After years of looking at, reflecting upon, and wondering if the new generation of note apps, including Capacities, Amplenote, Logseq, etc. can help me manage my information/knowledge etc. I made a choice.

I decided that, for me at least, none of them are what my ADHD-challenged brain needs. My serious learning involves paper, fountain pens, and an analog Zettlekasten with help from Zotero.

For everything else, including some of the above, I am using MyInfo. For me, MyInfo allows me to do virtually all of what attracted me to the shiny new apps with, IMHO, more flexibility.

My decision was made when I spent time recently looking at how I used MyInfo in previous years. I was not all that organized, but realized I had captured a good amount of information, and actually used some of it to foster new thought and ideas. The ability to use columns in MyInfo allowed for some useful metadata related to reading, projects, etc.

The other contender was Dynalist, which I used a lot even after its developer abandoned loyal users by halting development, and putting all resources behind Obsidian. My main outliner/information manager going forward is MyInfo.

FWIW, that's where I am at.

Frankly, I am surprised that most of the main app influencers on YouTube, and elsewhere, have generally ignored MyInfo and the essential urility of software based on the traditional outline paradigm and allowed to evolve from there.

Daly

Many ADHSers are using Obsidian. See for example the YouTube videos from Bryan Jenkins.

MyInfo isn't terrible, but it does feel somewhat outdated. It's a desktop application with a proprietary format that only works on Windows and doesn't sync with mobile devices. Additionally, it's a bit expensive, unlike free alternatives such as Obsidian. These factors make it less appealing to many users.

Daly,

This gives me hope for longevity of apps, and I'm not surprised that some of the tried and true solutions turn out to be better for some people. Heck, there are a couple of DOS apps I wish I could still use without jumping through hoops.

Steve

Daly de Gagne wrote:

After years of looking at, reflecting upon, and wondering if the new
generation of note apps, including Capacities, Amplenote, Logseq, etc.
can help me manage my information/knowledge etc. I made a choice.

I decided that, for me at least, none of them are what my
ADHD-challenged brain needs. My serious learning involves paper,
fountain pens, and an analog Zettlekasten with help from Zotero.

For everything else, including some of the above, I am using MyInfo. For
me, MyInfo allows me to do virtually all of what attracted me to the
shiny new apps with, IMHO, more flexibility.

My decision was made when I spent time recently looking at how I used
MyInfo in previous years. I was not all that organized, but realized I
had captured a good amount of information, and actually used some of it
to foster new thought and ideas. The ability to use columns in MyInfo
allowed for some useful metadata related to reading, projects, etc.

The other contender was Dynalist, which I used a lot even after its
developer abandoned loyal users by halting development, and putting all
resources behind Obsidian. My main outliner/information manager going
forward is MyInfo.

FWIW, that's where I am at.

Frankly, I am surprised that most of the main app influencers on
YouTube, and elsewhere, have generally ignored MyInfo and the essential
urility of software based on the traditional outline paradigm and
allowed to evolve from there.

Daly

I'm with you on this, Daly.

A great many of the new shiny online apps seem to be trying to do the same thing but in a slightly different, unnecessarily complicated, way. They also try to be different by making up a whole new set of vocabulary, but many seemed to have been designed from a technical viewpoint with little thought being given to (mainly non-technical) end-users. They're clean and modern but leave the user facing a blank screen with little help or hope about where to go next - learning curves seem to be getting longer rather than shorter.

I need programs which do what I need to have done, and that's it. ConnectedText finally gave up working on my hardware last week, and somebody suggested moving the data to Obsidian, but it took me ages just to work out how to import data - I don't have the personal bandwidth to want to fiddle around like that any more. RightNote was right there and did the job perfectly with little fuss.

I don't use MyInfo much mainly because its "Perspectives" are limited and badly laid out - a little tweaking could allow these to be the equivalent of Zoot's SmartFolders or UltraRecall's saved searches. I would like to be able to concentrate on a single program, but my data remains spread mainly amongst OneNote, RightNote, UltraRecall and Zoot. The new kids on the block haven't been able to woo me away from them as yet ...

Graham

Hi Christoph -

I am familiar with, and appreciate, Bryan Jenkins's videos and his disclosure of having ADHD. I am also aware that people with ADHD have found various apps to their liking.

However, people with ADHD are not all the same in their preferences and cannot be lumped together. Our respective challenges differ in how they present themselves, and how we respond to/cope with/deal with them. What works for Bryan may not work for me, or what works for me may not work for him. Indeed, for some of us (myself included) what seems to work one day may not work the next.

My decision to return to MyInfo was based in large part at looking at how I used the program a decade or more ago, and realizing how well it worked for me. As well, Petko, the developer, has continued to update MyInfo in terms of features, appearances, and capability. Yes, it looks similiar in ways to many years ago, but it has also taken on a more contemporary look along with continuing developmment of capabilities which keeps it current.

As for cost - yes, Obsidian is free. MyInfo is not free, but it is less expensive than some of the newer apps. It was $49 to upgrade to the current version.

As for use value - when I began reviewing my work on MyInfo from years ago I saw it accomodated essentially all my information needs in one place, and how I used it then has stood the test of time. MyInfo is more than the basic outliner app of which, years back, there were many - some of them very good, and most of them gone, with a few exceptions.

One feature of MyInfo I have always appreciated, and made good use of, is the column feature which can accomodate various metadata.

Daly

Christoph wrote:

Many ADHSers are using Obsidian. See for example the YouTube videos from
Bryan Jenkins.

MyInfo isn't terrible, but it does feel somewhat outdated. It's a
desktop application with a proprietary format that only works on Windows
and doesn't sync with mobile devices. Additionally, it's a bit
expensive, unlike free alternatives such as Obsidian. These factors make
it less appealing to many users.

Interesting thread. I like the retrospective look at what actually helped. At this point, my use cases are pretty much addressed by Dynalist (work management, some long form writing) and Upnote (remembering the stuff I can't).

I find myself thinking I may want to spend more time with emacs/org-mode, which continues to be the best writing tool I've seen. But I agree that I'm just not willing to put a lot of time into moving things from one bucket to another.

That's true, Daly. There are many forms of ADHD, with and without hyperactivity. I also know ADHDers who refuse to even use a calendar software, because they feel too pressured by it. Even if it would really help them to not forget appointments or regular chores.

Personally I have used "MyNotes Keeper" for several years, which is somewhat similar. But MyInfo seems to be much better maintained, with many releases adding new features.

Hi Jaslar -

I used Dynalist a lot - and really liked it. However, it is not as versatile IMO as MyInfo because it lacks columns and the ability to handle metadata they offer. I respect the developers of Dynalist and Obsidian, but am disappointed with how they abanoned Dynalist.

In ways, Dynalist looks better than MyInfo, but the choice of what works best is about more than aesthetics. On the other hand, Petko has imrpoved the appearance of MI so it looks more contemporary without abandoning the functionality of its traditional design. I am eagerly learning about its newer features related to linking, searches, etc.

Daly

jaslar wrote:

Interesting thread. I like the retrospective look at what actually
helped. At this point, my use cases are pretty much addressed by
Dynalist (work management, some long form writing) and Upnote
(remembering the stuff I can't).

I find myself thinking I may want to spend more time with
emacs/org-mode, which continues to be the best writing tool I've seen.
But I agree that I'm just not willing to put a lot of time into moving
things from one bucket to another.

Hi Graham, good to hear from you.

I remember you were a great fan of Connected Text. I appreciate your comments.

A great many of the new shiny online apps seem to be trying to do the
same thing but in a slightly different, unnecessarily complicated, way.
They also try to be different by making up a whole new set of
vocabulary, but many seemed to have been design, and the d from a technical
viewpoint with little thought being given to (mainly non-technical)
end-users.

I agree. It's good to do things better than before, but it seems to me too many developers are trying to do the same thing. With that, as you note, there's new vocabulary and the challenge of trying to figure out the new, seemingly more visually oriented approach based on "objects".

They're clean and modern but leave the user facing a blank
screen with little help or hope about where to go next - learning curves
seem to be getting longer rather than shorter.

Part of what strikes me about the "blank screen" is that the ability is undermined or lost to do a quick scan of information or to appreciate the structure of one's PKM and/or the actual content of one's information collection. Using the basic outline structure I was amazed when I started looking sertiously at MyInfo again at how much was quickly communicated to me in terms of what I had in the program years ago.

Especially reviewing my reading history and related data set up in columns the genius of outline combining easy to use columns was clearer than ever.

I wonder at times whether the recent trends in developing personal information programs (sometimes called second brains) are dictated by a desire to decrease the number of words, not because it is appropriate per se, but because younger people may be more challenged when it comes to reading content. Of course good layout/design are important because we tend to be very visual in our approach to information, but at what point are layout and design becoming ends in themelves rather than a means to an end related to effectively handling information?

I don't use MyInfo much mainly because its "Perspectives" are limited
and badly laid out - a little tweaking could allow these to be the
equivalent of Zoot's SmartFolders or UltraRecall's saved searches.

Can you say a little more about MyInfo's "Perspectives"? Thanks.

Cheers,
Daly

Daly de Gagne wrote:

>I don't use MyInfo much mainly because its "Perspectives" are limited
>and badly laid out - a little tweaking could allow these to be the
>equivalent of Zoot's SmartFolders or UltraRecall's saved searches.

Can you say a little more about MyInfo's "Perspectives"? Thanks.

Hi Daly,

Sure. Some programs have the ability to draw information together based on a set of rules, then integrate that into the desired structure. For example, I can bring together all the notes, photographs etc. which contain the name of a school I went to, or from a particular year, or mentioning a particular place. In Zoot these are SmartFolders and UltraRecall does this using saved searches. They mean that the same piece of knowledge can be shown in different places within the knowledge structure and that this is updated automatically. Many programs do something similar using tags, but that requires a lot more work and thought up front, and only Tana (as far as I know) allows tagging at paragraph level, so in those programs you would have to have one item per note/page and tag each one, which is not ideal.

MyInfo has "Perspectives", which are shown on the far left of the screen, to allow you to view files with a particular characteristic (e.g. having an attachment, from a particular date or with a particular word in the name). In MyInfo, though, I find this clunky - the icon is large, you can't make many of them because of the layout, and you can't integrate this perspective into the rest of the knowledge structure. I've suggested some improvements to Petko, but nothing new on that front as yet.

Graham

Very timely discussion.

I'm writing a self help book on how to get out of debt. A thoroughly cheerless topic, but one I had to deal with. I'm now debt free with a credit rating as high as my golf handicap. Anyone who's seen me golf should be quite impressed.

Anyway, there I was this week, 30,000 words or so into making as much comedy as possible out of tragedy, when I realized how far I'd strayed from my outline. Some good came from spontaneity. I decided to back propagate my prose into my outline, gaining a better start to finish plan than I started with.

The idea of a Zettelkasten came to mind. I went through my work paragraph by paragraph and created very short notes for each concept. I did this in Devonthink.

Next come notes for chapters. In these notes I don't spell out details of what I'm going to write, I write a high level overview. Details come from transcluding appropriate idea notes.

For instance, if I talk about bad Tik Tok advice, I might transclude a note about velocity banking. In a later chapter I might go into more details where that same note would be transcluded. In either chapter, I can refine my velocity banking details. That updates my notes for both chapters.

A chapter note is used in side-by-side view, showing both the source and rendered Markdown. I've always thought the need for dual view to be a terrible limitation of Markdown. In this case it's working.

The rendered view produces all the transclusions. The source view lets me follow transcluded links, optionally in new tabs. I get a workspace where I can edit the chapter notes, follow links to component topics, and see the aggregate product at the same time. Nice.

True rigor demands faith to the elegance of CRIMP methodology, so I fired up TheArchive, a modern revival of nvAlt. For any modern PKM enthusiast, TheArchive is too plain - but I found for this use, it matches Devonthink. Notion was workable, but not convenient. Obsidian was fine for this purpose without any community plugins.

My chapter notes were streamed from TheArchive to Marked for my compiled view, I can follow links (searches, actually) to component topics, and the magic of transclusion gave me the consistent notes across chapters I like.

I'm going back to Devonthink to finish this - but TheArchive was surprisingly effective and a whole lot cheaper.

Old isn't bad or limited. In 1970, the Gougeon brothers built the trimaran Adagio. It's known as the first sailboat built entirely without fasteners. It was devastatingly competitive in the world's longest freshwater regatta, the Chicago to Mackinac race. At 30 years old in 2000, Adagio became the first sailboat to win both the Chicago to Mackinac and Bayview to Mackinac races, a feat she duplicated in 2016 at 46 years on the water, keeping pace with boats twice her waterline.

Age is a poor measure of efficiency.

Graham Rhind wrote:

ConnectedText finally gave up working on my hardware last week,

I realize this is a MyInfo thread, but I'm curious what happened. When I saw your post, I tried installing (from Softpedia) and running ConnectedText on my current machine and didn't have any issues.

Lucas wrote:

Graham Rhind wrote:
>
>ConnectedText finally gave up working on my hardware last week,
>


I realize this is a MyInfo thread, but I'm curious what happened. When I
saw your post, I tried installing (from Softpedia) and running
ConnectedText on my current machine and didn't have any issues.

After a major Windows update last week CT failed to start with Access Violation memory errors. I think this is a combination of a Microsoft Surface machine (using solid state memory) and the Windows update - it had previously thrown up some errors and I'd had to reinstall it a few times. I'm aware that I could probably run CT on a different machine, but I can't afford to upgrade at the moment. In any case, I was getting nervous of having anything major still in software which (unfortunately) has been so thoroughly abandoned, so took the chance to move the final project out of it.

I agree about MyInfo 100! It's as though RightNote and UltraRecall has a baby and added great features from InfoQube to boot.

Everyone knows about the inline columns, which are brilliant, but there are a few features that are really impressive:
- Panes for Backlinks, Tags, Attributes, Revisions, Global Search, and Note Structure
- Note Structure, essentially an outline view for longer docs - extremely useful!
- Attributes, forms and templates are VERY easy and fast to create!
- Extremely customizable

MyInfo is my "all-in-one" data aggregator and used for notes, project management, todos, files and work done, contacts and CRM, meeting/call/email tracker, subject notes, PDF viewer, research hub, etc. Just add emClient or Outlook/NeoPro and you're set for nearly everything!

The Perspectives is his solution to "Saved Search", "Filters", etc. It is a bit clunky, but also powerful. I use it as a lightweight CRM, so I simply make each meeting/call/email tagged with @person and @company. Then one can have a filter for view of leads-company-etc. I understand the desire to improve these, but as for me, I just try to live with them as they are and learn how to optimize them for my use cases.

I add email as a note type, where I specify the title, etc and then drag in the email as an attachment (I click "Insert Attachment" and drag from emClient/Outlook and it copies to the MyInfo_external_files dir automatically). Processing important email this way takes a few seconds, but is much more powerful than importing with some generic title ("RE: meeting tomorrow") that is not informative, or losing email in your 100 messages per day.

For the Zetttelkasten, having an tree structure of topics/data (with copies if needed), and revisiting your data periodically to make outlines of various subjects is much better than the in vogue "no placement" methods that then result in giant results of non-ordered data - you have to make some sense of it anyway.

A few improvements could be useful:
1) The backlinks could be improved by having some columns in it, like date. Then perspectives for each contact in a CRM would not be needed.
2) Drag file in as attachment for those types (like email) where you would not like it to render or be a new attachment item.
3) Cloned items do not maintain children, only the note in question.
4) Petko doesn't respond to email and suggestions very promptly.

All in all, it is the best tool I have found and my daily data entry program, although I do still suffer from CRIMP as do we all.

The Journal https://www.davidrm.com/support/glossary/ has a couple of ways to tag, even down to single word level.

Graham Rhind wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:

thought up front, and only Tana (as far as I know) allows tagging at
paragraph level, so in those programs you would have to have one item
per note/page and tag each one, which is not ideal.

Graham

Interesting – reminiscent (in general features) of MacJournal, also an oldie but goldie. But the tagging is much more sophisticated.

Steve wrote:

The Journal https://www.davidrm.com/support/glossary/ has a couple of
ways to tag, even down to single word level.

FYI MacJournal remains totally free, although it's long been in maintenance mode with no new features apparently forthcoming.

https://danschimpf.com/

The dev's website shows the latest version to be 7.3.1 but the software download site MacUpdate lists a v7.4 release dated two weeks ago. Not sure what's going on there - whether the download site is wrong or if 7.4 got pulled for some reason.

satis wrote:

The dev's website shows the latest version to be 7.3.1 but the software
download site MacUpdate lists a v7.4 release dated two weeks ago. Not
sure what's going on there - whether the download site is wrong or if
7.4 got pulled for some reason.

The apparent contradiction is solved if you go to the “Betas” option on the MacJournal website: this option gives access to a development blog by Dan Schimpf where you can find the latest entry “MacJournal 7.4” dated January 10, 2024, where he claims the latest (out-of-beta) version is released. The attached message is revealing:

"It's been too long, but MacJournal 7.4 is finally out. I'm also dreadfully behind on email but I plan to begin to catch up now. Please update via the Check for Update menu item and let me know of any issues that you have."

In the same entry there is a link to download version 7.4 directly from their server.

The direct access to Dan's development blog is as follows:

https://danschimpf.blogspot.com/

And, by the way, on its website, you can read the following:

"We are looking into getting the iOS app back on the App Store with syncing functionality intact."

MacJournal version 7.4 includes a set of changes and improvements that the author references in this undocumented entry on the home page of his website:

https://danschimpf.com/appcasts/7.4.html

These include improvements in the import from DayOne.

(It seems quite obvious that Dan is overwhelmed by the work he has to endure. I send him my best regards).

Oh wow, that’s good news!

tberni wrote:

> "We are looking into getting the iOS app back on the App Store with
syncing functionality intact."

I am a MyInfo user also, primarily in a work environment. I am a travel agent, and have been since 1984 (me and George Orwell, we're buds ).
I use info programs to capture the data I need while planning vacations (a project), so each vacation or group (projects) go into their own Section - using MyInfo's terms.
There have been many similar information managers I have tried over the years; AskSam, Ultra Recall, Right Note, and even text only programs like Brainstorm and Notetab (those were in the pre-web days when websites were basically text displays).
As we all know, the programs that work best for each of use are very personal in nature, so ones that I do not use anymore is not due to their not being good, just not for me. Right Note is very good. I still miss AskSam, its demise not withstanding, I might still be using it today; assuming the web capture would have been fixed.
With MyInfo, I can import, capture, type, copy and paste, just about anything into it and have it become searchable AND the imported files are part of the database. I like importing those pdf's and not have them floating about on the hard drive. Oh, and the web capture has truly improved. Being able to capture just a snippet of a page is very helpful.
When I complete a project, I move it to a "completed project" notebook. Quite nice to have a large database of searchable history. And again, it sure is helpful to have those pdf's go along with the projects.

Windows 11 24H2 update also broke ConnectedText on two of my computers. It was working fine before the update, so the error is not hardware-related. I couldn't find any compatibility workarounds that removed the error.

If you have ConnectedText running on Windows 11 pre-24H2 I suggest that you make a backup now before the update is pushed to you.

24H2 is full of bugs so it might be fixed in the future. Something similar happened with Q10. There was a time when it wouldn't run on Windows, but now it does again.

Graham Rhind wrote:

Lucas wrote:

>
>Graham Rhind wrote:
>>
>>ConnectedText finally gave up working on my hardware last week,
>>
>
>
>I realize this is a MyInfo thread, but I'm curious what happened. When
I
>saw your post, I tried installing (from Softpedia) and running
>ConnectedText on my current machine and didn't have any issues.

After a major Windows update last week CT failed to start with Access
Violation memory errors. I think this is a combination of a Microsoft
Surface machine (using solid state memory) and the Windows update - it
had previously thrown up some errors and I'd had to reinstall it a few
times. I'm aware that I could probably run CT on a different machine,
but I can't afford to upgrade at the moment. In any case, I was getting
nervous of having anything major still in software which (unfortunately)
has been so thoroughly abandoned, so took the chance to move the final
project out of it.

Yes, good advice. I tried to install CT on a new PC and that gave the same error.

Cyganet wrote:

Windows 11 24H2 update also broke ConnectedText on two of my computers.
It was working fine before the update, so the error is not
hardware-related. I couldn't find any compatibility workarounds that
removed the error.

If you have ConnectedText running on Windows 11 pre-24H2 I suggest that
you make a backup now before the update is pushed to you.

24H2 is full of bugs so it might be fixed in the future. Something
similar happened with Q10. There was a time when it wouldn't run on
Windows, but now it does again.

So interesting to see that there are still active users of ConnectedText!. I loved that program, but gave up years ago because of lack of development/support


Cyganet wrote:

Windows 11 24H2 update also broke ConnectedText on two of my computers.
It was working fine before the update, so the error is not
hardware-related. I couldn't find any compatibility workarounds that
removed the error.

If you have ConnectedText running on Windows 11 pre-24H2 I suggest that
you make a backup now before the update is pushed to you.

24H2 is full of bugs so it might be fixed in the future. Something
similar happened with Q10. There was a time when it wouldn't run on
Windows, but now it does again.

Graham Rhind wrote:

>Lucas wrote:
>
>>
>>Graham Rhind wrote:
>>>
>>>ConnectedText finally gave up working on my hardware last week,
>>>
>>
>>
>>I realize this is a MyInfo thread, but I'm curious what happened. When
>I
>>saw your post, I tried installing (from Softpedia) and running
>>ConnectedText on my current machine and didn't have any issues.
>
>After a major Windows update last week CT failed to start with Access
>Violation memory errors. I think this is a combination of a Microsoft
>Surface machine (using solid state memory) and the Windows update - it
>had previously thrown up some errors and I'd had to reinstall it a few
>times. I'm aware that I could probably run CT on a different machine,
>but I can't afford to upgrade at the moment. In any case, I was getting
>nervous of having anything major still in software which
(unfortunately)
>has been so thoroughly abandoned, so took the chance to move the final
>project out of it.