode

t1_shot_3.jpgTabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
Combine Feature

t1_shot_4.jpgTabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
Results of Combine

Caveat: I've never gotten into the mind-mapping thing much, and this seems a lot like this for documents.  If you're interested, I'd still say take a look.  The developers have been really responsive.  But if I hadn't had a chance to try it, I would have probably bought it thinking it was something else, and wanted to save anyone else that frustration.

Addition: To be complete, the normal price is $59.99, but on Bits tomorrow, the price will be $24.60 which is 59% off.  According to a representative from Yellow blue soft, they only offer a per-computer license, i.e. if you want it on your laptop and desktop, or at work and at home, you have to get two licenses.  They also address the explorer open at the same time problem- they will be looking into integrating it with explorer at a later date.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2009, 01:20 PM by wraith808 »

wraith808

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2009, 04:53 AM »
A response on BDJ from the developer for fairness and completion:
Charles,

I see that you were looking for a virtual file system: this is not what Tabbles is (even thouigh that's where we're heading to) and it's unfortunate that you got this idea since that's not what we're trying to comunicate.

Generally speaking, Tabbles is meant to be an application helping people to cross-link their files and folders, a feature that greatly helps those who have desk-jobs and need to handle hundreds of documents at once, such as accountants, marketing people, read morelawyers and so on.

Some of the features you mentioned are actually already there, they can be obtained by a combination of zooming and panning, similarly to how you would you on your desktop. Plus you can already visualize the tabbles linked to a file as standard tags.

Said that, Tabbles is still a young product and we're still actively developing it! A more structured visualization system is high on our to-do list, and current customers will receive it in the future updates. Precisely we're about to start testing a sidebar kind of visualization.

Anyway, your input is very precious to us, thank you.
We'd be happy to discuss more about your impressions on our forum at www.tabbles.net/forum.

Regards,

Andrea

Armando

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2009, 01:33 PM »
Thanks for the short review wraith808. I was intrigued too and I followed your discussion on Bits du Jour.

mwb1100

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Tabbles on GAOTD - 11 Sep 09 (was Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday)
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2009, 09:57 AM »
For anyone who had some interest in Tabbles but didn't pull the trigger on the BDJ deal, it's on Giveaway of the Day today:

  - http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/tabbles/

J-Mac

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday-and Saturday Feb 27,2010
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2010, 12:00 AM »
wraith, we sure are getting some mileage from your mini review! I was reading the reviews at Bits and saw the link to your review here. Thanks for trying it out and posting this - saves me the effort as it doesn’t appear that I can use this either.

Thanks!

Jim

wraith808

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2010, 12:33 AM »
No problem!  I actually purchased it on Bits this time- it seems to have improved a lot from comments from the users, and changed paradigms a bit.  I'll update the review with my new findings as soon as I get a chance.

J-Mac

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2010, 01:16 AM »
No problem!  I actually purchased it on Bits this time- it seems to have improved a lot from comments from the users, and changed paradigms a bit.  I'll update the review with my new findings as soon as I get a chance.

Aha - so you have seen some changes then? Maybe I need to reconsider.

Do you know whether or not it plays well with 3rd party file managers? Like Directory Opus, XYPlorer, TC, etc.?

Thanks!

Jim

wraith808

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2010, 01:19 AM »
I'm not sure.  Actually, I'm not even sure how extensive the changes are- I looked at the site and the descriptions, and they seemed like a good direction, even in the licensing.  And the price was a lot better this time and I'm a software addict so...

But I'll take a look at it and post my findings here as soon as I get a chance.  Unfortunately, it probably won't be today as it's my wife's birthday.

J-Mac

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2010, 01:24 AM »
But I'll take a look at it and post my findings here as soon as I get a chance.  Unfortunately, it probably won't be today as it's my wife's birthday.

Well darn! I hope you know your priorities well! Show your wife a wonderful birthday!

Thanks!

Jim

Darwin

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2010, 09:32 AM »
Just to note - Tabbles is availabe on Bits du Jour again today (August 2, 2010).

wraith - any updates on how you feel about this application?

wraith808

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #10 on: August 02, 2010, 09:46 AM »
I haven't actually used it again since I purchased it  :-[

Darwin

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #11 on: August 02, 2010, 10:18 AM »
A ha! A man after my own heart  ;D

J-Mac

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #12 on: August 02, 2010, 11:39 AM »
Darwin, do you have Tabbles? And if yes, do you use Tabbles?

Thanks!

Jim

Darwin

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Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday
« Reply #13 on: August 02, 2010, 12:04 PM »
Darwin, do you have Tabbles? And if yes, do you use Tabbles?

Thanks!

Jim

Hi Jim,

No on both counts! The idea of it is "sort of" intriguing to me... but I doubt I'd use it. I don't tag my photo or music collections as it is...