Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
General brainstorming for Note-taking software
Rover:
This (very long) thread has taken on a couple of distinct themes that work well together.
1) What I want to do with note-taking software
2) How do I want to interface with my note-taking software
Back in the old days, there were very few rules governing key combinations. F1 was generally reserved for Help and Esc was generally used to back up or exit. Everything else was up for grabs and every application used a different scheme. I well remember the days of WordPerfect keyboard overlays, that would have to be switched out for 1-2-3 overlays when you changed applications.
The interesting part is that you really only used the overlays for a day or two. By then you had learned 90% of what you wanted to do and you found the menu display key to help you find the other 10%. And it was fast.
The brain process worked something like this:
0) What do I need to do now?
1) Print
1.5) unconscious brain process: set context = Word Perfect
2) Print = Shift F7, P
Now the mouse oriented process goes something like this:
0) What do I need to do now?
1) Print
1.5)Brain process: Print is always the same on the file menu
2) Grab mouse
3) Navigate to file
3.5)Brain process: should I use file|Print or the Printer Icon?
4) Click File
5) navigate down
6) click Print
6.5) No I don't need to change any options
7) click OK
I only mention this to say I think part of the frustration we all feel with our software comes from the mouse-centric interface. We Look for things on the menu instead of knowing what we want and allowing learned associations to take over.
THAT is the power of something like InfoSelect. I never used the program myself, but I watched a guy who was in love with it show off a bit. He talked about finding a topic quickly pressed a couple of search keys and started typing his word. (He knew where the cursor would be and that he could type right away; he didn't even look at the screen. He was a keyboard watching typist.) Yes the interface is old and ugly, and may not have the features we all want/need, but the concept is great. I used to know Word Perfect this well.
I'm all for having some standard shortcuts across the OS. Alt-F4, Ctrl-C, etc. are great examples. I do think the common look and feel has gone too far. Your brain reacts visually and functionally to different applications. Let it use that context the map tasks to keystrokes.
Maybe we should start a UI thread? :)
$0.02.
Othalian:
Hi All,
There is one program which I have noticed has not been mentioned yet and that is Compendium. This was produced by the Open University here in the UK and it is very unusual but very good. I would highly recommend it. You can grab a copy here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/ and view their excellent video tutorials here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/training/videos/index.htm There are also version for Windows, Mac and Linux. The best thing is it is completely FREE!
Regards
Othalian
superboyac:
Hi All,
There is one program which I have noticed has not been mentioned yet and that is Compendium. This was produced by the Open University here in the UK and it is very unusual but very good. I would highly recommend it. You can grab a copy here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/ and view their excellent video tutorials here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/training/videos/index.htm There are also version for Windows, Mac and Linux. The best thing is it is completely FREE!
Regards
Othalian
-Othalian (March 17, 2006, 01:27 PM)
--- End quote ---
Hi Othalian! Welcome to DC.
Compendium seems interesting, however, it doesn't fit into this topic. Compendium is more of a program like the popular Mind Manager. We're trying to limit this discussion to simple notetaking software. Or else, this thread can quickly go off-topic, due to the various related information management softwares available.
superboyac:
kfitting, I strongly agree that when a program (like Keynote) goes to the next version, that it should never really reduce the number of features. Always add more, but never reduce. Because, like you said, people get familiar with the way a program works (for whatever reason) and taking that away can be extremely frustrating. If new features conflict with older features, the best thing to do is make it an option for the user.
nevf, yeah, it looks like InfoSelect is dead (for many reasons). Zoot also "seems" to be dead, but there is still talk about it moving to the 32-bit version sometime soon. I still strongly believe that once Zoot can use the typical rtf stuff (outlines, bullets, changing fonts, font sizes, colored text, etc) it will immediately become a strong competitor in the notetaking market. I'm desperately trying to make it work now, but I'm having such a hard time moving all of my notes (which have a lot of rtf stuff in it) into Zoot. I don't understand why it takes so many years to convert a program into 32-bit, but I'm not a programmer.
Rover, you bring up some good points about UI. I'll bet we can start another long thread on just that topic! Go for it.
We've been discussing these notetaking software for a while now, and this thread has become quite lengthy. If I may do so, I'd like to point out the 3 softwares that I feel have the most promise for the future. I know I've repeated this many times already but here they are:
--Surfulater
--EverNote
--Zoot
Fortunately, the developers of Surfulater and EverNote have actively participated in this discussion (which I thank them for), and we know that these are young programs that are still being actively developed and promise to add a lot of new, desired features. Zoot has been around longer, but unfortunately, has also stagnated recently with users wanting many more modern features. But I add it to the list because its raw power is unparalleled so far.
Also, there are tons of other note-taking softwares out there that, while they are good, I have decided to not include them in the top tier because they only offer the traditional tree-heirarchy system. I think that it's very important that we break out of that, as the three softwares above are doing. Also, that makes this analysis much easier because there are tons of programs out there that do offer this tree-heirarchy like Keynote, Mybase (which, if you read the beginning of this thread, I was very big on), MyInfo, NeoMem, and just about every other PIM available. The tree-heirarchy just won't cut it once you amass a large number of notes.
I really have nothing more to say about this topic. I will keep discussing it if I think of something or responding to other people's thoughts, but I'm pretty sure I've said what I wanted to say. In the meantime, I will eagerly watch and analyze the development of the above 3 programs, and hopefully I will one day be comfortable enough to be ready to transfer all of my notes to and be committed to it.
mouser:
i wonder if with all this discussion around this thread, we might see if any of these companies might be willing to offer a nice generous discount to our members in april or may?
(and if anyone wants to do some little mini reviews..)
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