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Zoot 6
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Posted by jamesofford
Jan 17, 2010 at 02:52 AM
Folks:
I have been a zooter off and on over the years. I found it a frustating experience, because it was very close to what I needed/wanted in an information manager. Tom Davis built an intriguing piece of software, but it had limitations.
I stopped using Zoot back at version 4. Now I hear that version 6 is up for public beta, and I am again intrigued. Is Zoot a modern information processor? At home I use the Mac and I have been spoiled by Devonthink and all of the other great info organizers that you can get on the Mac. How does Zoot 6 compare with these? In particular, on my work machine, I have a large number of PDF files downloaded from the web. They are primarily scientific papers. Can I import them into Zoot as PDF files, organize them, search them, set up smart folders etc?
What other info organizer jobs does zoot 6 do? Is the interface still the old interface that was there in the early days?
I would love it if Z6 would fill my needs. Tom Davis is a great developer, and has really treated the user community right. I would love to support him, but only if the program will do what I need.
Jim
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 17, 2010 at 12:58 PM
I’ll try to answer some of your questions as best I can. I have really only dabbled with Zoot 6, because until the public beta came out, the application was too volatile to put any real work into it. Tom was constantly updating the database engine or something, which required deleting any previous work. With the public beta release, you can supposedly begin to rely upon the database—although there has already been one update because it was unstable. That is supposed to be fixed now.
Most of the past issues with Zoot fall into three categories:
1. You could only capture raw text information. Zoot 6 eliminates this issue and—as far as I can tell—allows you to capture and organize almost any digital information from documents to PDFs to web pages. I haven’t tested this very much yet, so I don’t know how well it is executed.
2. There was a limit on the number of folders and the size of the files you could keep in any one database. Zoot 6 is supposed to eliminate these limitations.
3. Overall quirkiness that was a bit impenetrable for many people. I think this issue will always be a part of Zoot—and, in fact, might be even more of an issue with Zoot 6, which has more functions.
The bottom line, I think, is that if your issue with Zoot was related to its text and/or folder limitations, you’ll be pleased with the new Zoot. If you found it frustrating because its user interface was unintuitive, then you’ll still be frustrated by version 6.
Steve Z.
Posted by jamesofford
Jan 17, 2010 at 05:10 PM
Thanks Steve. I realize that the quirkiness is not likely to leave the software. My main issue was whether you could get information in to the program in something other than plain text form. Sounds like you can now.
Do you, or any of our other fellow Outliner software colleagues have a link to the public beta? I think I would like to give it a try. Since I have been using Devonthink for a while now, I have some basis of comparison.
Jim
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 17, 2010 at 05:17 PM
Jim,
Here is the link to download the public beta:
http://www.zootsoftware.com/Downloads/z6.htm
Tom Davis said that some functions are still not running yet. These include:
* Printing
* Spell Checking
* Google Calendar Sync
* Blog Accounts (ability to post updates to Blogger and WordPress right out
of Zoot)
Steve
Posted by GeorgeB
Jan 26, 2010 at 10:22 PM
Rats! It don’t work with Ubuntu/Wine. gB