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At last, KeyNote done better :)

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tranglos:
I know this isn't news to many here, but I wanted to come right out and say it: I'm pretty sure that RightNote is the better KeyNote.

After all these years I feel like the burden has passed on to someone else and I don't have to feel guilty about not updating KeyNote anymore.

Now, I've only installed the trial version and played with it a little. I am not vouching that RightNote will not fry your computer and scare off your cats. What I'm saying is that, for better or worse, RightNote is essentially what I intended KeyNote 2.0 to be.

I really only found out about RightNote recently, even though it's been out a few years now. It's eerie how closely RightNote follows KeyNote - from using the same default activation hotkey to the same (sub-optimal) design of the "resource panel". Even the name "resource panel" is the same, though nobody calls them that way. I know I didn't invent the name, but can't recall where I got it from. Everyone else has been calling it a "sidebar" for ten years or so, but in RightNote it's still the "resource panel", and it uses the same F9 key to open it :) And, it has the same implementation of "virtual nodes" (edit an external file as if it were part of your data file), which AFAIK was a feature unique to KeyNote, at the time as well as today.

So it's fun to look at RightNote now, because it's exactly what KeyNote was going to be and it happened without me doing anything about it :) RightNote has all the things I wanted KeyNote 2 to have: a database back-end, RichView notes (hence tables and true hyperlinks among other things), spellchecker, an Excel-like grid, and tags. And it has pretty much the same resulting downsides I was expecting: with database reads, it's nowhere near as snappy as KeyNote when switching between notes, for example.

I won't be registering it, since I do think the KeyNote design (can I say this? "KeyNote design"?) is quite obsolete - just compare how the search works in RightNote vs. Evernote or even CintaNotes. (Although the wretched resource panel does work better on today's widescreen displays.) But now when I get asked about KeyNote, and I still get asked, I can happily direct everyone to RN and be at peace with the universe!

rgdot:
What I have read on DC in recent months is begging me to give RightNote a try  :D

rjbull:
Slight difference in price, though  ;)

tranglos:
Slight difference in price, though  ;)
-rjbull (January 03, 2012, 04:01 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yeah, there's that. I never intended to charge for KeyNote, but I did once entertain the idea of making a living by writing (other) shareware. Pipe dreams!

tranglos:
What I have read on DC in recent months is begging me to give RightNote a try  :D
-rgdot (January 03, 2012, 02:34 PM)
--- End quote ---

It seems pretty good. What I think it needs is a more modern, "instant" search (and AFAIK it is possible to temporarily highlight matches in the RichView component it uses, unlike the standard richedit dll, in which you cannot really do that) and an alternative way of viewing the tree: as virtual folders, where each folder has a set of filtering rules that decide which items to display - pretty much the way "smart playlists" work in iTunes and similar software (and pretty much like Zoot, TheBat and Mouser's CH+S).

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