MyInfo 8 - New review

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Apr 11, 2024 at 05:04 PM

I appreciate your review on MyInfo 8, Tumbleweed. I find MyInfo a good, solid program, but unfortunately, and somewhat unfairly, it seems to have been overshadowed by some of the newer note taking programs such as Logseq and Obsidian.

However, Petko, MI 8’s developer, has done good work over the years keeping MI relevant and a worthy contender for those people seeking a robust notetaking program.

For me, the strongest attribute of MI has traditionally been the columns. However, as you note, Petko has introduced many new features to MI which has kept it contemporary and worthy of consideration in the ever-growing and changing notes marketplace.

Daly

Tumbleweed wrote:
After much deliberation and experimentation with LogSeq and Obsidian,
>I’ve decided to go back to a more traditional outliner. They allow me to
>view a much larger amount of information. They also can support the
>Zettlekasten methdology via links.
> >I found that deliberately linking things was fatiguing, and I couldn’t
>get the behavior I wanted (2 links on the same block linking together).
>Also, the links to a topic quickly became unwieldy, and thus of low
>value. Lastly, adding scientific PDFs created a mush of co-authors in
>the graph that overpowered my own notes. Hence, I decided to document
>scientific research in Citavi, which IMO is unparalleled for this task.
>For email/contacts/meeting notes/CRM, I am using EssentialPim, although
>I have previously had stability issues and have Outlook/NEOPro on
>standby.
> >With licenses to UltraRecall, Zoot, RightNote, InfoQube, DoogiePim (V3),
>Heptabase, EssentialPim, Obsidian/Logseq (free), why did I CRIMP and
>fall in love with MyInfo 8? Two reasons: speed and functionality.
> >My main use case is a notebook of work, which requires a good canvas to
>copy/paste results. Here MI excels - the doc panel has features missing
>in a lot of other tools. It pastes in pictures and scales them to the
>window size, something UltraRecall doesn’t do. It has headings in the
>doc pane that can be viewed in a “Note Structure” pane, so long form
>writing and navigation is easy. It shows tags and backlinks for an
>entry. It also has a code format for source code, which makes its use as
>a notebook of work and results outstanding for those who program.
> >Furthermore, it has both editable attachments and linked documents,
>although the behavior is not consistent between PDFs and Word docs when
>dragged to the tree. It has “Perspectives”, which are viewing filters
>for the current notebook something like Saved Searches in UltraRecall -
>however, they do not apply across notebooks which is a weakness.
> >A huge benefit is that columns can be added in the tree directly, saving
>huge time when compared to other programs. This is amazingly flexible,
>as more traditional entries can be made on the fly. Or omitted if not
>needed. The search is very fast, but does not search-as-you-type and
>needs wildcards for incomplete matches. A hair below RightNote’s best in
>class but still extremely powerful. It allows for export, which is
>crucial if development should discontinue. And of course there are many
>other features which are too numerous to mention, such as history and
>revisions, cloning, hoist, nested tags, linking to paragraphs, locking
>notes, encryption, etc.
> >But the best feature is SPEED. It is lightening fast, only RightNote has
>a similar speed of execution. RN is also an amazing program, but it
>lacks some features such as columns/attributes, visualization of PDFs,
>etc. In short, it improves the user experience from UltraRecall a lot
>and has many additional features, while for me lacking only the “Saved
>searches” since I stopped using things like Outlook sync.
> >Some quibbles:
>-There are no notebook wide saved searches or similar, so using your
>notes to create a new document via Zettlekasten requires using Global
>Search and then cloning or linking notes into a new note. RN allows
>multiple trees open which facilitates this process. Personally, I like
>to write and just link in the relevant notes. The reason for no Saved
>search seems to be that notebooks can be treated individually, so they
>can be open or closed and thus not searchable.
>-Word documents dragged to the tree are converted into a viewable note,
>which is quite cool but doesn’t allow editing of the original document.
>-Pictures and PDFs dragged to the tree are linked, and documents that
>are attached to the database (and possibly edited) need to be added via
>Insert-Attachment.
>-Email attached to the tree will made a linked note and be non-viewable
>(and supports msg but not eml) - however, I have come to start clipping
>out the important contents of email to avoid just dumping useless info
>into my database.
>-Using for tasks is a bit weak - the percent complete doesn’t inherit so
>any serious project management is not really possible. As mentioned, I
>am using EPim for tasks which ironically doesn’t have this functionality
>either.
>-No adjustable views like InfoQube or even UltraRecall. We’re stuck with
>the default 3-paner - which for me is optimal anyway.
> >These minor quibbles aside, MyInfo 8 is an incredibly fast and efficient
>program. Changes are saved instantly, there is not even a save button.
>For creating notes on work as an “electronic notebook” it is truly
>outstanding. The main weakness is no Saved search or similar, which is
>understandable given the design structure into different notebooks which
>may be opened/closed.
> >