Ariadne was a PIM developed several years ago, whose owner was not able to continue the work. Now, I have just been advised by the new developer that he has received the code from Mike, and plans to develop the program.

I would love to see Ariadne developed with some up to date features, eg the browser, and the ability to have a conventional hoist and more than one data base open at a time.

Ariadne is hard to describe - but it had some of the best features of InfoSelect, such as hot spots, and tree-based tables.

But its integration of a browser far surpassed anything that InfoSelect has ever come close to.

It also enabled one to have as many notes open at a time as one wanted, as well as accompanying comments for the notes. It was through Ariadne I first realized how important it is for researchers and writers to have multiple windows open to compare and contrast and formulate new ideas. Unfortunately, the developers of programs which as supposed to help us - such as Ultra Recall, MyInfo, etc. - have been slow to get this point.

My experience with Ariadne lead me to insist to Eric Sommer that ADM had this capability, and that, combined with input from others, such as Jan, resulted in it being a feature of ADM.

Anyhow - I am excited because Ariadne was an elegant little program which did a lot for its size, and had lots of room to grow.

So here is the url for Ariadne's new home: http://www.prokarpaty.net/ariadne/

Beneath my name, I paste the email I received the new developer,Yuriy, whom I wish much success.

Daly

YURIY's EMAIL

Hello everybody

My name is Yuriy Khodak. I am C++ developer and currently working on Ariadne Organizer project. Mike Ptach has left me source code and after some investigation I decided to make Ariadne freeware. I will try to do my best to support this elegant program. The code library seems to be in good shape, binary is stable and fast.

The former home page www.open-sft is no longer available and I have moved Aridne to new location www.prokarpaty.net/ariadne.

www.prokarpaty.net is a small site about Ukrainian Carpathians that I support now.

A few words about me - I am C++ programmer with over 10 years experience. My hobby is stone masonry and hiking. Sometimes I like writing programs especially when they became of any use for other people. 3 years ago I relocated from USA to Ukraine, has built a house here, also get married and a small baby girl is crashing already everything she can reach in our house.

About Ariadne future development - I don't want to start some serious changes now, maybe wait for a while, polish source, fix bugs (I already noticed some in Outliner). And surely I will not change dramatically main features and general concept of Ariadne.

That's about it.

Take care,
Yuriy.

I should have noted specifically that Ariadne has been updated (fixes, etc., no major changes yet), and is available as a free product (donation appreciated) at:

http://www.open-sft

I am downloading, and am excited.

Daly

It was through Ariadne I first realized how important it is for researchers and writers to have multiple windows open to compare and contrast and formulate new ideas. Unfortunately, the developers of programs which as supposed to help us - such as Ultra Recall, MyInfo, etc. - have been slow to get this point.

I so agree with this.

Mark, I felt heartened by your response. It seems to self-evident to me.

Similarly it seems self-evident that developers of so-called information programs would release that researchers and writers gravitate to those programs. Yet, even after making the point countless times that this is an important feature, one that is relevant, it still does not appear.

When I used Ariadne, even though I still had CRIMP disease, I nonetheless managed to write more, more easily, and to have a better handle on my information. The problem came, first of all, with its limitations of one data file, and no hoist, although a limited hoist feature (which should be kept in the program) helped to alleviate that problem. When Ariadne was no longer developed, it made sense to find alternatives. But I have never really succeeded; ADM which was my other fave also stopped development about the same time.

The fact is that I would return to Ariadne tomorrow if it added:
* Updated browser
* Hoist
* Tabbed data bases so one could have more than 1 data base, with more than one database open at a time.

Daly

Mark wrote:

> It was through Ariadne I first realized how important it is for researchers and
writers to have multiple windows open to compare and contrast and formulate new
ideas. Unfortunately, the developers of programs which as supposed to help us - such
as Ultra Recall, MyInfo, etc. - have been slow to get this point.

I so agree with this.

I cannot seem to download a working installer for Ariadne. The site indicated it should be a 2.3 mb download, but only about 1.1 mb downloads. Indeed, when I try to execute the downloaded file, it is corrupt, with message: "Could not initialize installation. File size expected=2282058, size returned=1084616." Anyone else having this problem? I can't seem to find any contact info for Yuriy or anyone else. I subscribed to the Yahoo Ariadne group/forum, but haven't yet been approved, so I can't get any info there. Daly, were you able to download and install successfully?
Cheers,
David

I had the same problem. I hope he'll replace the current installer with a working copy soon.

I did find Yuriy's email and dropped him a note, so hopefully he can handle it when Ukrainian morning arrives!
David

I had the same problem, and advised Yuriy, as did one of our other members here.

He replied that he is getting the problem fixed.

Daly

It does seem self-evident.

The whole situation with pims/outliners reminds me of the iPod. There were a lot of mp3 players before the iPod, but the iPod took off because it had an elegant user interface.

All of these information management programs are clunky and inelegant and missing crucial features. Surely someone is going to be the Steve Jobs of the pim.

Wishful thinking, probably.

There are those who might respond and say that just as you must look to the Mac for Steve Jobs, you must also look to the Mac for the kinds of programs we really want.

Daly

Mark wrote:

It does seem self-evident.

The whole situation with pims/outliners reminds me of
the iPod. There were a lot of mp3 players before the iPod, but the iPod took off because
it had an elegant user interface.

All of these information management programs are
clunky and inelegant and missing crucial features. Surely someone is going to be the
Steve Jobs of the pim.

Wishful thinking, probably.