I think the bloom may be coming off the rose for UltraRecall.

First, UR indicated some months ago that there would be full integration with Firefox in the Q4 version.

Last week I discovered in a posted roadmap that integration had been quietly dropped from the roadmap. The deletion had been made in the roadmap notice that was already posted, but the original posting date remained. There was no reason to check the roadmap, but for some reason I did. Kinood agrees with me that it would have been better to change the date, and we both agree there was no intent to be deceptive.

However, what disenchants me is that it seems, lacking any official explanation from Kinook as to why integration was dropped, that the appearance of a third-party Firefox extensions called Launchy may have convinced Kinook they didn't have to go to the trouble of creating their own integration wiith Firefox.

Yesterday, I attempted to get Launchy to work, spending about half an hour of time I didn't have. From the Firefox end, Launchy appears to work. But nothing happens at the UltraRecall end.

I expressed my frustration and anger on the UR forum. I also posted my Launchy code. My hope is that someone from Kinook will respond and let me know what the problem might be.

Meanwhile, I am at a loss to understand why a company that introduced a product (UR) in such a competant and professional manner, would fail to recognize the importance of Firefox integration, wild and perhaps unfounded hopes about the new IE notwithstanding.

Ironically, Firefox 1.5 was released this week. Early reviews, and my own experience with it, suggest Firefox keeps on getting better.

I guess I'll just have to keep on drag and dropping urls into UR. And hope that Kinook reconsiders its decision to abandon integration.

The other alternative is to rely solely on Scrapbook, the Firefox extension that saves web pages, and also provides a rudimentary note-taking capability, and do everything else in ADM and InfoHhandler, both of which permit a more personalized approach to categorizing information and retrieving it.

Daly

Daly,

I understand why you were upset. However, I can also understand Kinook's approach.

I find that Launchy works flawlessly (I'm also using FF 1.5), and offers the same ease of use as UR's IE context menu integration. Presuming Lunchy works for most UR/Firefox users, I can understand why Firefox integration may have slipped down the priority scale for Kinook.

John

PS: If you're still having problems with Launchy, have you checked that you're using the latest version (4.1.0)? That has solved problems for some people, I believe.

Daly, Is there some reason you excluded Surfulater from your list? It works perfectly with Firefox 1.5.

Unfortunately FF broke quite a few extensions on V1.5. There has been some talk about this at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/powertoolssoftware

Neville, http://www.surfulater.com

Meanwhile, I am at a loss to understand why a company that introduced a product (UR) in such a competant and professional manner, would fail to recognize the importance of Firefox integration, wild and perhaps unfounded hopes about the new IE notwithstanding.<

I don't know Kinook's reasons, but I certainly do not agree that it is incompetent or unprofessional to hold a different view of the Firefox fad or to change one's opinion when Firefox developed critical security flaws or once the reality of Firefox's slowness caught up with the myth of its speed. In any event, it turns reality on its head to think that a commercial product should necessarily adapt to become compatible with a program that everyone's using mainly because it's free. I mean, if IE could be improved upon that much, someone would have profited from the ability to create a better browser. People who use Firefox generally won't even consider a browser they have to pay for. That tells me the difference in "browsing experience" just isn't that great. Firefox is some kind of anti-Microsoft _symbol_, and I'm completely satisfied that Kinook isn't spending time catering to it. I'd much rather have hoisting a few weeks earlier than have adaptation to various semi-identical browsers. (But isn't the problem really that ADM broke IE on your system? :))

Stephen Diamond

<However, what disenchants me is that it seems, lacking any official explanation from Kinook as to why integration was dropped, that the appearance of a third-party Firefox extensions called Launchy may have convinced Kinook they didn't have to go to the trouble of creating their own integration wiith Firefox.>

Why exactly would this be disenchanting? What's bad about relying on third party integration, as opposed to in-house reinvention of everything? Isn't this the way software is _supposed_ to work, by integration not by duplication? Shouldn't the judgment be based on how well the integration works, not based on who makes it.

And most of all, why _shouldn't_ the Open Source community be the ones *responsible* for integration. I mean, these products are supposed to be FREE. How free are they if commercial development prices rise because developers have to integrate with Firefox, to satisfy 10% of the users who happen to be almost as demanding, fanatic, and obnoxious as some Macintosh users?

Stephen R. Diamond

Daly,

A footnote to this thread. If you use a macro program (Macro Express or anything similar), it's very easy to turn importing a web page in UR into a single hotkey. Your macro would be scripted as follows (it presumes you are starting at the web page you want to import):

<f6> (to highlight the URL in the address bar)
<copy> (to copy the URL to the clipboard)
<activate Ultra Recall> (to bring the UR window into focus)
<UR import> (whatever shortcut you use in UR to import)

The last step refers to the "import clipboard contents hotkey" in UR:
http://www.newsparadise.com/pix/ur.jpg

Took literally seconds to set up, and gives you single key importing into UR. If you don't use a macro program, I advise you to try one. Used imaginatively, they can save a lot of time.

John