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MyInfo Is My Choice
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Posted by jaslar
Jan 24, 2025 at 05:16 PM
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.
Posted by Christoph
Jan 24, 2025 at 06:55 PM
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.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 24, 2025 at 07:02 PM
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.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 24, 2025 at 07:28 PM
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
Posted by Graham Rhind
Jan 25, 2025 at 09:36 AM
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