New User - Old Questions

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 7, 2012 at 10:49 AM

I’ve been using RightNote for a few days. What I like about it is its overall functional feel. That is, it just feels natural and easy to use. It is far from the most powerful PIM on the market—I’m sure that myBase is more powerful. But I for one never really got used to how myBase functions (and, yes, I did have a license for myBase, but I stopped upgrading many years ago). In RightNote a file holds several pages (or tabs) of outlined information. This seems like a nice design to me… all your information in one file, but parsed by tabs and then by outlines. Meta data in RN is limited to a clunky, but workable tagging system. The web page archiving works well in my short-term experience. So far I’m pleased with it, but the true test comes when it becomes crammed with information. That’s the point at which I usually find myself getting frustrated with PIMs… which is just as likely to be a reflection on me than on the applications themselves.

As for Scrivener as a research manager, I think it could work, but is probably not optimal. The Mac version would be better. In the Mac version you can create custom data fields for the outline. In the PC version you’re stuck with the ones they give you, although those are somewhat extensive. Nevertheless, I would not use either version for storing and organizing my notes, except on a very project-oriented basis. There are just too many better options.

On a side note, I do think Scrivener could be an excellent tool for managing a large project, however. Especially if you will need to make a report to your supervisor at the end of the project. I wrote a “theory” of using Scrivener for project management on the Literature and Latte Forum, here:

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16169#p113401

Of course, with good intentions of trying this out, I didn’t actually get that far!!!

Steve Z.