While installing the UpNote web clipper in Chrome last week, a message popped up saying that my Walling web clipper may no longer be supported in Chrome. I wrote Walling asking about this and still have not received a reply in almost a week's time. I fear the sale is not going to be a good thing for Walling customers going forward. I can recall receiving replies from their support team (and almost always by the same person) within hours after my writing them. There has also been no news about any improvements or a road map. It has been mostly radio silence since the sale. I suspect that I will stop entering new information into the app and start looking for a migration path for my existing data. It is a shame, as it offers many nice features and its web clipper was quite useful. My wife and I used it to plan several trips and found it way better than what we previously used - Trello.

--Ken

That sad to hear. I feared the worst, and this confirms it. Walling has some unique features. I always thought there was some symmetry between Walling and xTiles -- although they are Ukraine based, so who knows what the future holds for them.

Steve



Ken wrote:

While installing the UpNote web clipper in Chrome last week, a message
popped up saying that my Walling web clipper may no longer be supported
in Chrome. I wrote Walling asking about this and still have not
received a reply in almost a week's time. I fear the sale is not going
to be a good thing for Walling customers going forward. I can recall
receiving replies from their support team (and almost always by the same
person) within hours after my writing them. There has also been no news
about any improvements or a road map. It has been mostly radio silence
since the sale. I suspect that I will stop entering new information
into the app and start looking for a migration path for my existing
data. It is a shame, as it offers many nice features and its web
clipper was quite useful. My wife and I used it to plan several trips
and found it way better than what we previously used - Trello.

--Ken

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

That sad to hear. I feared the worst, and this confirms it. Walling has
some unique features. I always thought there was some symmetry between
Walling and xTiles -- although they are Ukraine based, so who knows what
the future holds for them.

Steve

Yes, it is sad, and a bit frustrating as well. I wrote them again today and am waiting for a response, hopefully with some explanation on their delay in initially getting back to me. And I also worry about the future of xTiles and, more importantly, the Ukraine as well.

--Ken

I received a reply message today from Walling with an apology and also a note letting me know they are working on their clipper plug-in to comply with changes in Chrome. I get that being short-staffed is quite common in this early post pandemic era, as I see it almost every day one way or another. But I am still not happy that their response to a simple support inquiry took so long. I still have time on my subscription so I do not need to make any immediate decisions, but I have been actively looking at alternative applications as it is good to have options. I wish them well, but am still somewhat feeling like this may be a slowly sinking ship.

--Ken

Under Elmasry (the founder, I believe), Walling seemed to have new features added weekly. It evolved quickly into a very capable PKM. I couldn't quite commit to it fully, because I felt like I would get lost in the weeds... that is, there was a lot going on and once I had made a number of walls and folders I seemed to flounder in it. Nevertheless, I admired the functionality. I'd like to see the new owners succeed.

I always thought of Walling as Notion with training wheels. That is, you can do a lot of what you can do in Notion, but it was more constrained and didn't require as much fiddling.

Steve

Ken wrote:

I received a reply message today from Walling with an apology and also a
note letting me know they are working on their clipper plug-in to comply
with changes in Chrome. I get that being short-staffed is quite common
in this early post pandemic era, as I see it almost every day one way or
another. But I am still not happy that their response to a simple
support inquiry took so long. I still have time on my subscription so I
do not need to make any immediate decisions, but I have been actively
looking at alternative applications as it is good to have options. I
wish them well, but am still somewhat feeling like this may be a slowly
sinking ship.

--Ken

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Under Elmasry (the founder, I believe), Walling seemed to have new
features added weekly. It evolved quickly into a very capable PKM. I
couldn't quite commit to it fully, because I felt like I would get lost
in the weeds... that is, there was a lot going on and once I had made a
number of walls and folders I seemed to flounder in it. Nevertheless, I
admired the functionality. I'd like to see the new owners succeed.

I always thought of Walling as Notion with training wheels. That is, you
can do a lot of what you can do in Notion, but it was more constrained
and didn't require as much fiddling.

Steve

I did not take to Notion when I first looked at it, but I suspect I might warm up to it if I looked again. It just required too much work for what I wanted. Walling did progress, but it also had a number of issues that needed attention that never got addressed. But it did have great customer service, and I appreciated that. I initially looked at Milanote and xTiles at the time, and am looking at them again. Milanote seems like it could replace Walling, and it seems to be a bit more stable, but it also has a horrible mobile app like Walling. I suspect these types of programs do not take well to cell phones with their smaller screens, so that may be my compromise. I still need to revisit xTiles in more depth before making any decisions. Or, hopefully, the new owner of Walling could release a road map to let the user base know what is happening.

--Ken

I'm curious about why Capacities doesn't seem to come up much in these conversations. For me it's a nonstarter until it has better importing, but it does seem like a pretty robust program.

We're talking about apps that have cards on a board, or something akin to that. Capacities does not have that kind of interface.

exatty95 wrote:

I'm curious about why Capacities doesn't seem to come up much in these
conversations. For me it's a nonstarter until it has better importing,
but it does seem like a pretty robust program.

My impression is that Walling never found a sustainable market, which is why it kept shifting focus. Individual to team to AI. iirc there was also a change to the limits on it's free tier. I had it for a year, but was never confident in it's future, or its fit to me, and so I stopped using it.

I’ve just had an e-mailer from Walling promising all kind of great new things (“A refreshed look and feel and an improved user experience”) and asking for beta testers. So there are signs of life!

MadaboutDana wrote:

I’ve just had an e-mailer from Walling promising all kind of great
new things (“A refreshed look and feel and an improved user
experience”) and asking for beta testers. So there are signs of
life!

Yes, I received my email from them as well requesting Beta testers. It would have been nice if they had touched upon what these changes are, so I am hoping they didn't take this in a whole other direction. Not sure if I want to join the Beta program or not, but will give it consideration.

--Ken

Ironically, I booted up my machine this morning and Chrome opened up a window and asked me if I wanted to remove their clipper as it is now no longer supported. Great that they are working on a beta release, but they also need to focus on the basics, like keeping the current program functional. The web clipper is an integral part of how I use Walling, and losing it makes the program worth a whole lot less to me.

--Ken

I don't want to pile on Walling. I have a generally favorable feeling about the app. But I had cancelled my subscription, yet I recently noticed that I was auto-renewed anyway. I've sent an email asking for a refund, but I haven't heard back yet.

Steve

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I have a generally favorable feeling
about the app.

New owners, new developers, the new version sounds like a dramatic revamp.
I think the favourable feeling is historic unless the new version recreates it.

Turns out I got my refund less than 24 hours after I requested it.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I don't want to pile on Walling. I have a generally favorable feeling
about the app. But I had cancelled my subscription, yet I recently
noticed that I was auto-renewed anyway. I've sent an email asking for a
refund, but I haven't heard back yet.

Steve

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I don't want to pile on Walling. I have a generally favorable feeling
about the app. But I had cancelled my subscription, yet I recently
noticed that I was auto-renewed anyway. I've sent an email asking for a
refund, but I haven't heard back yet.

Steve

I do not want to pile on them either. I want them to succeed. But the silence has not helped them, and having the Chromebook extension lapse has not either. Combine that with a lot of things that needed some attention, and it become harder to keep investing in use of the program. I have been using Milanote for a bit to see if I could migrate to it, and I am a bit mixed on it. It offers a lot of great features, but it is twice the price, and has a few quirks of its own.

--Ken

I use Milanote and find it quite useful for many of my needs, particularly keeping related project resources organized. But it is missing some functions that would make it a lot more useful.

Have you tried xTiles? It is pretty powerful and is continually improving.

Ken wrote:

I have been using Milanote for a bit to see if I could migrate to it,
and I am a bit mixed on it. It offers a lot of great features, but it
is twice the price, and has a few quirks of its own.

--Ken

Just a heads-up on X-Tiles: last time I checked, it still didn't have bulk import (I think Capacities doesn't either).

I did play with Z-Tiles when it was initially released. I am going to play around again with it.

If Milanote has the option of multiple columns instead of one long column, I would find it quite useful. It is easy to fill a column with bookmarked pages, but hard to view them when it is one long column.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

I have been using Milanote for a bit to see if I could migrate to it,
and I am a bit mixed on it. It offers a lot of great features, but it
is twice the price, and has a few quirks of its own.

--Ken

Thank you Ken and Steven for mentioning Milanote.

I used Milanote a couple of years ago under a paid subscription, and there was something in the way the app worked that helped me bring my academic research forward in a big way. I used it mainly to work on research interview guides, map out theoretical concepts/models, and brainstorm outlines of research papers. I stopped using it when I received a complaint from a Japanese co-researcher that they could not copy the Japanese in the PDF output of Milanote. We worked on an interview guide in real-time, but they did not want to copy within Milanote, only on the PDF output. I wrote to support numerous times to have them work on this issue, but no progress had been made for over two years. I then gave up on the app. I have been searching ever since for an alternative.

Thanks to you mentioning Milanote, I fired up the app and downloaded the latest version, and to my surprise, the issue of not being able to copy the Japanese in PDF outputs was no longer. I renewed my subscription right away.

However, I would be interested if you and anyone who has been a user of Milanote and xTiles, Walling, or any other similar app could provide a comparative review. At first glance, the greatest missing feature to me is linking boxes of text or images with lines and arrows.

Darren,

I am unsure which app you're referring to when you say, "At first glance, the greatest missing feature to me is linking boxes of text or images with lines and arrows." Probably xTiles, since it is missing those features. (Walling likely too.) But if you were referring to Milanote, you should know it can do that, as this demo board indicates:

https://app.milanote.com/1Tq38B1nrQMack?p=8NO3RemQ38I

Another great feature of Milanote that few people mention is its ability to concatenate various note cards when exporting. You can arrange these elements so that you get an exported document that is in the order you wish it to be, though it does require careful placement of the cards on the whiteboard. It exports (at least in English) from left to right all cards that are at the same height on the board, then moves to the next row. I've requested this feature from Scrintal, but they haven't yet implemented it. Nor have they implemented labeling of the visual links.

Steve



Darren McDonald wrote:

However, I would be interested if you and anyone who has been a user of
Milanote and xTiles, Walling, or any other similar app could provide a
comparative review. At first glance, the greatest missing feature to me
is linking boxes of text or images with lines and arrows.

Hello Steve,

Thanks for your insights and the link to the demo board showing Milanote's linking feature.
I already am a fan of Milanote's ability to link text or image boxes with lines and arrows with text.
I am interested in the features of Milanote compared with other similar apps as xTiles, Walling and so on.
(Apologies for not making this clearer in my previous post).
You answered my main question when you said that xTiles is missing the ability to draw links with arrows and lines.
Is there any other similar apps that I should be looking into?

Thanks for also pointing out the order of the boxes when outputted. I noticed this when outputting into docx, and md. I was wondering what rules governed this order, so your comment is greatly appreciated. :)

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I am unsure which app you're referring to when you say, "At first
glance, the greatest missing feature to me is linking boxes of text or
images with lines and arrows." Probably xTiles, since it is missing
those features. (Walling likely too.) But if you were referring to
Milanote, you should know it can do that, as this demo board indicates:

https://app.milanote.com/1Tq38B1nrQMack?p=8NO3RemQ38I

Another great feature of Milanote that few people mention is its ability
to concatenate various note cards when exporting. You can arrange these
elements so that you get an exported document that is in the order you
wish it to be, though it does require careful placement of the cards on
the whiteboard. It exports (at least in English) from left to right all
cards that are at the same height on the board, then moves to the next
row. I've requested this feature from Scrintal, but they haven't yet
implemented it. Nor have they implemented labeling of the visual links.

Steve

HI, Darren,

You should check out Heptabase. It does maps very well, I think (haven't tried it in a while). It also does a whole lot of other things. It is very powerful, but I've found when I have given it a go that all its functions tend to lure me into doing work I don't really need to do.

https://heptabase.com

There's also a newer app called Constella, which is an ever expanding board. I have read good things about it, but I wasn't that impressed when I tried it, but it might be worth a look.

https://www.constella.app

I hope these references are useful. I'm sure others in this forum have other suggestions.

Happy New Year!

Steve

Darren McDonald wrote:

Hello Steve,

Thanks for your insights and the link to the demo board showing
Milanote's linking feature.
I already am a fan of Milanote's ability to link text or image boxes
with lines and arrows with text.
I am interested in the features of Milanote compared with other similar
apps as xTiles, Walling and so on.
(Apologies for not making this clearer in my previous post).
You answered my main question when you said that xTiles is missing the
ability to draw links with arrows and lines.
Is there any other similar apps that I should be looking into?

Thanks for also pointing out the order of the boxes when outputted. I
noticed this when outputting into docx, and md. I was wondering what
rules governed this order, so your comment is greatly appreciated. :)

Darren,

There's a relatively new app called Noteey that looks promising:

https://www.noteey.com

I don't have any experience with it, but I'm keeping my eye on it. It seems to be developing quickly. It has desktop apps for Mac and Windows (maybe Linux, too).

Steve

Hello again Steve,

Thanks again for sharing your latest finds! :) (I'm just curious where/how to find out about these apps.)
Noteey seems to be on the path to being an app I could use for annotating research papers and linking points.
It reminds me of MarginNote, though much less complex and cleaner userface. I hope the app offers more export options for PDF annotations than just the flattened PDF, as it is now in MarginNote. I'll be keeping an eye on this app too.

New Year greetings to you too. :)

Darren

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Darren,

There's a relatively new app called Noteey that looks promising:

https://www.noteey.com

I don't have any experience with it, but I'm keeping my eye on it. It
seems to be developing quickly. It has desktop apps for Mac and Windows
(maybe Linux, too).

Steve