Beta of TheBrain 7.0 released

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 3, 2011 at 06:28 PM

@ Alexander,

I agree that the “gee whiz” factor of the plex wears off quickly. As a note manager, TheBrain is very weak. That is, it is no “outliner” (however it is we define that term here). What made TheBrain click for me is when I stopped trying to use it like an outliner, where each node (or “thought”) is a kernel of information. In reality, each thought in the plex is really more like a folder, which can be related in a number of flexible ways to all the other folders in your Brain. Each of these thoughts/folders can hold numerous attached files of any type, as well as various pieces of meta-data (tags, types, URLs, screen captures). So for me TheBrain has become an efficient repository for much of my work-oriented data, allowing me to relate that information among itself in ways impossible with the Windows Explorer. The search function is surprisingly robust, so it is easy to find information buried deep in the hierarchy. It’s not perfect. The note editor is very weak. It’s poor at displaying information that benefits from a tabular format. I wish I could scan documents directly into TheBrain.

But all in all, TheBrain has proven very handy for the way I deal with information.

Steve Z.