Author Topic: General brainstorming for Note-taking software (Read 1,153,647 times)

actitrend · « **Reply #250 on:** June 03, 2006, 07:57 AM »

>Vadim - I absolutely disagree about the web capture stuff.

Here I do not understand completely with what you absolutely disagree?
If you wish to capture the whole page…. It’s your decision….. you know the minuses, you know the pluses….

I said only that in MOST of cases it enough to save only text (NOT ALL THE CASES)…..

The text is UNIVERSAL and MORE COMPACT way to translate information….. even without pictures it’s describes perfectly the KNOWLEDGE…. Moreover HTML page is polluted with advertisement and Flash video now more and more…. Plus non-proper formatting could be applied sometimes……

I can compare this to recording TV show with all advertisement it has….. it’s your right to record all the show without the pauses…. But actually it’s information noise….

>I am very visual and mentally "key" off of the look and information.

It’s normal…. It’s your vision…. You can save the formatted text all the time, I do not argue with you…. But it’s will be your own choice….

>If I write a note on a piece of paper, I remember the size and color of the paper. I usually remember the orientation and position of the text.

Absolutely right!!!

Perfect illustration what I what to escape offering to save in plain text….. if YOU write!!!!

That one who wrote this web page or web site….. has DIFFERENT vision how to do that…. How to style it… You DO NOT HAVE TO COPY HIS STYLE of writing…. There is your way!!! After saving filtered text YOU can apply formatting emphasizing main things and highlighting something….. you can choose color and size THEN after saving!!! You can set label and flag also…..

It’s known fact that YOU BETTER learn (the ability to remember) new note…. Not just rewriting it…. But paraphrasing it or arranging it in YOUR OWN WAY…. Simple copying is the worst way to remember it actually….. there are test results over there….

>In the same way, when I capture a web page, I want to capture the way it looks, not just the text. Heck sometimes the graphics are part of the information.

Yes, sometimes. In most cases there are not relevant….

Vadim

rjbull · « **Reply #251 on:** June 04, 2006, 08:48 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 02, 2006, 03:13 PM

rjbull, when I'm talking about web-capturing in this thread, I mean web-capturing capabilities of notetaking programs, not dedicated web-capturing programs. In this context, I think Evernote does it the best.

I take that to mean, you see Evernote as primarily a Web capture program, and best of its type (sorry to be obtuse). Thanks.

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I'm not sticking this thread into a notetaking app or something like that, if that was what you meant.

I did rather have visions of you putting each message into a separate node as a way of keeping and manipulating it offline!

superboyac · « **Reply #252 on:** June 05, 2006, 05:37 PM »

Actually, rjbull, I meant that Evernote is NOT primarily a web-capture application (sorry!

). Evernote is notetaking application that can capture webpages. For pure web-capturing, I'm pretty sure things like Net Snippets, Scrapbook, Onfolio are much more suited for it.

But I don't want to get into those dedicated apps in this thread. Here, I want to focus on notetaking apps that have web-capturing utilities as a supplement. In this context, the three programs I have come across that do this are Evernote, Surfulater, and Mybase. Of the 3, Evernote does it the best from my experiences. You have to really try all 3 programs to "feel" the differences of each one, it's kind of hard to describe. Technically, Surfulater is the better web-capturing program. Mybase's capturing feels sluggish. Here's why I like Evernote's capturing: when you capture a webpage or part of one in Evernote, and then you go to that particular note in the program, it doesn't "feel" like a captured webpage; it feels like you've written a note and organized it such that it looks exactly like the actual webpage where you got it from. I guess it all depends on if you want your notes to feel like you're in a webpage, or if you want your notes to feel like your in a text editing program. I like my notes to feel like I'm in Notepad (or UltraEdit

), but there are a lot of people who like the web interface to be applied to all programs (as you can see more and more programs adopting a weblike interface). If you like the web thing, you'll love Surfulater's interface. If you're a notepad person like me, you'll love Evernote's interface. To understand this, you just have to try the programs yourself. It comes down to things that I almost feel embarrassed to talk about because it's so miniscule, like:
--Is the cursor the hand/arrow thing, or just a simple cursor bracket symbol?
--Can I just start typing anywhere or do I have to go in and out of "edit mode"?
--If I click once on a link, does it open the actual webpage, or do I have to double-click?

Stuff like that.

superboyac · « **Reply #253 on:** June 05, 2006, 10:09 PM »

So, I was just recently playing with Surfulater again today...

Surfulater's tree is the best. When you copy and paste articles around, they remain virtual copies. So, if you rename the title of one of the copies, they all change. Picking a icon for the article is the easiest of all the softwares, with the comic book bubble that appears. There are 3 views for each tree, either with full expanded view, or condensed view, another view showing "no articles" but just the parent nodes, and finally the chronological view.

(One question, nevf...what's the difference between the 2nd button which shows "no articles", and the 1st button where you can turn the articles off? I don't see a difference.)

Anyway, like I said, it's the best implementation of a tree in all the main softwares in this genre. What would make it even more powerful is if the user can customize the tree's even more. For example, having the option to organzie the chronological view by year and day, instead of only by month. Also, if we could take the same database and organize it in different trees, that would be cool. When I do my Frakenstein-visual of these softwares, the tree part will definitely be from Surfulater.

rjbull · « **Reply #254 on:** June 06, 2006, 10:02 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 05, 2006, 05:37 PM

Actually, rjbull, I meant that Evernote is NOT primarily a web-capture application (sorry! ). Evernote is notetaking application that can capture webpages.

superboyac, thanks for the clarification

JeffK mentioned Cyberarticle in this DC post It's positioned as a Web archiving tool, but I see that it can import arbitrary files, and offers full-text searching. Those are good features for a notekeeping application, though I'm not sure if the rest of it is ideally suited.

superboyac · « **Reply #255 on:** June 07, 2006, 08:44 PM »

OK, I was just doing some preparation for this summary, and I decided to try Zoot out again. If you remember earlier, I was initially intrigued with Zoot, but then disgusted because it was so dated. But looking at it again, it's really an innovative application that has loads of potential if it just gets with the times.

My database for notetaking would be 90% text anyway, so Zoot remains an option for me. But I still really need that 10% of additional ability. That's why the Big Three still remain Surfulater, Mybase, and Evernote. But I'm telling you , as soon as that author changes the software from 16 bit to 32 bit, watch out Big Three! Actually, Evernote is the most similar to Zoot. Surfulater and Mybase are different enough that the comparison will seem odd.

superboyac · « **Reply #256 on:** June 08, 2006, 03:19 PM »

Black Hole Organizer:

I tried this software just now, and it's ok. It's really nothing special. There were some reviews on the web that give it really good ratings. I can see that...for the average user it's a good mix of simplicity and nice power features. However, considering the details we've been talking about here, it doesn't really offer anything particularly new or unique.

There was something very interesting about it, and that is that it is laid out very similarly to Zoot! That's interesting because while Zoot is unquestionably outdated right now, this software is modern and has all the hip features you can want (rtf, hyperlinks, tables! [Yes! tables!], bullet lists, numbered lists, etc.). The reason why I say it's similar to Zoot is because it lays out the panes like an email program and Zoot is the only other notetaking program that does that. You have the categories (like email folders) on the left, the titles (email list) on the right, and the note content (email message) on the bottom. Just like email! I still think this is a cool way of doing these notetaking programs. Unfortunately, it doesn't have all the powerful features of Zoot like auto-categorizing and filtering and stuff.

Anyway, check it out, it's cool.

rjbull · « **Reply #257 on:** June 08, 2006, 03:52 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 08, 2006, 03:19 PM

Black Hole Organizer:

I tried this software just now, and it's ok. It's really nothing special. There were some reviews on the web that give it really good ratings.

It might just have reached the public consciousness earlier than the competition. Being a Dr. File Finder pick probably gave it a boost. Interestingly, some of Dr File Finder's Web pages say "Web Design and all graphics courtesy of Lincoln Beach Software!", and it's Lincoln Beach that sell Black Hole Organizer.

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for the average user it's a good mix of simplicity and nice power features.

I find it a bit slow, especially compared to, say, Treepad Lite. It doesn't really have good enough Boolean searching for me, either, though search power is slightly better than some.

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There was something very interesting about it, and that is that it is laid out very similarly to Zoot! [...] Unfortunately, it doesn't have all the powerful features of Zoot like auto-categorizing and filtering and stuff.

It's cheaper than Zoot, though

nevf · « **Reply #258 on:** June 09, 2006, 10:00 PM »

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(One question, nevf...what's the difference between the 2nd button which shows "no articles", and the 1st button where you can turn the articles off? I don't see a difference.)

The first button "normal" shows the tree in the state you've set. ie. With whatever folders you've expanded or collapsed. There are also the options to hide/show all articles in this tree view or just the articles in a selected folder. The second button shows every folder and doesn't show any articles. ie. The tree view is fully expanded. This view lets you quickly locate a folder.

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Anyway, like I said, it's the best implementation of a tree in all the main softwares in this genre.

The Surfulater tree has been designed and written (by me) to be very flexible and fast which you can easily see by the various tree views. I'll be adding more views and filters in future.

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OK, I was just doing some preparation for this summary, and I decided to try Zoot out again.

I've looked at Zoot several times and just don't get it. It has a loyal and enthusiastic following with folks hanging on for a modern version. One day the penny might drop. SB maybe you can summarize what Zoot is about in your eyes.

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Being a Dr. File Finder pick probably gave it a boost.

Dr. FF is a Surfulater fan and uses it himself. See: http://www.tucows.com/article/848 and http://blog.surfulater.com/2006/03/31/surfulater-a-dr-file-finder-tucows-favorite/

superboyac · « **Reply #259 on:** June 10, 2006, 01:36 AM »

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The Surfulater tree has been designed and written (by me) to be very flexible and fast which you can easily see by the various tree views. I'll be adding more views and filters in future.

That's great to hear. It's great how you're pushing for innovation in that area. Thanks for the explanation on the two buttons, it's kind of subtle, but very useful.

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I've looked at Zoot several times and just don't get it. It has a loyal and enthusiastic following with folks hanging on for a modern version. One day the penny might drop. SB maybe you can summarize what Zoot is about in your eyes.

You have to look at Zoot from a purely text-based point of view to appreciate it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're (nevf) more of a webpage kind of person (text, images, links, formatting, etc.). That's why those that love Surfulater love that they can capture virtually anything and preserve the "look". At the same time, for more simple users like me that pretty much just do text, that's not as big an issue, so programs like Zoot are still viable options. But it's always better to have more options and turn additional features off than to be incapable of doing modern things, and that's Zoot's problem for now. But Zoot is interesting because it's email-like interface which I like, and it's powerful auto-filtering feautres, and it's fantastic live search feature. In fact, if you take out the web-capturing feature of Evernote, and reduce it to a simple text format, it's almost just like Zoot, except less powerful. Also, Evernote and Surfulater use scrolls, while Zoot does something completely different, which is to organize the notes like an 3-pane email program. It's all a matter of preference. For some situations, I prefer the scrolling, and for others, I prefer not scrolling.

There are things about Zoot that are major turnoffs besides just the ancient featureset. For example, the way the databases are managed and constructed can be initially confusing and convoluted. It's price is prohibitive to all but the most committed users, which will prevent people from even considering it. See, users can buy Surfulater and Evernote, and these other programs, and within minutes, you'll feel comfortable with it and can begin using it. Zoot is not like that. I tried Zoot 3 times before I got to a point where I said "Oh! I get it now." And most people aren't going to give it even half that effort. But I'm still convinced that IF Zoot is updated to a modern version, it will be a very valuable and unique addition to the notetaking genre.

rjbull · « **Reply #260 on:** June 11, 2006, 03:53 PM »

Quote from: nevf on June 09, 2006, 10:00 PM

Dr. FF is a Surfulater fan and uses it himself. See: http://www.tucows.com/article/848 and

That's the trouble; he's enthusiastic about more or less everything he mentions. Doesn't much help anyone looking for a comparison. For the same reason I don't take much notice of "awards." Nearly every program that isn't a complete disaster seem to end up with a load of awards.

kfitting · « **Reply #261 on:** June 12, 2006, 04:30 PM »

This doesnt directly relate to Note-Taking (it's about office software), but it shares a concept brought up here. It's part of a blog from an Excel programmer's blog (http://dicks-blog.com/). ; It talks about making a program that allowed the user to define the interface. Honestly, this idea would be awesome. mouser, have you started programming the next DC app yet?

Heh, heh, though this is an awesome concept... I just cant imagine how complex it would become!

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— imagine if you will a OneNote “writing pad” where the “things” you put in wherever you want would be components from today’s overall Office suite — XL, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, what-have-you.

Kevin

nevf · « **Reply #262 on:** June 12, 2006, 10:19 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 10, 2006, 01:36 AM

....
Also, Evernote and Surfulater use scrolls, while Zoot does something completely different, which is to organize the notes like an 3-pane email program. It's all a matter of preference. For some situations, I prefer the scrolling, and for others, I prefer not scrolling.

IMO the reason three panes work very well for e-mail is that you have a continuing stream of new items coming in and the "list" pane clearly shows what's new, which is pretty important.

For note-taking programs the user is in control and knows precisely when new content is added, so this need for a list to see what's new is diminished and the screen space can be used for other purposes, such as showing more content.

The 3 pane style could be changed to 2 panes, with the list items expanding and collapsing to show either their full content or a brief summary. This gives you the best of both approaches and might work well for some folks and programs. This is in fact the model Surfulater uses. I have yet to see any e-mail programs that work this way though.

My 2.5C.

nevf · « **Reply #263 on:** June 12, 2006, 10:24 PM »

Quote from: rjbull on June 11, 2006, 03:53 PM

Quote from: nevf on June 09, 2006, 10:00 PM
Dr. FF is a Surfulater fan and uses it himself. See: http://www.tucows.com/article/848 and

That's the trouble; he's enthusiastic about more or less everything he mentions. Doesn't much help anyone looking for a comparison.

I can't comment on Dr. FF and other programs, but I can re-iterate that he is truly an avid Surfulater user.

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For the same reason I don't take much notice of "awards." Nearly every program that isn't a complete disaster seem to end up with a load of awards.

I agree 110%. These sites are a joke and largely a complete waist of peoples time. Every few days a new one seems to spring up and I get e-mails saying I've got 10 elephants, 6 monkeys or 5 giraffes. All they are trying to do is get links back to their site so they have better search engine ranking. You won't see any of these supposed awards on the surfulater site.

superboyac · « **Reply #264 on:** June 12, 2006, 10:40 PM »

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Every few days a new one seems to spring up and I get e-mails saying I've got 10 elephants, 6 monkeys or 5 giraffes.

Haha! That's pretty funny. I gotta include that on my next podcast.

Yeah, awards don't really mean much in practical issues, but it looks good sometimes. That's why instead of awards, I like when software reviews put one of those grids that have a list of features and put a check mark next to the program that includes the feature. I find those very helpful. That gives me another idea for my review for these notetaking software.

Lashiec · « **Reply #265 on:** June 13, 2006, 10:58 AM »

I yet have to find a decent note taking program to suit my needs (although my needs are more geared towards an outliner than to a pure note taker), but I've heard good comments about AM-Notebook, from AM-Deadlink programmer, and I personally tried ShirusuPad, which is a sweet little note taker, although it could be considered more of a post-it like program.

Jimdoria · « **Reply #266 on:** June 13, 2006, 09:10 PM »

Just noticed this today at Google Labs:
http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html

Google Notebook - Clip and collect information as you browse the web.

Clip useful information.

You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.

Organize your notes.

You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.
- Get access from anywhere.
You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
- Publish your notebook.
You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.Seems like a lightweight solution compared to some of the apps discussed here, but an interesting idea anyway.
I've been trying TaoNotes but oy vey! The UI is definitely a big speed bump, but there are some other things about it that drive me right up the wall.1. You can't get rid of the standard databases "todos" and "clips" or even rename them. The program keeps rebuilding them. There are just some weird gaps in file handling in general - creating & managing tabs is a bit difficult and inconsistent.2. The balloon tips! Please make them stop! "I have saved my file again!" "An hour has gone by!" It's like having a 3-year-old hyped up on cola and candy bars living in my system tray. Looked and looked for an option to configure or just disable these, but no such luck.3. In the list view, you can change some attributes directly by clicking on them (priority, flag, progress, label) but others just bring you to the editing form. For example, click on "context" and you're suddenly in the editing form - but you're not on the right tab to set the context! So just by looking at what comes up, you can't really see where the information you requested/wanted to enter is supposed to go.Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished. If you don't have the time to really document the app, perhaps you could just be a little more judicious in your default settings. Turn off as much of the "gee-whiz" as possible by default. Let your users get used to the basic features. Then, IF THEY WANT TO, they can track down and enable the more "out-there" kind of stuff.BTW - I still can't quite figure out how or why you'd "execute" an item. :-[And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add an option to disable those balloon tips!

superboyac · « **Reply #267 on:** June 13, 2006, 09:30 PM »

Oooo, Lashiec, nice find! AM-Notebook is extremely interesting. It's not complete enough to be included in the Big Three, but there are several unique things it does that is worthy of mentioning and that the Big Three programs can learn a lot from. Right when I thought that we had found all the good ones...anyway here are some interesting features:

One very interesting feature is that AM keeps each note as a separate file in the folder where it is stored on the computer. This is similar to a discussion we had here a couple of pages back about keeping each note as a separate file and having the software be a frontend that just provides a UI for access to the notes. So this is a healthy implementation of that idea, and it's very cool to see it being done differently. Whether or not it is the best way has already been discussed
There is a built in addressbook module in this program that isn't really anything special, but it does have the live search feature (search-as-you-type) that I love. And it works pretty smoothly, so that was nice to see. If only the same live search feature was implemented in the regular note searching, but oh well. The regular note searching is decent also, but nothing really special.
Table! AM has awesome table features. Blackhole is the only other notetaking app that can do tables. But I think AM does it much better, it can even do formulas to a certain extent. It's really nice. Other programs like Evernote and Surfulater can kind of do tables, but their not really on-the-fly tables, but more of templates of tables of a prespecified size. Not the same. Very nice, AM!
If you want, you can open different notes in their own tabs. And when you have a bunch of tabs open, you can save that configuration as a "group". I don't know how useful this is but it's kind of cool. However, even though it has this tabbed feature, it's not like you can open different databases up at once. In fact, AM can only have one database open at once. Mybase and Surfulater offer tab funcionality also, but in their case, each tab represents a different database.
AM can encrypt each note seperately. Mybase is the only other software that can do this. I think this is a very important feature. Evernote can encrypt, but it's implementation is a bit klunky in my opinion because the way it works is you select a portion of text and you can encrypt it. In AM, you can encrypt the whole note. The only problem is that once it's unlocked and you go to another note and you come back, it's locked again. In Mybase, once a note is unlocked, it remains unlocked for the remainder of the session. But it's a preference thing. the author of Evernote told me that he prefers the note to revert back to locked anytime you leave the note for security purposes. I just think it's a nuisance.
There's a clip/templates feature on the program that I have no idea what it does and I couldn't find any documentation for it. But I'm curious...

Overall, it's a very impressive package and I like it a lot. As a whole, it doesn't offer anything too special to put it on the level of the Big Three (Surfulater, Evernote, Mybase) but it does a couple of things neither of those programs do and for the most part it's very good application. For a more casual user, it's a fine application.

superboyac · « **Reply #268 on:** June 13, 2006, 09:33 PM »

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Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished.

Haha! I know exactly what you're talking about. That one little strip on the side of the dialog where if the mouse hovers over, the dialog automatically closes. That's exactly the reaction I had the first couple of times. I'm like "what the heck did I just do?!" Too funny.

actitrend · « **Reply #269 on:** June 14, 2006, 02:49 AM »

> 1. You can't get rid of the standard databases "todos" and "clips" or even rename them. The program keeps rebuilding them. There are just some weird gaps in file handling in general - creating & managing tabs is a bit difficult and inconsistent.

Keeping todos and clips notebooks is a plot, indeed.... Todos is used to be opened as first notebook always... may be it was bad idea... do not know..... clips are used as "internal clipboard" for items copy-from-one-notebook and paste-into-another notebook.... it is not conventient way I know... I will redone this....

> 2. The balloon tips! Please make them stop! "I have saved my file again!" "An hour has gone by!" It's like having a 3-year-old hyped up on cola and candy bars living in my system tray. Looked and looked for an option to configure or just disable these, but no such luck.

I will add option for that :O)

> 3. In the list view, you can change some attributes directly by clicking on them (priority, flag, progress, label) but others just bring you to the editing form. For example, click on "context" and you're suddenly in the editing form - but you're not on the right tab to set the context! So just by looking at what comes up, you can't really see where the information you requested/wanted to enter is supposed to go.

That's my development incompleteness in implementing proper attributes editors for those attributes.... thank you that you pointed on them.... I will improve this soon...

> If you don't have the time to really document the app, perhaps you could just be a little more judicious in your default settings. Turn off as much of the "gee-whiz" as possible by default. Let your users get used to the basic features. Then, IF THEY WANT TO, they can track down and enable the more "out-there" kind of stuff.

OK. Right now I am writing manual + I will add more options + will disable advanced features by default...

> BTW - I still can't quite figure out how or why you'd "execute" an item. embarassed

If item has type LINK and URL attribute is real URL of file path then you can "EXECUTE" it... i.e. LAUNCH browser....

If item has type EMAIL and URL attribute is real email address then you can "EXECUTE" it... i.e. LAUNCH email client....

> And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add an option to disable those balloon tips! cheesy

no problem with this :O) Today I will do that :O)

Vadim

actitrend · « **Reply #270 on:** June 14, 2006, 02:52 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 13, 2006, 09:33 PM

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Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished.

Haha! I know exactly what you're talking about. That one little strip on the side of the dialog where if the mouse hovers over, the dialog automatically closes. That's exactly the reaction I had the first couple of times. I'm like "what the heck did I just do?!" Too funny.

Actually there is option to turn this mouse gesture off.... but because it is not documented... it's really hard to figure out how to use it :O) Tools->Options->General->Use Mouse Gesture On Item Saving

Vadim

actitrend · « **Reply #271 on:** June 14, 2006, 04:46 AM »

Quote from: Jimdoria on June 13, 2006, 09:10 PM
> If you don't have the time to really document the app, perhaps you could just be a little more judicious in your default settings. Turn off as much of the "gee-whiz" as possible by default. Let your users get used to the basic features. Then, IF THEY WANT TO, they can track down and enable the more "out-there" kind of stuff.

I already release new update 3.18....So, I've added options to disable what you do not like..... see Tools->Options->Notifications->... and see Tools->Options->General->Use Mouse Gesture On Item Saving....
Now I have some spare time and I will use it to write the proper manual....

> BTW - I still can't quite figure out how or why you'd "execute" an item.

May be it's not obvious but you can store your URL bookmarks here and effectively use them.... Set Link type for those items and they are ready to be used as bookmarks for quick launching..... Just select the items you want to browse in outline or in the Navigator (they are grouped by context there).... and press F9 to launch them....

>And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add an option to disable those balloon tips!

Already done! :O)

Vadim

[/quote]

aignes · « **Reply #272 on:** June 14, 2006, 06:51 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on June 13, 2006, 09:33 PM

If you want, you can open different notes in their own tabs. And when you have a bunch of tabs open, you can save that configuration as a "group". I don't know how useful this is but it's kind of cool. However, even though it has this tabbed feature, it's not like you can open different databases up at once. In fact, AM can only have one database open at once.

superboyac, you're right, you can only open one database at once (what means you display the note list in a specific directory location), but you can open notes from different databases in different tabs at the same time, also via the mentioned Group functionality.

We use this feature a lot when opening related notes from the local database and the network database, they can all be opened via the Group functionality with a single operation.

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In AM, you can encrypt the whole note. The only problem is that once it's unlocked and you go to another note and you come back, it's locked again.

If you want to keep it opened, you can open it in a separate tab. But for security reasons, it is locked as soon as you minimize AM-Notebook.

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There's a clip/templates feature on the program that I have no idea what it does and I couldn't find any documentation for it. But I'm curious...

Found this in the help file:
"The clip collection allows you to store common blocks of text and templates for quick repeated reuse. You can create clips manually with the New button, or you can save the selected text of a note as new clip.
To insert the contents of a clip into the note you are editing, simply double-click it or drag&drop it onto the spot where you want to insert it.
Clips can be renamed via the context menu and moved to other folders by drag&drop. To move a clip to a parent folder, simply drag it to the "folder-up" button in the toolbar."

superboyac · « **Reply #273 on:** June 14, 2006, 03:20 PM »

Ah! aignes is the author of AM himself! Welcome!

Thanks for the clarifications. It's a nice software you have made there. No wonder; you are also the author of Website-Watcher, which tops one of DC's official reviews.

As far as the note encryption, Evernote also does it that way where anytime you leave the note, the note becomes locked again. I feel there should be an option to turn that on/off because some users might want the encryption to remain off for the remainder of the session. Mybase does it this way.

I still can't figure out how to open multiple databases even when using groups and tabs.

I forgot to mention another unique feature about AM that I liked:
--You can save custom "styles" for text. Style means you can set the font, the font size, italics/bold, and save it so that you can select a text and just apply the style to it. This is similar to the standard html styles (normal, heading 1, etc.) except it's more flexible because you can set it to be whatever you like. Very nice, indeed.

aignes · « **Reply #274 on:** June 16, 2006, 01:08 PM »

Quote

Ah! aignes is the author of AM himself! Welcome!

thanks. Oh, I didn't mention that I'm the author

Quote

I still can't figure out how to open multiple databases even when using groups and tabs.

1) Open database #1
2) Open a note from database #1 in a new tab
3) Open database #2
4) Open a note from database #2 in a new tab

Then you have notes from different databases opened.

5) Save opened tabs as group

Opening this group will re-open these tabs/notes from database #1 and #2