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InfoQube versus UltraRecall versus Zoot 6
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Posted by Ian Goldsmid
Feb 11, 2010 at 06:54 PM
also wanted to add that Zoot copies/saves/archives web pages - in almost all cases - 100% perfectly - totally way better than say Surfulator.
Posted by tightbeam
Feb 11, 2010 at 08:04 PM
An interesting view on the merits of full-featured, ‘complex’ software like Zoot, UR, etc., versus stripped-down but simpler-to-use software like TkOutline, MemPad, etc.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_Better
Posted by Derek Cornish
Feb 11, 2010 at 08:40 PM
@Graham,
>So I thought I?d ask the experts: how would you ladies and gentlemen compare IQ, UR and Zoot 6 - what do you feel are the
>strengths and (remaining) weaknesses of each? I?d love to be reminded.
What an excellent idea for a thread - although I must say that my encounters with Zoot 6 beta have disabused me of any delusions about my expertise.
On Zoot: I have been using Zoot for years but, like you and Steve, I have found my encounter with the beta to have been a bit of a roller-coaster. Maybe my expectations were too high, or - more likely - too focused on what was most important to the way I work. Although I started using Zoot 6 right at the beginning of the beta program, unlike a lot of the beta testers I was not particularly interested in emailing, gmailing, cloud computing, RSS-ing, Dropbox-ing and so on (although I’m not a Luddite: I see how important they are). I wasn’t even particularly interested in having rtf at last. In fact, all I was really looking forward to was the release from some of Zoot 5’s most irksome constraints connected with item-size, number of items per database (without having to archive too often), number of folders allowed, etc. These constraints are now, AFAIK, absent from Zoot 6. Hurrah for that!
But one new thing in particular that I was looking forward to was the new outlining feature. But I found - in common with a number of other users - that I could not make head nor tail of it. The feature certainly doesn’t look like a single-pane outliner - but it’s hard to tell because I can’t for the life of me get anything into it. I think it must be a way of playing around with the folder-tree, but it has me totally beaten. This rather soured my first impressions, and the redesigned and “improved” Zooter was another hurdle for existing users.
In fact I withdrew from the early beta program with severe pangs of disappointment (aka sulks) over the outliner. However, needing to “move on” as they say, I now think I am going to take the plunge and move from Zoot 5 to Zoot 6 at some point - mainly, though, for the rather pedestrian reason that its new database format allows dtSearch to display research results properly. I should also mention that Tom Davis, the developer, is extraordinarily accessible to his customers and listens and responds crisply to their queries, suggestions and complaints - except that everybody is still too preoccupied with getting the communications aspects of Zoot 6 working properly to have much time to spare on what I’d call its “writerly” aspects.
Derek
Posted by Derek Cornish
Feb 11, 2010 at 09:13 PM
Ian Goldsmid wrote:
>also wanted to add that Zoot copies/saves/archives web pages - in almost all cases -
>100% perfectly - totally way better than say Surfulator.
Even Zoot 5’s “Archive Web Page” feature enabled me to stop using another Surfulater-type program - WebResearch (aka ContentSaver). Also, Zoot 5’s dedicated import handler for pdf files (amongst other types) enabled it to import their text and create links from the Zoot item(s) to the original pdf file that I store elsewhere in the Windows filing system - another reason for dropping WebResearch.
On the Zoot outliner:
By the way, you seem to have cracked the Zoot beta outliner issue, so what exactly is it for? It doesn’t seem to be a single-pane outliner in the conventional sense, although it seems to build a hierarchical list of folders and items (or, at least, folder-names and item-names) within the outline item’s editor. Thus, I can open a new outline-type item in the outline folder, and I can give it a name in the item grid, and put a “folder” name into the item editor display, and add “items” - or at least item-names - to it as siblings or children. But what for? I don’t seem to be able to enter any of these nodes - or whatever they are. In fact the whole thing seems to be a massively useless exercise…which leads me to think that two things must be getting in the way of my comprehension of its purpose:
1. I am persistently blinded to its charms by my insane desire to see it as a single-pane outliner (I can’t shake this);
2. and/or there is some simple step, or maybe just a vital clue, that would turn this painfully frustrating exercise into a magical experience…of some sort.
Derek
Posted by Derek Cornish
Feb 11, 2010 at 09:56 PM
@Steve,
>I think my first choice after Zoot might be MyInfo. I like its clean interface. The developers are responsive and continue to improve >it. The biggest issue, for me, will be how easily I can import my Zoot data into MyInfo, which has so far had a less-than-
>satisfactory import function.
After my initial encounter with Zoot 6 beta I started looking around for some alternatives, but nothing has so far tickled my fancy, although I am going to plunge into ConnectedText, which I recently upgraded. Also, as the Zoot beta now has rtf, a lot of my other CRIMPing excuses - e.g., looking for some program to draft with, etc. - have been rather knocked on the head. For example, Zoot’s new rtf editor, together with its longstanding capability of opening multiple windows, gives it the ability to become almost as attractively confusing as WhizFolders - unless, that is, Tom is able to design some sort of Scrivener-like corkboard to hold them in.
MyInfo is another casualty of Zoot beta’s rft editor; it IS an attractive program, but I can never come up with a really good reason to use it. I once thought that the more expensive version’s “.HEAD” import feature might enable me to export Grandview outlines to it, but that never did work properly for me because of the peculiar way I use GV. There is a lot, however, to be said for its simplicity - or at least seeming simplicity. The problem is that I can’t think of a place for it in my workflow.
OT: By the way, I wish web forum software could thread conversations properly in the way the old compuserve forums did. The “@” convention to mark answers to individuals goes some way towards this, but can result in long posts. OTOH, if one answers each post individually, the “thread” often gets swamped by successive posts from the same individual.
(Not a criticism of our forum, I hasten to add; it’s just the nature of the available s/w.)
Derek