Software for bridging gap between notes and digital media

Posted by Graham Rhind
Mar 6, 2020 at 10:53 AM

Nomatica wrote:
Graham

<
>

I am familiar with Zoot, and have had it on my radar in 2016. But did
>not pursue it because of the lack of documentation (something echoed
>many places). It also seems that there are only a few people in its user
>forum, and they are all trying to figure out how to use the program.

Zoot now contains a help file. Like many programs that offer huge amounts of flexibility, it does take some practice to get it working for you. It’s true that it used to have a very vocal and active user community. I don’t know where they’ve gone, or why, but I suspect some have moved on because they require multi-platform support and a mobile companion app, neither of which Zoot can offer. The messages I see coming from the forum are from old hands trying to do some pretty complex stuff. Most of the basics are easy enough to master.

>>I use it for my media files, which can be individually annotated;
>>and the Smart Folders options allow you to create custom views in ways
>>that just tagging in other programs can’t.
> >I would be interested in your sharing as much as you are willing about
>how you use it, specifically with media files. As I understand it , it
>has an internal audio player.

I have only just come back to Zoot after some years away, so I am also still experimenting. What I am currently doing is cataloguing 60 years worth of photographs, using The Brain and Zoot in parallel to compare their value. Each photo is carefully named (who, where, when etc.). With a program such as The Brain, I have to define a structure and can then import (or link) the photo to a point in that structure. I.e., if I have a photo of person a in place b in year c, I have to choose where to place it, or place it in all of them, creating duplication. If I place it in one part of the structure, I can still tag it or search for it and find its relevance to other parts of the structure that way, but it’s inelegant and a lot of work.

Zoot, on the other hand, allows me to dump the whole lot into it without worrying about structure, links or tags. Using the smart folders feature, I can view all photo’s for person a, or all for place b, or all from year c, or any combination of them; and I can create new views without having to find, link, move, tag, duplicate etc. etc. the files.

It does take some getting used to, because there’s little defined structure and it can seem that Zoot swallows data and hides it, as you would need to define how you want to see it. It works for me for some projects, though - it’s worth playing around with, in any case.