Ideamason on special

[Curt]

The program: Liquid Story Binder at www.blackobelisksoftware.com
The asking price: $45.95 once (from Plimus) + 'Order CD' option
The forum: http://tech.groups.y.../group/Liquid_Story/

-Curt (November 17, 2007, 05:36 AM)

A User's Feedback:

Hello, Jesse!

A thank you:
I have finally figured this program out and I want to say thank you so much! I don't think I'd be able to write my novel without this, but now I'm well on my way. It breaks my heart to think of all the potential great novelists from before LSB who never made it because their organizational skills were too poor.

A marketing tip:
I hope it's not audacious of me, but I would also like to share a marketing tip. It is not at all clear what this program is capable of until one has explored it for some time. In fact, I played with this program for a while and decided it was not up to par. I searched and searched for another program to suit my needs and even considered buying an old Mac G4 just to run another program that was only available for Mac. After I found nothing else to suit my needs, I grudgingly came back to try out LSB some more. Once I really got into it, I disccovered that it is actually a very powerful program and it is exactly what I needed.

The point is, you almost lost me as a customer because I didn't get it. I'm sure this is the case with many other customers, too. While more tutorials would be nice, I think the best thing you can do is provide more and richer examples. It is examples that make it clear what a program is capable of and a potential customer is much more interested in looking at examples than tutorials. The one book example is mostly not an actual example, but some vague instructions filled in the text fields. An actual example of a work would be much more informative. Two or three actual examples would be fantastic.

A feature request:
I would very much love a file type for making tables. I have so many things I want to organize into tables. That would make this program very near perfect.

-a user

Edited: There is a long and very patient trial periode.

www.blackobelisksoftware.com

[Darwin]

I'm minutes away from giving up on IdeaMason. As noted by others in this thread, it's quite inflexible and, as far as formatting features go, it's very limited. I am going back to my roots - Word and Endnote and done with it! This obsession with software driven "solutions" to everything is costing me my PhD! Time to rein the obsession in and re-focus my energies. If I am doing things "right" my participation here will be curtailed as well...

[Darwin]

PS one thing that infuriates me about IM is that the Endnote import facility isn't "smart" - you pretty much have to wipe your citations out and re-export/re-import them again. Takes a long time when you've got 5000+ citations! It's a minor point, but minor points are cumulative...

Curt, Liquid Story looks nice, but I'm not going near it with a barge pole (see note above...)!

[Darwin]

Heh, heh - just noticed that Bits du Jour will be featuring Liquid Story Binder on Tuesda (March 11) for $15.95 

EDIT: that's a 66% discount. Here's the link to the story: http://www.bitsdujou...liquid-story-binder/

[Dormouse]

Heh, heh - just noticed that Bits du Jour will be featuring Liquid Story Binder on Tuesda (March 11) for $15.95 

EDIT: that's a 66% discount. Here's the link to the story: http://www.bitsdujou...liquid-story-binder/

-Darwin (March 09, 2008, 01:17 PM)

Price is good, but the lack of drag and drop is a real problem for most of my uses. I do more editing than anything else. May help in preparing talks though. Possibly worth a punt that drag and drop will be added sometime, since the author seems committed to free updates.

Forum seems a bit quiet though. Not like the daily answering of questions noted by Curt.

[Dormouse]

I am going back to my roots - Word and Endnote and done with it! This obsession with software driven "solutions" to everything is costing me my PhD! Time to rein the obsession in and re-focus my energies.

-Darwin (March 09, 2008, 01:02 PM)

That's right, software never gets things done. Freqently it gets in the way of getting things done and then different, better software can help. And sometimes it can help you to get things done much faster. But if nothing is getting done, software can only hinder.

But we all know this, and yet a new piece of software is intriguing and seductive and we can't help but have a peep. And get a bit less done and maybe get a bit poorer. Especially if it looks a good 'deal'.

PS Don't you find OneNote really helpful for your PHD??

[Darwin]

Hmm... I've actually got OneNote 2007 installed but haven't really tried it out much... keep meaning to but have been focused on other apps that I've been trying out. I'll give it a shot! I know Zaine loves it. Incidentally, I have two copies of it (got a standalone version in the fall but wound up getting Office 2007 Enterprise through work). If anyone is interested in the standalone copy, PM me.

[Armando]

I'm minutes away from giving up on IdeaMason. As noted by others in this thread, it's quite inflexible and, as far as formatting features go, it's very limited. I am going back to my roots - Word and Endnote and done with it! This obsession with software driven "solutions" to everything is costing me my PhD! Time to rein the obsession in and re-focus my energies. If I am doing things "right" my participation here will be curtailed as well...

-Darwin (March 09, 2008, 01:02 PM)

That's what I ended up doing in June 2007 : MS word (can't go wrong with it -- but if that's not good enough, there's oo.org and textmaker ), endnote, X1+Archivarius+farr, EverNote** for quick ideas or clips, AND a good naming scheme (all important metadata in the filename, no more complex directory structures, no more tagging software).

** I don't use EverNote anymore, I've switched to SQL-Notes. Still in beta, but with more possibilities and with a developer that's willing to make it HAPPEN... The imminent MS word integration (which will replace the actual HTML pane - around March 15) will probably allow one to do almost everything IdeaMason can't, and more, MUCH more (it'll take a bit of configuration work of course; but once that will be done...). Hypothesis : combining MS Word and IdeaMason SQLNOTES probably means that Endnote's MS Word plug in will work within SQL-Notes "MS Word Pane". Maybe.

PS : Darwin : my guess is that for all your scientific research and data, SQL-Notes database and infinite fields creation capability + formulas and scripting, would be much more efficient than ideamason or even OneNote and it's "obscure" file format. SQL-Notes will be able to work with different database backend.

[Darwin]

Thanks for the observations/experiences, Armando. I've had SQLNotes installed in the past but never really *did* anything with it and uninstalled it, intending to re-install at a later date. I'm following to SQLNotes thread and will re-install when MS Word integration is added... That should prove to be a KILLER app 

Hope your hypothesis is correct (assume you meant "combining MS Word and SQLNotes...") - it's the conclusion I leapt to when I read your post and if it proves to be the case, using SQLNotes will be a no-brainer for me. Now. Must. Work.On.PhD. 

[Armando]

Hope your hypothesis is correct (assume you meant "combining MS Word and SQLNotes...")

-Darwin (March 09, 2008, 02:26 PM)

Thanks for your keenness. I've corrected my mistake!

[Dormouse]

And its coming up on BitsduJour again.