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RightNote Revisited / Review (in lieu of a RN forum)

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peter.s:
Hello, Rael (= the developer), Hello, prospects (and "you" sometimes means the first, sometimes the latter, but that will be evident from respective context),

I'm currently extensively trialling RN. Some first observations:

a) There should be a forum to ask questions in. (It's not mandatory for such a forum to be integrated in your site, so there are solutions which would cost you nothing.)

b) Why have Tree shortcuts different from general standards, i.e. "bold" is "Alt b" here, instead of "control b". The SCOPE of the shortcut will determine its action, so there is no problem to change it to the standard shortcut, and that I did, but there are many such idiosyncrasies in your shortcut assignments, i.e. there is a lot of manual tweaking work to do for a new user. (This Alt b instead of control b just being one example among many.)

b) Tree: I miss "italic" and "underlined" (but there is a color and background color formatting).

c) Tree: If I change shift enter to Ins (by "Special"), for "Add child note", this does not work then. Of course, the change is a matter of taste / personal appreciation, but the assignment should work if it's offered by the "Special" list of possible key assignments.

d) Tree: If you select an entry with the mouse, instead of by kb navigation, it will become underlined, even when you then change the selection to another entry/item. This is visually awful, and distracting. (And if there is any sense behind this, i.e. if "it's a feature, not a bug", please make it available by option only.)

e) "History" and "Recent" are totally awful, since those lists are populated by all those dozens of items you just touched a fraction of a second, by kb tree navigation, so those lists become totally useless since for identifying those "real finds" there to which you would like to navigate, using those lists as a "shortlist", you would have to read dozens of irrelevant "false hits". Solution to this problem is very easy: Just have items entered into those list JUST whenever they did appear for more than one second or such on screen (which is not the case for items "touched" by navigation only, and perhaps better, for more than 2 seconds (= opening of parent items), and even better, make it an option for the user to determine the length of display necessary in order for items to be included in those lists; I would probably choose 3 seconds then.

f) The looks: RN is currently one of the worst-looking outliners/PIM's out there (except for my possible missing possible adjustments?). I really beg you to have a quick look at some competitors, in order to do something about this. Tree, content (with title/tags), history/search panes, you imagined it "purist", but it's just ugly. As a first step (if you want it purist), please consider abolition of all those thin lines / thin frames, and the grey background. Especially, the title and tags frames, above and beneath the content field, are almost unbearable, as are the "lines" made up from the grey background between them and the content frame, and between tree and content frame, and between the latter and the search/history frame. (I'm speaking of its visual appearance in XP here.) Of course, such inferior appearance / visual appeal greatly harms the commercial outlook of any program, so it's important to work about it.

g) RN is MUCH, MUCH better than I had ever thought (except for the fact that a db-driven PIM should offer clones of course), but the help file does not reflect the power of this program (neither do the menu entries), and I invite newcomers/prospects to have a thorough look into the virtually endless "Tools-Customize Shortcuts" list, by which the hidden power of this fine program can be fully appreciated: There are many hidden gems there to be discovered! (It is one thing to just pretend, "RN's rtf editor is much superior to Ultra Recall's", e.g., but it's quite another thing again to discover the virtually endless possibilities in RN's editor(s), incl. not only tables, but extensive, powerful manipulation facilities for tables, too.)

h) The Boolean search problem (and I don't have to tell you how important such functionality, even without NOT or NEAR, is, for not getting endless hit tables). As said, there is a gulf between the power of this fine program, and what the help file tells you about it, and I obviously did not try ANY POSSIBLE variant in my extensive trials with the search function. In fact, from my understanding, and from the help file, it seemed "Fast Search" was something LESSER than "full-featured" search, but in fact, for the time being, it seems to be the only search flavor that correctly processes AND and OR search terms. (And my fault being, I seem to have left out this "Fast Search" in my frenetic search tries, and I'm indebted to PIMlover, from outlinersoftware.com, to have very kindly mentioned this point to me. So, yes, indeed, AND and OR WORK, for the time being, but just in this special variety of search you would have had a tendency to overlook, possibly, from reading the help file. (It goes without saying that I hope for extending this functionality on all three search flavors.)

i) There is no distinction in search between "just tree titles" / "just in the tree" and "overall" / "tree and content". If you remember just some key word(s) in the title, such a distinction would be more than helpful, since it would spare you perhaps dozens of "false hits" within the hit table, through which then you would have to unnecessarily browse in order to find that one item you would like to work on, or you need to access for reading.

j) Import and Export seem both very limited at first sight, but they both present file hierarchies (even of rtf, and possibly html files, not trialled yet) to be built from the tree, and to build the RN tree from, and some other outliners/PIMs offer similar functionality, and those also offer special competiting formats, and that means that for many outliner file formats, you will be able to import your stuff into RN, and even to export your RN stuff into competing offerings, whenever the necessity might arise to do so. (Of course, I'll have to check the quality of html/docx export, which at the end of the day are the most important features in this respect, in order to further process the "product" you produce, from your stuff, in an outliner/PIM.)

k) I do not think (yet) the tagging function(s) is/are quite neat, but that's perhaps (partly) due to my possible misunderstanding of parts of it/them, but even then, the possible fact that I don't intuitively grasp that functionality, even with the help of the help file, should indicate that some work on this feature (group) could not do any harm ;-)

l) Tree: F2 currently opens a full-fledged item properties dialog, whilst in most cases, you would just like to adjust the item title a little bit, e.g. for eliminating a typo; so the regular F2 for "edit title in tree" function would be very welcome, and the current properties dialog could be opened by shift-F2 or whatever.
__________

All this being said, I redirected Rael, the developer, to this thread, in order to comment here, as long as he will not have got a forum on his own, and anyway, I'll post more findings about RN here, and I invite fellow users to do so, too, since from my experience, positive observations should be shared widely, and criticism should be made public, too, in order to sufficiently motivate the respective developer to amend sub-standard functionality.

As for the above, point e) would need immediate attention, since the current absence of a usable history function (or then, the presence of a history function that forces you to navigate by mouse only!!!) makes this otherwise fine program almost unusable... and then, point f), the looks, seems to be primordial to me. ;-)

superboyac:
Well, you just might be as crazy as I am.  Not quite there yet, but close.  ;D

Scott_Y:
Why have Tree shortcuts different from general standards, i.e. "bold" is "Alt b" here, instead of "control b".
-peter.s (May 13, 2014, 07:55 AM)
--- End quote ---
First of all, Peter, I would be glad to see an unofficial RightNotes forum get started. As you say, the program has great power and potential, so it would be good for users to share their experiences, questions, and solutions.

As for the shortcut Alt+B, I agree it is a bit bothersome to remember a non-standard combination. But it has the advantage of toggling the bold state of the tree node while still in the note editor. That is, you don't have to move your focus from the editor to the tree to make the node bold. Now whether that is an advantage or not is another question, but I think it explains why the shortcut is not Ctrl+B.

donleone:
Hello Peter

Just like you, i also happened to extensively re-tryout RightNote this week,
after some years of "letting it slide by".

And so here are some additional insight-inspections,
both of the good and the still bad of it.

-----------------------------------
THE STILL BAD
-----------------------------------


Problems with MULTIPLE PAGES

- RightNote can do internal Quick-Linking to another note using e.g. the shortcut CRTL+SHIFT+K,
but the quick-link only remembers as long as you refer to an item on the same page/tree.
For when namely a quick-link is made to a note, that then gets dragged over unto another page/tree,
it breaks the quick-link and says "This item has been deleted" (even though it's just on an other tab)
So the ability to sustain note-links across pages, is a missing ability yet or bug.

- Similarly, when a note is placed into a folder that has a "folder tag",
and then that note gets dragged into another page into another folder there,
it still just keeps the older tag, without auto-replacing it with the new automatic folder tag.
But when again the same note moving action is performed within the same page/tree,
it does work perfectly without any issues, auto-updating and replacing the automatic folder tag.

- Likewise, the much helpful quick note back & forth switching using the shortcuts ALT+LEFT / ALT+RIGHT,
works perfectly as long as you stay within the same page, but when trying to switch back & forth
between 2 notes - of which one is on an other page - as soon as you focus select something
in that other's note content, it forgets the "previous note" and if you then try to press ALT+LEFT
it just jumps back to the tree pane, instead of to the previous note, on a whole different page/tree.


Problems with THE SPREADSHEET

- when a paragraph of text is placed into a cell, and one would like to for example bolden just one word of it,
it cannot do it, but boldens the entire contents of the entire cell - same with all the other formatting features.

- there is absolutely no way i could figure out how to jump unto the bottom of a column's content,
that is, to the last row of a column that has data pasted into it - just as you can do it in Excel using CTRL+DOWN.
Instead, you must painfully use the horizontal scroll-bar to manually scroll to the last row,
which scroll-bar in of itself totally is bad when having more than 1000 rows,
as it can suddenly jump to row 30'000, then to 6'000 on even the slightest of dragging.


Problems with THE TAG PANE

- when a folder gets a "folder tag", and that folder gets deleted,
it does not automatically remove the old folder tag from the tag list.
And which gets especially foolish, when you rename folders multiple times,
since for every single re-name it creates again a new folder tag!
(rather than just auto-updating the same, and on delete, deleting it.)

- furthermore, when one over time assembles to have like 500-1000 items under a single tag,
(which can happen very quickly if you set a top level folder tag)
then pretty quickly the whole tag engine starts to really become slow,
and start to consume a lot of CPU and eventually also to repetitively crash the program.
So this is probably the biggest weakness of RightNote's scalability,
which but on the other hand also forces you to set more specific tags,
and which typically should be a good thing.



-----------------------------------
THE YET GOOD
-----------------------------------


Great Database Foundation

- since RighNote runs on SQLite 3 and loads only one item at a time it is power capable to grow to a huge database size
(of even tens of GBs, not just theoretically but practically, as in the case of when for example having many stored attachments in it)
providing that each attachment is kept systematically ideally below 20 MB as so to retain a fast user & loading experience,
since when files of say 50-100 MB get attached, RightNote will take each time ca. 20s to just load them up,
as soon as that attachment gets clicked, or even just selected upon.

- And even though automatic attachment changes/editing updating & saving, is sadly not supported yet
(so that thus only those attachments which are non-changing/static in nature, are thus useful to be internally stored)
RightNote on the other hand, does have a rather unique ability to not only allow for externally linked files (as many others do),
but with the added RightNote bonus, that even all these externally linked attachments become also automatically
fully indexed and search-able as-well (as if they were internally stored), providing that they are in an index-able file format, such as:

Text (.txt/.rtf), Word (.doc/.docx), Excel (.xls/.xlsx/.csv), HTML (.htm/.html) or PDF (.pdf).

and with any one of them (or all), being remove-able from the indexing at any time, via RightNote’s Options dialog.


Special Tagging Features

while there are of course many programs nowadays that offer tagging, it is very rare to my knowledge
that any one of them is able like RighNote:

- in the tag search results, to also display the item icons (in front of the item’s title)
AND their special tag icons (at the end of the item’s title, as in RightNote even each tag can be assigned an individual icon as-well,
that then of course gets applied unto all the thus tagged items as-well) and thus allowing for an extra level
of classification & instant-recognition when browsing through the tag search results list

- additionally, to have the tag search results also automatically grouped (and individually group collapse-able)
by on what tab/page/tree they are located on, makes it thus that much easier again, to quickly
by a mere glace find and zero-in unto exactly the section of results that you are interested in,
and without getting distracted by any other items that may appear in the tag results as-well,
just because they were once classified under the same general tag as-well.

- the tag search bar not only auto-suggests tags (which in of itself is a great feature)
but it does so suggesting not just in a mere word-completion manner (as many other apps only do),
but from the entire item name’s title - so that you can find a tag you’re looking for quickly,
even if the keyword you typed in is placed in the middle of the title AND WITH also the benefit
of having the auto-suggested type-matches instantly being yellow color highlighted
for an even faster recognition & drilling down to it ability, such as e.g. by simply pressing the down key.

- the alphabetic tag list that contains ALL the tags of your database, can be turned on/off by a simple toggle button,
so that you can at any time switch between seeing your entire list of tags in alphabetic order,
or else just using the tag search field, to thus typingly find your tags.

- also the “automatic folder tags” feature, that allows one to set tags for an entire folder and its sub-items,
is especially useful for the included feature, that one is able later, additionally to add to the folder
and have them additionally also then automatically assigned/changed to all the folder’s child items
AND to also any items that you from there on decide to drag into that folder as-well. Likewise,
if one drags an item out from a tagged folder, into another tagged folder, then of course all the tags
of the dragged items become automatically updated & changed, without any manual efforts at all.

- Similarly, if one simply needs to bulk tag assign/delete or bulk tag change/rename multiple specific item tags at once,
one can do it so in RightNote in at least 3 different ways, of either manually multi-selecting the desired items and tagging,
or more systematically via a searching of them out and then simply the search results re-tagging as desired,
or thirdly just renaming them simply in the alphabetic tag list directly, with again of course all the to that tag belonging items
being instantly bulk updated as-well.

- last but not least, also “tag merging” is possible, should you ever need to fuse 2 tags into 1,
with likewise of course both child’s items being auto-updated unto the new tag as-well.


Great Tree Flexibility

- item titles in the tree can be multi-line, up to as many multi-lines that you want,
by simply enabling that Option in the Tree Properties. (Too bad only that it is not yet possible
to then also retain that multi-line title display in the Search results or in the Tag search results as-well,
but there they get displayed as single-line only again, without of course changing the original multi-line)

- the ability to hoist the tree (and thus to focus-into just one section of the tree) which can also be helpful

- tree items can be of course assigned icons, and when the freely available “Complete Icons Pack”
is downloaded from the RightNote Website, one gets over 1000 icons to choose from for free additionally.

- tree items can have check boxes

- the tree can be alphabetically auto-sorted or just manually ordered

- the tree items can be automatically numbered too, in various simple or detailed styles

- item titles can be full row colored, or just the item name background colored, which also is a rare feature to see

- every tree of every tab/page can be individually configured just for itself, and retains perfectly exactly its last grouped/expanded state
on every program start, giving you thus a uni-form, and yet individual customize-able view

- finally also the ability to have the tree displayed as either in a Left or in a Top position over the Editor,
and be able again, to set that option individually for any of the tab/page’s trees, is also a very nice feature,
as some section of your database may lean itself to be displayed more a vertical tree style (as when having many items)
while another section of your database may lean itself to be better for a more horizontal tree style display
(such as when having very long title names or even phrases/sentences right in the tree’s multi-line titles, as in my case,
and then the horizontal view-ability of the tree becomes extremely useful as a quick scroll-through-glancer
over all your existing items of that section, without having to actually open any one of them)


Useful Spreadsheet Note-type

- the integrated spreadsheet-ability (no matter all its limitations) is still a very handy and rare feature,
that only a handful other info-managers on the market can native-integratingly offer, such as namely only
Memomaster, Swift to do List 9, AM-Notebook, Piwi Suite and Yozo Office.

- also the ability to lock the top row/header row in a spreadsheet so that it stays visible on the top
while one continues to scrolls down, is also of course very useful, and not provided by of the others.


Flexible Security & Backup

- The entire Database, and individual items on a note by note basis, can be AES encrypted & password protected

- Automatic backup and Automatic saving (to the same file) are configure-able at custom defined times

- and finally, the integrated so called “page transfer” AND “floating tree” feature, that both allow one to transfer
in & out items on either a per tab/page basis (page transfer) or an individual per folder notes section basis (floating tree)
from & to another notebook (actually up to & from 3 others open simultaneously) - is also a very helpful feature
when for some reason one should need to do a partial, or even entire database transfer.

- good import / export features with many exporting options, including the ability to merge multiple notes into a single output file.


Other Useful Features

- the ability to assign custom shortcuts to virtually every available command, is of course also a very handy feature

- and finally, not only does each tab (called “page” in RightNote) have its own distinct tree for itself,
that can be fully customized and configured individually without affecting any of the others (as described before)
but the pages feature becomes even more useful, when one selects in Tools/Options to have them displayed on the left side
and selects the text as to be “horizontally shown”, thus thereby creating a kind meta-menu side bar on the left
by which one can quick access the greater sections/pages/trees of one’s database.

- - - - - - - - -

So these are some observations, from a daily user of RightNote, which also thinks it is a pity,
that such a good potential program, that already has a very rich feature-set integrated into it,
is yet so slow of being rid of some of its still existing usability-bugs.

But nevertheless, RightNote remains clearly one of my top 3 most flexible Outliners on Windows,
exactly because of the unique combination of its already existing power-features mix.

Greetings
donleone

terryowen:
I am a regular user of RN (registered pro) and agree with many of the comments above, especially the need for a user forum of some sort (so thanks!).

The old school appearance doesn't bother me much.  It's so basic it blends into the background. I can't stand how busy AllMyNotes is, for example.

My only other issue with RN is that all the new fixes have been directed at EverNote integration.  I'm not an EverNote fan.

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