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General brainstorming for Note-taking software

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EverMike:
that article you posted last week has really got me thinking about what the solution to organizing notes really is.  I thought tags and categories were the solution, but now I see that they each have distinct advantages and disadvantages.  There must be a way that is the BEST solution, but what is it?  And I think that the solution has to be more than just simply offering both options, that is, both tree heirarchies and tags.  I'm thinking that there's some way to come up with a new system that is better than both of them.  But I can't say what that is at this point.
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Superboyac,

You already know this of course, but for the others who haven't looked at EverNote yet, I thought I should point out that EverNote combines tags and tree heirarchies in one panel for the best of both. Also, its SmartSearch feature finds notes by keyword literally as fast as you can type.

Rover:
Note:  I have not tried Evernote, Zoot, Ecco, etc.

Since this is a brainstorming thread, I thought I'd brainstorm... or at least shower :)

I've been thinking about this topic since the thread was stared and I think I know what I want, I just don't know what it looks like... so here it goes in words.

As I think of an idea or want to capture a web page or some text or whatever, I really don't want to spend a lot of time describing it to myself.  I think I know what it means and end up giving a bogus description anyway.  It's like finding notes that say "call Bob" and you have no idea which Bob or why you would call.  All I want to do it press a hot-key that pops up a clean window for me to start typing or pasting in.

I'd like a date/time stamp; let me know if it's captured, web, handwritten, whatever; let me create todo just by hitting another key or maybe typing todo:.  I'd like to be able to assign a reminder to anything,  again by hotkey or typing alarm:  3/19/2007 9:15 am (which will remind me that I'm 42).  It should apply to whatever text page I'm currently working with.  I should also be able to pick from a calendar display via keyboard or mouse.

Then I'd like to assign some general associations with note.  Something like work, fun, tech, etc. 

I want it to save everything and go away until I need it again.  I like the concept behind Google Desktop for searching to find documents instead of browsing a tree.  Let me enter some keywords, maybe a date range and pull up a synopsis of everything you find. Again this should be a quick hot key interface.

I guess my point is that I really don't want to spend a lot of time maintaining a database or tree structure.  Just let me find things the way they make sense, and let me assocate some general relationships quickly and easily.  Is that too much to ask?  :D

thomthowolf:


I guess my point is that I really don't want to spend a lot of time maintaining a database or tree structure.  Just let me find things the way they make sense, and let me assocate some general relationships quickly and easily.  Is that too much to ask?  :D
-Rover (March 20, 2006, 09:02 PM)
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If that is all you want, you really need to try evernote.

Rover:
Just installed Evernote.  First impression... Eye candy, mouse centric. :down:

I don't see where to change the basic color scheme quickly, I'll check the manual. 

Shows promise... we'll see :tellme:

superboyac:
Just installed Evernote.  First impression... Eye candy, mouse centric. thumb down

I don't see where to change the basic color scheme quickly, I'll check the manual.

Shows promise... we'll see
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Rover, I'll be totally honest (at the risk of offending EverMike!), the first time I tried Evernote, I too had the same reaction.  For the most part, I hate bubbly, shiny interfaces like Evernote kind of has, with it's blue rounded edges and the "option" to overlay the usual Windows border around it.  I like things to be simple, functional, and rectangular (ie Keynote).

That being said, if you can get over that, Evernote is quite powerful and amazing, if not unique.  It's perfect for what Rover just mentioned about putting clips of information in it and just forgetting about it.  It's search and filter methods are, I think, the best you can find so far out there.

As a minimalist suggestion to Evermike, I'd say to get rid of that trapezoidal blue border around the program and just have the normal windows border, and use the space at the top for some more toolbar buttons.  I would strongly suggest to put on that main toolbar all the buttons that are available in the "full mode".  By the way, I still don't see why there even has to be a "full mode".

Part of the reason why I'm against bubbly interfaces and non-rectangular interfaces is because the computer monitor itself is rectangular.  So as far as keeping a clean desktop, docking, and all that other postitioning stuff, it's much easier to do with rectangular programs.  Being creative with that aspect of the gui really adds nothing to the program.  One of the main reasons of how I discovered donationcoder was when I finally got sick of the Konfabulator program and realized that there are programmers out there who write tiny little programs (coding snacks!) to take care of all your little Windows issues.  Konfabulator widgets are totally annoying with their Mac look and bubbly, useless features on them.

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