Surfulater V1.94, B0.0 Released
Posted by subs
on 1/4/2006
subs
1/4/2006 3:54 pm
Hi and happy new year to all.
For those interested in Surfulater the latest version was released on 2 Jan 2006. A more informative writeup can be found on my blog at: http://blog.surfulater.com/
This release further enhances Surfulaters ability to acquire information from other Windows Applications as well as the Web.
Information on starting a fresh free trial is at: http://www.surfulater.com/faq.html Download from: http://www.surfulater.com
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Surfulater Version 1.94, B0.0 Release Notes - 2 January 2006
This release enables you to append content to existing articles, more easily attach files to articles, access functions with extra menu items, as well as including various other updates.
What's New
- Append Clipboard to Field has been added to the content window context menu. This enables you to quickly append content to any field in an article. For example you can add more content from a Web page to an article by selecting the text + images in your Web Browser, Copying it to the Windows Clipboard, and then using "Append Clipboard to Field". You can also Attach files and append images from Windows Explorer. This a great new feature, one that I've been mulling over for some time. Thanks to John Rivera for suggesting this specific implementation.
- Attach File... makes it easier to attach a file to a Surfulater article. You no longer have to go to Windows Explorer and then use Edit|Paste, although that is still available. "Attach File..." is on the Article Menu, as well as the main context menus, and on the Standard Toolbar.
- Two new Toolbar buttons have been added to the Standard Toolbar. The first lets you add a Hyperlink to selected text (the same as Ctrl+K), and the second removes the Hyperlink at the cursor position. These commands have also been added to the content window edit mode context editor. ie. Add a Link and Remove this Link.
- When you Attach a Web page to an article the current date and time is included, so you know when it was added.
- New Article from Clipboard has been added to the Folder and Article Knowledge Tree context menus. Suggested by Leigh Wardle.
- Article|New Article from Clipboard is now available on the Standard Toolbar and it now has a menu image.
- Article|Send To|... has been added. This performs the same functions as "Send To" on the Tree and Content window context menus.
- Article|Go to the Search Results has been added, along with a new button on the Search Toolbar. These move the tree selection to the Search Results folder.
- Toolbars are now displayed in two rows and the Knowledge Base Toolbar is now on by default.
- The Search Toolbar Search combobox is wider and deeper.
- The View menu has been changed to move all toolbars on to a Toolbars sub-menu. This new menu also includes "Customize...". The View menu has also been rearranged slightly.
- Further updates to the Help, including new articles.
What's Fixed
- A problem where Images which come from a database on a Web site, weren't showing the correct images, has been fixed. Thanks to David Britton for reporting this.
- Attaching a Web Page no longer stops any images which are in the Attachments field, from from being displayed correctly.
- Articles created from content in the Windows Clipboard, now handle Unicode UTF-8 character encodings correctly.
- The Content window context menu no longer includes "Select All" when the mouse click is not over an editable area. This fixes a problem raised by Arlene Shipley.
- A problem introduced in the last release, where the area behind pop-up tip windows wasn't always restored has been fixed.
- Article|New Article and Article|New Article from Clipboard are now disabled if the current Folder is not appropriate for adding new articles.
- Article|New Article has been removed from the 'All Articles' folders context menu.
- A problem with Surfulater crashing when the Free Trial had ended, has been fixed.
--------
Neville Franks, http://www.surfulater.com
For those interested in Surfulater the latest version was released on 2 Jan 2006. A more informative writeup can be found on my blog at: http://blog.surfulater.com/
This release further enhances Surfulaters ability to acquire information from other Windows Applications as well as the Web.
Information on starting a fresh free trial is at: http://www.surfulater.com/faq.html Download from: http://www.surfulater.com
-------------
Surfulater Version 1.94, B0.0 Release Notes - 2 January 2006
This release enables you to append content to existing articles, more easily attach files to articles, access functions with extra menu items, as well as including various other updates.
What's New
- Append Clipboard to Field has been added to the content window context menu. This enables you to quickly append content to any field in an article. For example you can add more content from a Web page to an article by selecting the text + images in your Web Browser, Copying it to the Windows Clipboard, and then using "Append Clipboard to Field". You can also Attach files and append images from Windows Explorer. This a great new feature, one that I've been mulling over for some time. Thanks to John Rivera for suggesting this specific implementation.
- Attach File... makes it easier to attach a file to a Surfulater article. You no longer have to go to Windows Explorer and then use Edit|Paste, although that is still available. "Attach File..." is on the Article Menu, as well as the main context menus, and on the Standard Toolbar.
- Two new Toolbar buttons have been added to the Standard Toolbar. The first lets you add a Hyperlink to selected text (the same as Ctrl+K), and the second removes the Hyperlink at the cursor position. These commands have also been added to the content window edit mode context editor. ie. Add a Link and Remove this Link.
- When you Attach a Web page to an article the current date and time is included, so you know when it was added.
- New Article from Clipboard has been added to the Folder and Article Knowledge Tree context menus. Suggested by Leigh Wardle.
- Article|New Article from Clipboard is now available on the Standard Toolbar and it now has a menu image.
- Article|Send To|... has been added. This performs the same functions as "Send To" on the Tree and Content window context menus.
- Article|Go to the Search Results has been added, along with a new button on the Search Toolbar. These move the tree selection to the Search Results folder.
- Toolbars are now displayed in two rows and the Knowledge Base Toolbar is now on by default.
- The Search Toolbar Search combobox is wider and deeper.
- The View menu has been changed to move all toolbars on to a Toolbars sub-menu. This new menu also includes "Customize...". The View menu has also been rearranged slightly.
- Further updates to the Help, including new articles.
What's Fixed
- A problem where Images which come from a database on a Web site, weren't showing the correct images, has been fixed. Thanks to David Britton for reporting this.
- Attaching a Web Page no longer stops any images which are in the Attachments field, from from being displayed correctly.
- Articles created from content in the Windows Clipboard, now handle Unicode UTF-8 character encodings correctly.
- The Content window context menu no longer includes "Select All" when the mouse click is not over an editable area. This fixes a problem raised by Arlene Shipley.
- A problem introduced in the last release, where the area behind pop-up tip windows wasn't always restored has been fixed.
- Article|New Article and Article|New Article from Clipboard are now disabled if the current Folder is not appropriate for adding new articles.
- Article|New Article has been removed from the 'All Articles' folders context menu.
- A problem with Surfulater crashing when the Free Trial had ended, has been fixed.
--------
Neville Franks, http://www.surfulater.com
subscriber
1/7/2006 4:49 pm
Hi Neville,
I have installed it and played with it for some. Unfortunately, I am disappointed.
First, the installer does not offer the choice for knowledge bases location and creates new folder in My Documents, which I don't like. (I keep my data on another partition). Also, it is not possible to change it later.
Second, the trial version has several annoying limitations that are not mentioned on the download page. I mean the nag screen and lack of options to close (!) or to create new knowledge base files. This is not fair and does not allow for complete check of the functionality of the program.
Third, when I add an article copying from other application via clipboard, the whole content of the clip is inserted as title, thus the whole entry is doubled.
Fourth, and the most important for me: there is no field to add keywords to knowledge base entries ('articles') and Surfulater does not offer the option to organize the knowledge base tree according to keywords. The same is true for URLs or any other attribute (the only additional possibility it offers is to show articles in chronological order).
I am sorry, Neville, but all of this make your software useless for me in its present stage. Nevertheless, I will keep my eye on further development since I appreciate your good faith and readiness to improve the program following users wishes and suggestions.
All the best,
Wojciech
For those interested in Surfulater the latest version was released on 2 Jan 2006.
I have installed it and played with it for some. Unfortunately, I am disappointed.
First, the installer does not offer the choice for knowledge bases location and creates new folder in My Documents, which I don't like. (I keep my data on another partition). Also, it is not possible to change it later.
Second, the trial version has several annoying limitations that are not mentioned on the download page. I mean the nag screen and lack of options to close (!) or to create new knowledge base files. This is not fair and does not allow for complete check of the functionality of the program.
Third, when I add an article copying from other application via clipboard, the whole content of the clip is inserted as title, thus the whole entry is doubled.
Fourth, and the most important for me: there is no field to add keywords to knowledge base entries ('articles') and Surfulater does not offer the option to organize the knowledge base tree according to keywords. The same is true for URLs or any other attribute (the only additional possibility it offers is to show articles in chronological order).
I am sorry, Neville, but all of this make your software useless for me in its present stage. Nevertheless, I will keep my eye on further development since I appreciate your good faith and readiness to improve the program following users wishes and suggestions.
All the best,
Wojciech
subs
1/9/2006 3:27 pm
Hi Wojciech,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry to hear of your disappointment.
The Free Trial lets you have one knowledge base open and its location defaults to the standard Microsoft My Documents folder. In the full version you can have as many knowledge bases open as you like and they can be located wherever you like. Our FAQ Web page does mention this. I can't see how not being able to create multiple knowledge bases dramatically affects the evaluation of Surfulater.
When the free trial starts for the second and subsequent time it displays a screen telling you how many days you have left in the trial and gives you the option to purchase it. I think you will find this in free trial versions of all commercial software.
When you create an article from the Clipboard Surfulater uses the first sentence as the article title, which of course you can then edit. If you are seeing more than one sentence then this is a bug.
Knowledge tagging (keywords) will be coming in Surfulater soon. I've written about this on my forums and blog. Surfulater allows you to have the same article in as many folders as you want, which makes it easier to categorize content.
Surfulater has various tree views including Chronological, flat (All Articles), Folders only, All Folders with no articles etc.
More Knowledge Tree views are coming, along with tree filtering. For example only show articles added after a certain date, or matching a certain boolean search, or matching certain tags etc. These new capabilities will make it even easier to work with large amounts of information and more quickly locate content of interest.
I am very interested in having a dialog with our users and see this
as critical in Surfulater's evolution. It is why I spend quite a bit
of time on various forums and have our own blog and forums.
Thanks again for taking the time to write. I hope my reply brings us
a little bit closer together. And please do keep an eye on what we are doing.
PS. You might find "Surfulater, Under the Hood and Down the Road"
http://blog.surfulater.com/2005/11/21/surfulater-under-the-hood-and-
down-the-road/ of interest.
Neville
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry to hear of your disappointment.
The Free Trial lets you have one knowledge base open and its location defaults to the standard Microsoft My Documents folder. In the full version you can have as many knowledge bases open as you like and they can be located wherever you like. Our FAQ Web page does mention this. I can't see how not being able to create multiple knowledge bases dramatically affects the evaluation of Surfulater.
When the free trial starts for the second and subsequent time it displays a screen telling you how many days you have left in the trial and gives you the option to purchase it. I think you will find this in free trial versions of all commercial software.
When you create an article from the Clipboard Surfulater uses the first sentence as the article title, which of course you can then edit. If you are seeing more than one sentence then this is a bug.
Knowledge tagging (keywords) will be coming in Surfulater soon. I've written about this on my forums and blog. Surfulater allows you to have the same article in as many folders as you want, which makes it easier to categorize content.
Surfulater has various tree views including Chronological, flat (All Articles), Folders only, All Folders with no articles etc.
More Knowledge Tree views are coming, along with tree filtering. For example only show articles added after a certain date, or matching a certain boolean search, or matching certain tags etc. These new capabilities will make it even easier to work with large amounts of information and more quickly locate content of interest.
I am very interested in having a dialog with our users and see this
as critical in Surfulater's evolution. It is why I spend quite a bit
of time on various forums and have our own blog and forums.
Thanks again for taking the time to write. I hope my reply brings us
a little bit closer together. And please do keep an eye on what we are doing.
PS. You might find "Surfulater, Under the Hood and Down the Road"
http://blog.surfulater.com/2005/11/21/surfulater-under-the-hood-and-
down-the-road/ of interest.
Neville