General brainstorming for Note-taking software

[superboyac]

whoa...doublewitt, as the author of the notetaking roundup and this thread, let me respond to your comments.  First of all, I don't mean any of this in an offensive spirit or non-constructive manner, and if I came off that way, I apologize.  When I said that TreeDBNotes is not a purely notetaking software, I meant it from the standpoint of managing simple text notes with no real added features (except for formatting features like rtf).  I did that on purpose to make the review somewhat manageable or else it would have been nearly impossible for me to write a review if I didn't limit my pool of software.  I purposefully didn't want to consider applications like TreeDBNotes, Do-Organizer, and UltraRecall because I don't have the time/energy to productively compare the enormous amount of features these programs offer.

Also, it's not really a matter of defining what "notetaking" really encompasses, whether it's just plain text, contact info, calendar appointments, etc.  Many of us are going to have different philosophies on all that, and there is no right or wrong as far as I'm concerned.  Again, the only reason why I limited the definition of notetaking software to ones that just dealt with freeform text is more of a practical reason to make this review manageable.

If you are the author of TreeDB, welcome to this site and, honestly, we love having the authors participate here.  I never meant EATKS to be an insult, just a short abbreviation to quickly categorize that kind of software as doing much more than a simple notetaker.

Your focus is:  *ILLGC software
inefficient, low, level, goose chaser

I'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  ).

[iphigenie]

I think one message that I get loud and clear from these past few pages on this thread is that there are several "understandings" of note taking

Some of the key ones

1. Personal information organiser
Keep and organise little snippets of information from addresses to quotes to todos - (usually small bits of information which change a few times maximum)

2. Reference organiser
Store webpages, quotations etc.
(usually medium to large bits of information which don't change much)

3. Idea organiser
Tools that help write something by organising, fleshing out, reorganising etc.
(large bits of information which change every minute)

It follows from this that someone with one of the styles in mind will clearly object to the choices and criteria used by someone who has a different one in mind, but the fact that they have a different target in mind might not be immediately obvious since a lot of the features and vocabulary will overlap...

PS: I'm looking for a good #3 style one at the moment, as I find writing documents from scratch in a text editor or, worse, word just doesnt work for me.

[Lashiec]

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

[superboyac]

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

-Lashiec (September 18, 2007, 03:16 PM)

Wait....what?  I didn't come up with any conclusions?  I don't get it...

My conclusion was that there isn't one best program for this notetaking (as I've tried to define it).  I remarked about this in another thread about how difficult it is to do a comprehensive review.  I don't think it's accurate to say "this is the best program", rather, I like to focus on specific features of a program and specifically remark if that feature is implemented the best in that particular software, and let the user decide if that is the best program for him.  For example, I won't say Evernote is the best notetaking software, but I will say it's the best for dumping and retrieving notes.

[Lashiec]

Oh, yeah, I overlooked the review. Sorry

[iphigenie]

Oh I expect this thread to go on forever, but it would be helpful if people clarify what type of "note taking" they have in mind when they write an opinion/criticism/praise

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

[Darwin]

Thought I'd answered this earlier, but clearly haven't: SuperboyAC - are you familiar with the phrase "wild goose chase", I'm pretty sure that this is what doublewitt was getting at with "goose chaser". Essentially, you're wasting your time trying to attain the unattainable.

[superboyac]

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!

[Darwin]

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)

Agreed! It's a noble and worthwhile pursuit (and a lot of fun, too!). Thanks for starting the thread, Aram 

[Armando]

Let the goose chasing continue for another 25 pages!

-superboyac (September 19, 2007, 04:52 PM)

Here's another one (SQLNotes) that looks worth looking at, especially that PPLandry (developer) has started to post here :

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.donation...oteTakers1/index.php :

Great work, perhaps it could be updated with some SQLNotes info 

Pierre

-PPLandry (September 17, 2007, 07:27 PM)

 

[Armando]

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)

Agreed. Completely. That's what the thread Working with (display+format+restructure) big amount of data (text+graphics)? ) was all (or almost all...) about.

I’m pretty satisfied with my actual system, but I feel that its lacking some kind of automated index. Something like the Chapter by Chapter Word plug in, but with more features, the possibility of constructing more complex hierarchies. Or maybe just something along the lines of Ultra Recall, but without the hassle of broken links with external documents (when you move-rename files etc.). (Tag2find has pretty much solved the broken link problem for NTFS, but its alternate data stream technology didn’t make it yet in notetaking software or outliners…)

This thread too  is tackling with a similar problem, I believe   : In search of a more structured Microsoft Word (for collecting documents & notes)

ANYWAY… just some quick thoughts...

[Armando]

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)

...a very good sign. 

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)

Now, this is very positive. Cnewtonne emphasized this aspect in the General brainstorming for Note-taking software and I totally agree with him :

[…]
- 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)

[PPLandry]

...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.

Thanks! Ecco died when MS bundled Outlook into Office because some of the functionality of Ecco (the workgroup aspects) was now available for free and because corporate guys, having to choose between MS and Ecco would/will always choose MS. But Outlook is not Ecco, and all the outlining features, flexible database, etc died with Ecco, having no replacement.

SQLNotes fits in perfectly in that spot left open by Ecco dying away. None of the MS products handle that niche at all. So SQLNotes works in synergy with MS Office (or other office products to a certain extent). Excel can read SQLNotes grid views, Word can mail-merge SQLNotes data, Outlook can generate personnalized e-mails from SQLNotes, Access can view/use SQLNotes data and generate sophiticated reports, and drag-drop works between Office apps and SQLNotes.

But SQLNotes is not an Office add-on. It has many, many features all of it's own, including row and column calculations, pivot tables, charts, HTML Editor/browser, Import/Export, e-mail generation and Mail-merge, just to name a few.

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

[Armando]

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...)

[PPLandry]

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)

Call me Pierre (ou Pierre Paul pour les français...)

[muntealb]

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.

Another problem is the absence of the possibility to translate the software. Only NoteCase, TreeDBNotes, AM-Notebook and SQLNotes can be translated at this time.

I think the authors should take into account also these two aspects so their software could be used by a larger group of people, not only by those that know english and write only in Windows-1252 encoding (or other encoding for latin west-european characters).

[PPLandry]

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)

SQLNotes currently supports Unicode in the rich text pane (aka second pane which acts like a HTML word processor/browser). Unicode support in the outliner/grid is also available on demand, and will be available to the general public in a few weeks.

[muntealb]

Pierre, I have installed SQLNotes beta01 and in my opnion it does not support Unicode in the panel you just mentioned. For me there is a simple way to test that. 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 Vista with the romanian locale set (keyboard mapping) and these two characters are displayed correctly in Notepad, EditPad, EverNote, NoteCase but in SQLNotes (rich text pane) they are replaced with question marks, so this is the sign for me that Unicode is not supported at this time. I will download the next version when it will become available and tell you on the forum if the things have changed from my point of view.

I asked the author of AM-Notebook about the Unicode support and he told me that some controls used in his software do not support Unicode so he cannot do anything about that. But the problem exists also for the text editors, at this time I think that only EditPad, EmEditor, PSPad, Notepad++ support Unicode.

[PPLandry]

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 can't find the Latin Extended-B subset. Can you direct me?

Otherwise, I can insert any character (using Character Map), be it ansi, arabic, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic in the HTML Editing pane (Press F12 to display it if it isn't). You must first select your font, using the font menu ( I used Arial Unicode MS) . So I believe (with the little knowledge I have of Unicode), that it is working fine.

[muntealb]

Yes, I can insert all the romanian characters in SQLNotes by using the Character Map. However, I cannot write them using the keyboard. I use Arial as the font and even if I change it to something else SQLNotes does not display some romanian characters correctly (three of the five that have diacritics). In Notepad, EditPad, NoteCase, etc. all the romanian fonts are displayed correctly.

You can view the Latin Extended-B subset at :

http://www.unicode.o...ode-3.2/U32-0180.pdf

The fonts that cannot be written in SQLNotes are (with the Unicode code) :

Latin capital letter A with breve : 0102 => Ă

Latin capital letter S with comma below : 0218 => Ș

Latin capital letter T with comma below : 021A => Ț

I hope you can also see them written by me after the => sign.

P.S. I will continue this discussion on the SQLNotes Forum, if you want. I have opened a new thread at :
http://www.sqlnotes....e/posts/Default.aspx

[vixay]

Is there a summary post? It was confusing trying to follow the thread, especially 25 pages worth (620 posts including this one)!..

I've seen on other forums that someone creates a summary pot and updates it when necessary and makes it the first post, so that new people can quickly get a grasp of things.

Any long time readers want to volunteer for that? Anyway my request reminds of the "how many forum users does it require to change a light bulb" joke... posted somewhere in DC. hehe

[Armando]

well, there's superboyac Notetaking Software Roundup #1. It's not up to date (many software like EverNote have changed a great deal since it was first published), but summarizes the first 200 posts... 

[Ted M]

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/..._treedbnotes_pro.exe

Thanks.

[sri]

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/..._treedbnotes_pro.exe

Thanks.

-Ted M (November 02, 2007, 07:26 AM)

Nope. I mirrored it (after zipping) for ya at http://www.divshare....download/2605428-5f1

[Ted M]

Thank you. I'm downloading it now!