NoteFrog Pro (clipboard information manager) - Mini-Review

[IainB]

@dcwul62:
The version numbering is confusing, and seems to have got out of step somewhat (the version numbering in the files is "0.0.0.0").
As best I can establish, this seems to be a correct summary of the actual time-dated releases, sources and file sizes:

Code: Text [Select]

1. NoteFrog (2013-05-xx) v2.5.2.                           2876876
2. NoteFrog (2013-06-12) v2.6.0 FULL setup ex BLOG.exe     2971753
3. NoteFrog (2013-11-22) v2.5.5B FULL setup ex FORUM.exe   2971689
4. Notefrog (2013-11-22) v2.5.5B QUICK setup ex FORUM.exe    851456

I had an email from Berry on 2014-04-27 where he mentioned the next version:

NoteFrog 3, which will ultimately include encrypted databases and HTML datatype is underdevelopment, targeted for early 2015.

[dcwul62]

Thanks a lot.

Up front, I admit ... It definitely is a matter of taste, but I can't get enthousiastic about
the Notefrog layout and colors.
I am sorry.
It is a bit 'oldfashioned' XP-like.

Comparing that to AllMyNotes

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Today, I checked out a number of other notes-managers that have been mentioned on this forum.
(separate post on that).

But bottomline, in spite my 'reservations' towards AllMyNotes (see other post) I think it is one of the best
and pretty straightforward and userfriendly.

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[rjbull]

enthousiastic about
the Notefrog layout and colors.

-dcwul62 (May 18, 2014, 10:05 AM)

This has been said before...

Comparing that to AllMyNotes

-dcwul62 (May 18, 2014, 10:05 AM)

AllMyNotes has a particularly pretty GUI.  But, I wish it were more keyboard-friendly, and had hotkeys for adding whole/part webpages and other clips to new/current notes, like RightNote does.  Also, as far as I'm aware, AllMyNotes runs entirely in memory, which makes it fast, but if you have heavy-duty requirements you should probably consider something backed with a database, like RightNote.  AllMyNotes does have nice Google-like search features and display of postings.

[40hz]

Note Frog's look is distractingly busy-looking and hard on the eyes. I couldn't see myself willingly spending a lot of time in it because of that. The interface isn't XP...or even Win98. It looks closer to an early Delphi app under Windows for Workgroups, or possibly something written for a Commodore 64. At least to my tired eyes.

A pretty interface won't make a bad app into good one. But it can certainly make a very good app look like a bad app. And with all the competition in this category of product, a dev might not get a second chance if the interface is a turn-off.

[wraith808]

Note Frog's look is distractingly busy-looking and hard on the eyes. I couldn't see myself willingly spending a lot of time in it because of that. The interface isn't XP...or even Win98. It looks closer to an early Delphi app under Windows for Workgroups, or possibly something written for a Commodore 64. At least to my tired eyes.

A pretty interface won't make a bad app into good one. But it can certainly make a very good app look like a bad app. And with all the competition in this category of product, a dev might not get a second chance if the interface is a turn-off.

-40hz (May 18, 2014, 06:34 PM)

Yeah, it might seem shallow, but it's a valid concern.

[superboyac]

Note Frog's look is distractingly busy-looking and hard on the eyes. I couldn't see myself willingly spending a lot of time in it because of that. The interface isn't XP...or even Win98. It looks closer to an early Delphi app under Windows for Workgroups, or possibly something written for a Commodore 64. At least to my tired eyes.

A pretty interface won't make a bad app into good one. But it can certainly make a very good app look like a bad app. And with all the competition in this category of product, a dev might not get a second chance if the interface is a turn-off.

-40hz (May 18, 2014, 06:34 PM)

it's so true, lol!!  it was the first thought i had when i used it the first time!

[IainB]

Some points I would make:
Berry (NoteFrog author) stated that the NF software is intended to be an Information Manager, rather than a Clipboard Manager. I think the original prototype for it was ClipGuru - a clipboard manager. I thus class it as a PIM (Personal Information Manager). (By comparison, CHS is apparently a Clipboard Manager that started out life as being intended as a PIM.)
NF is a WIP, and will be slowly getting there with each successive release.

Ergonomics:

• For me, one of the single most frustrating things about NF is that the default setting in NF at startup is/was clipboard capture OFF. If you want it ON, then you have to set it manually every time. It doesn't STAY ON by design. If you have blithely spent an hour researching and clipping lots of stuff only to discover that you have nothing to show for it, then you will see my point. Even if you have set NF clipboard capture ON, it is not persistent, and the default seems to be reset under certain circumstances - e.g., if the laptop crashes, or if you install NF afresh (though this behaviour is not consistent.).
• Garish colours in a UI can be visually/perceptually disruptive. In NF, the colours of the UI seem to be adjustable to some extent. They don't need to be that garish if you find them disruptive. I wish I could do that with the glary washed-out colours in OneNote 2013 under Win7/8. (OneNote 2007 was fine.) However, it doesn't stop me from using OneNote 2013, which is a tremendously powerful PIM.
• There seem to be some fairly major constraints to the easy entry of text in the NF process of entering text or editing a note, and I have reported those to Berry.
• NF needs a built-in dynamic spellchecker.
• As you scroll down a list of notes, the viewer in NF is quite fast - seems to be consistently faster (responsive) than compared with (say) CHS, for example, which has intermittent lags on scrolling. However, that doesn't stop me from using CHS.

Searches/hyperlinks:

• NF searches can be saved for re-use. (Similar to CHS, which uses saved SQL searches as "Favorites".) The effect in NF and CHS can be rather akin to "tagging" if you use special strings in text as tags - e.g., "#this is a tag", but you have to set each and every tag, which would be tedious in the extreme. Both NF and CHS could benefit significantly from automatic bulk text insertion/removal of the same text string into/from many clips.
• NF uses "Stacks", and I discovered that it had the ability to hyperlink content within an individual stack and between different stacks. This was apparently not intended as a design feature, and has been disabled. Still, it would be great to have. For example, OneNote has hyperlinking, and it works a treat - is very useful. You can hyperlink within a single OneNote Notebook, across multiple Notebooks, and externally - e.g., to a file on a local or network drive, or a Cloud drive, or a URL on the Internet.

[40hz]

^Agree. A "stacks" linking/cross-link feature would be a huge plus to me if I were looking for yet another note manager. That's about the only thing in OneNote (and Hypercard in days of yore) that I found uniquely useful with either product.

[dcwul62]

Note Frog's look is distractingly busy-looking and hard on the eyes. I couldn't see myself willingly spending a lot of time in it because of that. The interface isn't XP...or even Win98. It looks closer to an early Delphi app under Windows for Workgroups, or possibly something written for a Commodore 64. At least to my tired eyes.

A pretty interface won't make a bad app into good one. But it can certainly make a very good app look like a bad app. And with all the competition in this category of product, a dev might not get a second chance if the interface is a turn-off.

-40hz (May 18, 2014, 06:34 PM)

Yeah, it might seem shallow, but it's a valid concern.

-wraith808 (May 18, 2014, 09:14 PM)

Valid it is... at least for me: I did not have any further look into it...

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[dcwul62]

Some points I would make:
Berry (NoteFrog author) stated that the NF software is intended to be an Information Manager, rather than a Clipboard Manager. I think the original prototype for it was ClipGuru - a clipboard manager. I thus class it as a PIM (Personal Information Manager). (By comparison, CHS is apparently a Clipboard Manager that started out life as being intended as a PIM.)
NF is a WIP, and will be slowly getting there with each successive release.

-IainB (May 19, 2014, 12:58 AM)

Frankly, if it was for me, I would vote for a 'combination' of both.

At least:
-It should be able to capture all clipboard (text, html, images, whatever), recording date-time of capture
-This by adding a 'caption' so I can quickly see what is about
-In case of webpages, it should keep track of the URL
-Lateron I should be able to drag-drop/move all captures to specific locations (left folder tree)
e.g.
\Computer\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word..
\Computer\Hardware\SSDs\ ...

-It should be able to export all its non-image-data (text/html) to single files .txt-files and whilst doing so adding caption-date-time of capture.

This is so the text will be 'searchable' by desktop search tool (like X1)

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[rjbull]

I'm a bit concerned about the future of NoteFrog.  The last update was almost a year ago, and the forum seems to have gone.

[IainB]

I'm a bit concerned about the future of NoteFrog.  The last update was almost a year ago, and the forum seems to have gone.

-rjbull (May 20, 2014, 04:57 PM)

I had an email from Berry on 2014-04-27 where he mentioned the next version:

NoteFrog 3, which will ultimately include encrypted databases and HTML datatype is underdevelopment, targeted for early 2015.

He also said that the Forum was taken off the air as it was getting spammed.

-IainB (May 18, 2014, 09:10 AM)

[dcwul62]

Actually, that is the 2nd thing I look at when selecting a program:

- when was the last update (anything older than 2012, i'll skip)
- what was the last update (if the update is just adding a language-pack, I will not take that date as last one, but rather take the one where at least a few new things were added)
- updates, are they on a regular basis or just once a year
- how to get support: only simple a mail on a support page, nothing more, or forum, email support, etc.
- what is the update / upgrade policy - what are the costs ( I hate 'subscriptions', if at all it is necessary, then it should allow me to pay once a year and get some reduction, get a year but pay for 11 months, but actually I don't have  subscription-software until now. oh except renewal of antivirus software)

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[IainB]

^^ Yes. I now use very similar criteria for evaluating "currency" of software, having been disappointed a few times in the past.
I do think NoteFrog could be a bit better in that regard, but on the other hand, during ß testing and as a voluntary ß tester, I have found Berry to be fully committed to improving the software.
It may be that he is operating under some constraints of which we would not be aware.

[rjbull]

It may be that he is operating under some constraints of which we would not be aware.

-IainB (May 21, 2014, 04:41 PM)

I wondered if NoteFrog were a sideline, and he was spending time (perforce) on money-making projects.  I doubt whether NF would keep him in coffee, let alone a living.

[rjbull]

Well, well;

NoteFrog version 2.7 released

Posted by berry – June 2, 2014

NoteFrog 2.7 is available for download.

2.7 is “Version 3 aware”. Version 3 will introduce library encryption. While version 2.7 does not feature encryption, it will be aware if an attempt is made to open a version 3 encrypted library.
2.7 also offers improved window handling for some situations which previously caused excessive window flicker.
2.7 also fixes an issue with a trial period time-out present in version 2.6

2.7 may be downloaded Here

NoteFrog V3 will be released early next year and will not support Windows XP. XP will have been deprecated by Microsoft by then. One reason for NoteFrog deprecating XP support is the improvement to the clipboard handling available since Vista. No more broken clipboard chains!

It doesn't say whether this will be a paid upgrade.

[rjbull]

Humph.  Latest blog post Version 3 planning says, in part:

The major changes in the initial implementation are:
* Support for encrypted (aes128) libraries
* Removal of reminders
* Removal of clipboard collection support under Windows XP

So it's mostly encryption, plus removing "legacy problems."  I was hoping that HTML note type would appear, but no mention here.

[rjbull]

The latest NoteFrogBlog post leaves me bemused:

Happy birthday Frog!
Posted by berry – July 10, 2014

The Frog is 6 years old. Not too bad for the amphibian. Not bad for most software either.

In celebration, we’re offering a NoteFrog license at the incredible price of $9.95 and also introducing – NoteFrog “friends and family” licensing.

From now until the end of the promotion, licensing is an “in perpetuity” (Lifetime) license. You may use NoteFrog forever and will be entitled to any and all future versions offered. And, yes, there will be future versions offered. We use NoteFrog ourselves and will continue to improve it and add features. Version 3 is currently in beta testing and features AES128 database encryption as an option for those of you concerned about the privacy/security of your NoteFrog library. We are also working on the inclusion of HTML data in the library. These and other improvements will be available to all registered users.

All NoteFrog development will continue to be made available to our licensees, but following this policy transition we will no longer be actively marketing/selling NoteFrog. All NoteFrog upgrades will be limited to the existing “family” of users.

Quite a few of our current licensees are word-of-mouth customers. They’ve joined the NoteFrog family as a result of a recommendation from a family member, friend or associate. We appreciate the loyalty of our customer base, so we will continue to make NoteFrog available to your “friends and family” based on a recommendation from you, our customers. Simply send us the email address for your NoteFrog “friends and family” license request using your NoteFrog registration email account and we will send them an email link allowing them to purchase NoteFrog at the “friends and family” license price, currently $15.95. This “friends and family” referral will be the only way to obtain a NoteFrog license after the current promotion period.

Help spread the word, and the word is “The Frog is having a sale.”

But don’t delay. When the sale is over, it’s over.

[wraith808]

It makes sense to me, and I've done that before, personally.

You aren't making enough income for the level of effort, but you don't want to leave your current subscribers in the lurch and/or enjoy working on it.  But something has to be done, so to limit your support and such, you limit your base.  You cut out all advertising/PR efforts, but keep it going.

I've currently been supporting my users for 5 years after I stopped officially supporting, and have received some more by word of mouth, but it leaves enough time for me to work a full time job and have a life, without it getting in the way.

[IainB]

2015-04-18 0742hrs:
I'm not sure what is happening with NoteFrog. Has anyone heard from them?

1. The blog NoteFrogBlog.com and its 2014-06-02 post referred to in this thread, above - NoteFrog version 2.7 released - seems to have been completely rewritten and links have been removed. I had a copy of the original post in Scrapbook, but it now just leads to broken links (404) - e.g., at http://notefrog.com/...s/setup_NoteFrog.exe

2. The post of 2014-10-18 re NoteFrog 2.7.4 (a minor release with changes that I did not need, so I didn't download it) has had the links removed.

3. The post of 2015-03-26 re Pre release version 3 does not give any links bust just says:

...If you’re interested in being a Version 3 “early adopter” (pun intended), please contact [email protected]

So on 2015-03-28 I emailed him there saying "I would like to be an "early adopter" for v3, please." and have so far had no response.
So on2015-04-13 I posted a comment on the blog:

http://notefrogblog....;cpage=1#comment-416
I did email you on 2015-04-28, after reading your post, and tried updating via NoteFrog, but to no avail so far. Is something broken with the website? Several pages seem to be 404.
I look forward to the opportunity to be an "early adopter" of v3 of the excellent NoteFrog.

4. Furthermore, when I click in my copy of NoteFrog to go to check for an update (I have a paid lifetime licence) it says there is a newer version 2.7.3 (it should presumably now say it is a version 3.something), and it gets a 404 result when it goes to fetch the update.

I hope all is well with Berry.
This looks eerily like the sort of thing that happened with NoteFrog's predecessor ClipGuru - which I had casually trialled and which I thought was rather good. However, their website just disappeared and no explanations. I eventually tracked it down to Berry Taylor at HT Consulting and was happy to become a Beta tester for ClipGuru's replacement, NoteFrog.
I found NoteFrog to be a great piece of software, though it probably needed a few wrinkles ironing out - which I had thought v3 would be addressing.

[superboyac]

is it me, or is it impossible to find the download link for notefrog on their site?

edit...was just reading IainB's post above, yes, I'm having the same issues.  I'm guessing the developer is doing some business restructuring.  There is a lot of that happening right now.

[IainB]

After my bombing all the email addresses I had for Berry, he has just sent me an email.
I replied that I would be interested - and possibly others on DCF - in Beta testing, but left it very much up to him to make a choice and suggested he might make a post here about it.
A relief to know that apparently all is well with him anyway.

[IainB]

I am now doing Beta testing for NoteFrog, currently on v3.x Beta (2015-04-21).

[superboyac]

I am now doing Beta testing for NoteFrog, currently on v3.x Beta (2015-04-21).

-IainB (April 23, 2015, 05:09 PM)

Let us know how it's going.  I have so many clipboard managers, but notefrog's take on the genre is unique and somewhat practical.  I tend to use CHS in general for the most part.  I use clipmate for more hardcore stuff like archiving clips, not that I've ever needed to retrieve them, lol.  Notefrog is good for searching.  There was a time when i liked aceclip's interface, but notefrog replaced it for me with a similar layout and a better search function.

I'll be interested in significant improvements are additional features, thanks.

[IainB]

Will keep you informed, but not on a blow-by-blow basis.
After my having done 1 initial Beta test report, Berry sent me an updated Beta, which looks quite different to the first one, so I am using that latest version and shall redo the tests I did initially and do some more tests as well, which I had planned.