ultra recall on bdj today 1/12 $19 standard $39 pro

Posted by 22111
Oct 28, 2013 at 01:54 PM

Correction: So it might be time to not try to bring new users to UR anymore - they would be in for too many deceptions after becoming ___AWARE___ that UR is not the leader of its class anymore, and has not been anymore for at least 5 or 6 years, but if it misses a feature today, standard is you’ll have to live without that feature even in 2020, which is, fortunately, not the case for all of its competitors.

Data transfer: As said before, whenever data transfer seems to get “impossible”, have a look at Treepad, of which even the trial version can flawlessly do lots of “translation” tasks, even though it has never been intended to serve just as an almost universal, free data shifting tool. Of course - and I have this mentioned on several occasions in the past - there is always the problem of what you will possibly lose in that “translation” process: Proprietary links (that’s why I’ve said use your own coding and have your own macros process those codes then, very simple technically), and then, clones (which are a big, big subject in themselves, cf. my writings here and over there in this regard); and yes, today it’s wishful thinking only that some of these tools would be able to import competitors’ trees, processing clones correctly, when in fact, from the technical side, this would be rather easy!

They use standard databases which could be scraped for cloning coding, too, as well as for any attributes, btw. And then, you need this functionality ONCE, and just for ONE such competitor (but which is not the same for all users. So, with regards to TCO - I’ve spoken about this aspect, too, elsewhere - the price range of Info Select is not that wrongly chosen (cf. The Brain’s models), only its pr/treatment-of-customers/taking-away-of-features/crippling-the-expensive-tool and so on is desastrous.

And why not have expensive BUT REALLY GOOD software, and which then includes the possibitily to import correctly from ONE competitor, and all the worse for the additional work for the developer of the “receiving” software, the main problem here being that it’s not possible to have the developer do it with easily-adapted scripts, since if technically this would be rather simple, customers cannot accept such a scenario, but of course, these import scripts could then be built up as different add-ons, to be sold on a “main prog plus one such add-on of your choice for 250$” basis (incl. updates for 2 or 3 years, then they will be 100$, but no more than once every two years, intermediate updates being free), additional add-ons being 50$ each - this would avoid unnecessary over-complication of the main program, and many users would accept such a scheme IF there was serious development, which for UR there is not.

Claims of UR superiority, also here from quant: Look, Sir, as soon as you have a better look into the strengths and flaws of competing software, you’ll realize that UR’s almost-stalled development has given the chance to the latter to recoup what you (and I, at some time in the past) consider(ed) “unparalelled”/“unique” in UR, so today your claim has become wrong with time, and no, I won’t do the complete missing-features lists here again, I’ve amply done them on the UR side when I was hoping yet there would be some serious development.

Just three hints here: UR’s tree: free component, instead of some 500$ component, so no bolding/italicizing/coloring of entries, no formatting whatsoever (and yes, different icons are possible, but that’s not the same thing). UR’s content pane: free and buggy as hell, or you revert to something 10 years old (yes, you can replace its content pane element with an ancient version of the same, but not with something better), and with even much less functionality then (i.e. the “editor” is abysmal) - it’s so bad that you cannot even scroll text there with your mouse wheel.

But then, the real problem with UR is that by its philosophy (e.g. absence of “search over different files”, and not to speak of its absence of a “replace in whole file” function, which makes it almost impossible to do serious work with it, let alone in a “commercial” environment), it’s “one big database for it all”, which means dozens of thousands of items (which it is able to hold, thanks to its - again free - SQLite database)...

...and then total absence, from the part of its developer, of “seeing” such big databases, such “monster trees”, need some PM functionality, i.e. some additional pane (which could have been the first “tab”, as an absolute minimum of service to the customer), and in which the “main tree” would not follow any of your expandings/collapsings done in any of the other “tabs”, i.e. in “hoisted” sections of that big/oversized total data respository.

This means, UR EITHER gives you something like an “overview” of your “material”, “knowledge sets” or whatever (= by collapsing it all, and then all the worse for your details upon which you will have worked on anywhere at this given moment), OR you can work deep within your data structure (which also makes your “main tree” totally cut up in undecipherable pieces), but it’s totally impossible to have both “views” concurrently, or at least by switching back and forth, from e.g. the very first tab and then to your “details tabs”.

The problem is, coding of this independence would not be that easy… if it’s done, the additional display pane (which would be “total relief”, pun intended) would just be a detail coded within 20 minutes, but the developer says, “UR has got enough panes already as it is”, so he simply doesn’t see, or denies, against better knowledge, the problem… and of course, when you buy UR and start with some 200 items, you won’t see the problem either, for some time… ha, ha, ha!

Correction: “Non-destructive (!) sorting of tree parts would have been a good features, years ago, and will even be if it’s introduced in 2020, but perhaps there is a chance to get similar flat lists from some competitor’s search function (searching for an asterisk, “in this subtree”), and then sorting the entries within the search results list, in the meanwhile. Some of us need functionality now, not in some distant future.” - well, I’m not the guy to spread lies, so I’d like to add that UR itself does do this, today: Select any parent item, search for an asterisk, check the option “limit search to selected item”, then sort by any of the columns there, so finally, you can have a sorted flat view of all the elements of some tree or subtree, even today, even in UR: Another reason for NOT “updating” (yes, buying fresh from bits is cheaper than a real update) my ancient UR license, for foolish hope the UR developer will take some “lesson” from his begging users, even in a distant future.

At the same time, Zoot is a 3-pane outliner, so there’s at least a chance to have your mental representation of your material in a much clearer way, over there: It’s time I take a real good into this competitor and its brand-new version 6: If my TCO is better than with UR, and there’s a big chance for that, Zoot’s costing 100$ is “nothing” compared with what I’ve been enduring with UR, these last years, and what every new UR buyer on bits will have to endure for this oh-so-chep-40$ program from the moment on he’ll try to use it in a real serious way.

But then, there are the fanboys luring you into it, as most such programs have their respective fanboys.

And no, I’ll not place a link to this on the bits side - let’em make some additional $$ there.