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Curio 28 has been released (Mac only)
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Posted by Rausch
Feb 9, 2024 at 09:12 AM
I tried using Curio for quite a while as it looked so good on paper: but I gave up a few years ago mainly because of your point 2 on the lack of a proper text editor. This lack of easy (and what i would consider genuine) notes.
I’d been playing with Tinderbox at that time but dropping Curio led me to use it properly and with the changes to Tinderbox over the past few years (I started on 5, it’s now on 9.7) it’s become both even more powerful but also easier to use. I’m a relatively unsophisticated user, but I use it every day and couldn’t do my research without it.
The ‘lack of documentation’ has become much less true than it was: Tinderbox has a really helpful user base and there is now a whole set of how-to videos from a user who has charted his use from causal to expert, and there’s a lot of tips and tricks posts too.
(Apologies if this is beginning to sound a bit fan-boy).
moritz wrote:
Curio is one of the most impressive tools of its kind.
>
>However, a small number of essential quality-of-life issues have gotten
>in my way of using it:
>
>1. PDF export/print will frequently create lines that are vertically cut
>in half, with the top of the characters separated from the bottom.
>
>2. No ‘text editor’ mode exists: Text is always regarded as a graphical
>box with a defined width and height. To write longer pieces, I found I
>had to revert to integration with external markdown files, which is
>clumsy. This is unlike Tinderbox, which offers a Map view and an Outline
>view of the same document and a separation of ‘body text’ and ‘label’
>per note.
>
>3. Sharing information collaboratively on an ongoing basis is impossible
>(that includes the aspect of Mac-only support). This is in contrast to
>Obsidian, where it’s clunky but can be done for small teams (via Sync or
>Github).
>
>4. Basic export via the clipboard to PowerPoint does not render
>graphical formatting correctly. Sorry, but that’s a hard show stopper
>for any business use?
>
>This situation breaks my hard, in light of all of the awesome goodness
>across so many other powerful features.
>I would rate Curio a 6/5 stars. Sadly, because of 1.-4. will not try to
>use it again - in the past, it became a black hole for my work, which I
>then had to redo with inferior tools that didn’t suffer from the same
>limitations.
>
Posted by Amontillado
Feb 9, 2024 at 12:53 PM
Fanboy? Not at all. One should be enthusiastic about tools.
Curio may have evolved some. If you want to type a text note that’s 10,000 lines long, it won’t be that much different than using a Markdown or RTF editor. These days a text box grows and scrolls vertically as needed. You set the width of a text figure, Curio scales the height to contain your text.
I don’t write drafts in Curio, unless you count working on embedded word processing documents. Curio is a lot like Obsidian’s Canvas, except with almost no effort it has a pleasant, well produced appearance.
It’s not for everything. I have some large document collections that would be poor candidates for Curio. Just like I wouldn’t try to store a library of PDF’s in MindNode, which is a fine but focused application, I wouldn’t put a thousand PDF’s in Curio.
For replacing a wall full of sticky notes, it’s cool. Mind mapping in Curio does more than many mind map applications, although some of the features don’t jump out. I didn’t realize at first that every node can have file attachments, a text note, and other things.
Curio was also sort of on the shelf for a long time. Things that got me back into using it were enhancements like synced text figures, where a single note can appear in multiple places, or a mind map node can appear in more than one mind map.
The biggest drawback is probably the lack of an iOS version. That’s a deal-killer for many. I don’t like cloud sharing, not that I have anything to hide other than embarrassment over crummy writing, and I prefer my laptop to my iPad. I rarely touch the iOS version of any application, so no iOS is no big deal for me.
Later today I’m going to fire up Tinderbox again and see if I can make my peace with agents, edicts, stamps, lions, and tigers, oh my. ;-)
Rausch wrote:
I tried using Curio for quite a while as it looked so good on paper: but
>I gave up a few years ago mainly because of your point 2 on the lack of
>a proper text editor. This lack of easy (and what i would consider
>genuine) notes.
>
>I’d been playing with Tinderbox at that time but dropping Curio led me
>to use it properly and with the changes to Tinderbox over the past few
>years (I started on 5, it’s now on 9.7) it’s become both even more
>powerful but also easier to use. I’m a relatively unsophisticated user,
>but I use it every day and couldn’t do my research without it.
>
>The ‘lack of documentation’ has become much less true than it was:
>Tinderbox has a really helpful user base and there is now a whole set of
>how-to videos from a user who has charted his use from causal to expert,
>and there’s a lot of tips and tricks posts too.
>
>(Apologies if this is beginning to sound a bit fan-boy).
>
Posted by J J Weimer
Feb 11, 2024 at 02:32 AM
moritz wrote:
>Curio is one of the most impressive tools of its kind.
>
>However, a small number of essential quality-of-life issues have gotten
>in my way of using it:
I’ll only note where I think some insights are needed ...
>
>1. PDF export/print will frequently create lines that are vertically cut
>in half, with the top of the characters separated from the bottom.
I believe that you would get prompt attention if you would try to resolve this issue with George, the developer.
>4. Basic export via the clipboard to PowerPoint does not render
>graphical formatting correctly. Sorry, but that’s a hard show stopper
>for any business use?
Again, have you contacted George to try to resolve this?
Also, to your ending question mark ... The fact that PowerPoint dominates business use for presentations does not make it the gold standard for proper handling of content that one tries to add to it. IOW, you may be premature to implicitly blame Curio for seeming to put the wrong content on its clipboard rather than blaming PowerPoint for having no clue how to import complex (but otherwise perfectly formatted) content from the clipboard.
Posted by moritz
Feb 11, 2024 at 07:10 PM
J J, I told George about the PDF/page break issue years ago. He is aware, and is always super responsive. Great guy. Alas, a fix would not be trivial and to my knowledge has not been implemented (I stopped upgrading last August, so still on v26).
I would imagine that the clipboard issue is similar: Once something breaks at this level, using deep features of Mac OS, a fix might be non trivial. To be honest, I didn’t reach out to George as I feel that by jumping off the upgrade bandwagon, he should be focused on his current paying customers - and I don’t have the v28 license to reproduce the issue with the most current build.
J J Weimer wrote:
moritz wrote:
>>Curio is one of the most impressive tools of its kind.
>>
>>However, a small number of essential quality-of-life issues have gotten
>>in my way of using it:
>
>I’ll only note where I think some insights are needed ...
>
>>
>>1. PDF export/print will frequently create lines that are vertically
>cut
>>in half, with the top of the characters separated from the bottom.
>
>I believe that you would get prompt attention if you would try to
>resolve this issue with George, the developer.
>
>>4. Basic export via the clipboard to PowerPoint does not render
>>graphical formatting correctly. Sorry, but that’s a hard show stopper
>>for any business use?
>
>Again, have you contacted George to try to resolve this?
>
>Also, to your ending question mark ... The fact that PowerPoint
>dominates business use for presentations does not make it the gold
>standard for proper handling of content that one tries to add to it.
>IOW, you may be premature to implicitly blame Curio for seeming to put
>the wrong content on its clipboard rather than blaming PowerPoint for
>having no clue how to import complex (but otherwise perfectly formatted)
>content from the clipboard.
>
Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 12, 2024 at 10:44 AM
For a nice, and free, Curio alternative – that isn’t, I would be the first to admit, anything like as comprehensive as Curio – it’s well worth checking out Growly Notes, which has been around for years.
It’s a kind of OneNote for Mac, but has its own very powerful features (including the kind of partitioned treatment of PDFs featured in Curio). And is, as I say, free of charge.
The developer did release an iOS version some years back, but take-up was poor, so he sensibly abandoned it again. Its editing capabilities are much superior to Curio’s, frankly, and it has a broad range of export options (including HTML). It supports a vast range of import options, too, including movies, audio files and web pages (as well as video and audio recordings). It also supports tags, tables and shared notebooks. You can attach files, too, and I’ve found that while it isn’t closely integrated with Curiota in the same way as Curio, it does work very well together with Curiota (as does, for that matter, Keep It).
I like Curio, but gave it up long ago, and have used Growly Notes for various multimedia projects since then. It’s regularly updated (the developer also publishes a variety of free games and utilities), and can be found at: https://growlybird.com
The developer, Chris, worked for Microsoft a couple of times – he’s very entertaining on the subject, and is very amiable altogether! He programs for the love of it, just like Maurice.
Cheers,
Bill