Hello group

I am in the situation where I need to find a tool to create eBooks or help files.
Most professional help and manual creation tools available today are great but too expensive.

Because I have a licence of WhizFolders 5.6 I decided to upgrade to WhizFolders Deluxe v6.

This new version is very promising. Apart from the look and feel (Win XP style) I like the tool. It is very useful for writing. You can have several topics open with tabs in one window. You can link to different topics and even to particular positions within a topic. Further, WhizFolders provides Universal links. These links can be added to any Windows applications and when you click such a link then the topic in WhizFolders is opened. IdeaMason and UltraRecall provide the same or similar functionality.

WhizFolders Deluxe has one outstanding feature: You can assign keywords not to topics only you can also assign keywords to a part of a text. This is very helpful if you need to find passages of text where you need to do something. I just assign the keyword 'rework' or 'check again' to these passages and I then can easily find them.

The applications lets you create an exe file for distribution. This is very handy and the receiver of the file has nothing to install. Or you can save all pages or a selection of pages of a file as rtf files for distribution.

When you print several or all topics of a file you can decide whether you want to add a table of content to the print out. You can even choose whether you want to add the toc at the beginning or at the end of your print out.

The new version allows to enter tables. The process is at least a bit strange but you can get used of it.

This is a first short snapshot of my experiences with WhizFolders Delxue. To summarize the most important fact: WhizFolders is a tool for writing. I think to use it, in addition to write software manuals, as a brainstorming tool.

More information here: http://www.whizfolders.com/

Regards,
Dominik

Dominik,

I just bought Whizfolders, too. You have described its virtues well, and I am similarly impressed with it, but with one big caveat. As far as I can tell, it has very limited "undo" powers. for instance, if I understand it right, you can undo your work within a note only up to the point where your close the editor for that note and move on to the next one. I'm not sure you can undo any moving and switching of notes within the outline (left) pane at all.

But I really like its flexibility as a writing environment otherwise. And I intend to work more with it to see if I can live with the shortcomings of its undo routine. It is easy to juggle notes around, link, and organize them in the outline pane. It also has a clipboard function that can be turned on so that everything you cut and copy elsewhere in Windows gets turned into a note in you Whizfolders document.

My next move is to compare WhizFolders with Ideamason, which I just downloaded. Is there anything WhizFolders does better than Ideamason? I looked at the citation formats that Ideamason supports and I immediately sent them a question asking whether they would consider adding support for legal citations. Here is the response I got the same day:

.....

Hi Gary,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We would be happy to add
support for legal citations. I can't give you a timeframe on
implementation. But we will put it on the list for our next major
release.

For your information, we are currently working on a Vista compatible
version of IdeaMason. We should have this upgrade ready for release within the
next couple of weeks. Stay tuned to our website for more details.

.......

I like that!

-Gary

One more note about WhizFolders--its name doesn't describe it well. It has nothing to do with folders, as I think of them. From its name, I guessed that it somehow involved organizing documents, going beyond Windows Explorer. It has nothing to do with that, of course. It is a versatile two-pane outliner which should appeal to anyone who need to gather information from various sources and organize and write it within an an outline of multiple notes.

-Gary

Gary N wrote:

One more note about WhizFolders--its name doesn't describe it well. It has nothing to
do with folders, as I think of them.

Gary,

I think the program was originally called WhizNotes, because it was basically a note keeper. All the notes were stored in a single file and there was no hierarchy to them. When they decided to add the option of multiple folders for your notes (essentially different databases), they changed the name to WhizFolders. Even then, however, they didn't have outlining capability... that came in a later version.

I have been impressed with the features of WhizFolders for a long time. I just can't get over all the windows that pop up as you run the program... they kind of overwhelm me. I am sure that if I just stuck with the program for a while I would get used to this, but when you're trying to write something and you have a deadline, it isn't easy to have patience, I'm afraid.

Steve Z.

Gary,

I can highly recommend IdeaMason. Especially version 3 is very capable. I bought it mainly because of the reference system. Further, the company and its developers are very responsive and listen carefully to what users are telling them.

I prefer WhizFolders for quick note taking and brainstorming when I don't need references. Undo is not a big issue for me but I know that's critical for other users.

Regarding the many open windows (a remark from Stephen): I know what you mean! But you can open all topics in one window in tabs. Or you can use the quick editor which provides the main features. Very useful. I think getting used to WhizFolders takes a bit time.

Rough summary:
WhizFolders is the tool for quick note taking and writing documents or software manuals (with screenshots) where you don't need a professional or academic reference system.

IdeaMason is the perfect tool when you need to write academic/scientific papers or when you have to reference to the sources properly. The composition tool is something of the best I have ever seen.

I do the information gathering (books, websites, papers etc.) in IdeaMason.

Dominik

PS: If you don't like the WinXP style of WhizFolders then just remove the *.manifest file in the WhizFolders program folder.

I've been a fan of Whizfolders for a while, and have used it to write all my software manuals and one book. (My books don't require references, footnotes etc., which is why I don't need other, in my eyes overcomplicated, programs to achieve this). Sanjay, the writer, moved very quickly to resolve any problems I had and added new features as I requested them.

I find it a completely intuitive program to use (I know this is a personal thing - some members here find programs intuitive which I find a complete mystery). I don't really get the "overwhelmed with windows" comments. Whizfolders opens one window with a documents list and one new window per document open, so if you work on one document you get two windows. (The first time you use the program a tutorial window opens, which may seem off-putting). I prefer this to programs where documents are tabbed within a single window; and once you've found the right keystroke it is quick to switch between windows. I like the paradigm of keeping documents distinct in this way - it means I can have multiple instances of the program running on different machines and accessing different documents over the network, without having to close instances or worry about a single document containing all my data getting corrupted or whatever. The documents are also easy to carry around on, for example, a USB stick.

I am a fan but I do have my criticisms of the program - table editing suffices but is primitive, and only small pictures can be easily embedded, but there are workarounds, and when I find the perfect organising program, I'll let you all know :-)

Graham

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I just can't get over all the windows
that pop up as you run the program... they kind of overwhelm me. I am sure that if I just
stuck with the program for a while I would get used to this, but when you're trying to
write something and you have a deadline, it isn't easy to have patience, I'm
afraid.

Steve Z.

Graham,

Perhaps "overwhelmed" was a bad word choice on my behalf. It would probably be more accurate to say that I find the way the windows open in WhizFolders distracting. I'm sure that others have had the same comment, because Sanjay added a Windows List view tool, to help navigate the windows a couple of years ago.

I want to emphasize that my comment is a reflection of my own personal feeling toward WhizFolders and not a criticism. I admire the program and always upgrade to the new version -- I bought a license four years ago, I believe. It is a good program. I just wish I could warm up to it.

Steve Z.

Graham Rhind wrote:

I've been a fan of Whizfolders for a while, and have used it to write all my software
manuals and one book. (My books don't require references, footnotes etc., which is
why I don't need other, in my eyes overcomplicated, programs to achieve this).
Sanjay, the writer, moved very quickly to resolve any problems I had and added new
features as I requested them.

I find it a completely intuitive program to use (I know
this is a personal thing - some members here find programs intuitive which I find a
complete mystery). I don't really get the "overwhelmed with windows" comments.
Whizfolders opens one window with a documents list and one new window per document
open, so if you work on one document you get two windows. (The first time you use the
program a tutorial window opens, which may seem off-putting). I prefer this to
programs where documents are tabbed within a single window; and once you've found the
right keystroke it is quick to switch between windows. I like the paradigm of keeping
documents distinct in this way - it means I can have multiple instances of the program
running on different machines and accessing different documents over the network,
without having to close instances or worry about a single document containing all my
data getting corrupted or whatever. The documents are also easy to carry around on,
for example, a USB stick.

I am a fan but I do have my criticisms of the program - table
editing suffices but is primitive, and only small pictures can be easily embedded,
but there are workarounds, and when I find the perfect organising program, I'll let
you all know :-)

Graham

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I just can't get over all the windows

>that pop up as you run the program... they kind of overwhelm me. I am sure that if I just

>stuck with the program for a while I would get used to this, but when you're trying to

>write something and you have a deadline, it isn't easy to have patience, I'm

>afraid.
>
>Steve Z.

Thanks for the interesting comments about Whiz Folders.

Per Dominik:
Rough summary:
WhizFolders is the tool for quick note taking and writing documents or software manuals (with screenshots) where you don’t need a professional or academic reference system.

This would place it in the same market as OneNote, IMO the best new app developed by MS for many years.

Jack

A very interesting thread has come up here!

I agree that OneNote is one of the best applications developed by Microsoft!
They have mabe outsourced the development of OneNote to another company otherwise it wouldn't be that good... ;-)
Even it's a good application I don't use it.

Some more experiences withe WhizFolders Deluxe:

Keyboard shortcuts:
You can change the shortcuts. I still believe that keyboard shortcuts are faster than using the mouse or menues. WhizFolders has some shortcuts to which I am not used to. Changing the topic title is Ctrl + R and not F2 like in most other applications. So I changed that an it's perfect now.

Collecting Web text snippets:
I have copied some text snippets from websites and pasted them into WhizFolders. Works pretty well and if you don't need the orginal formating of the webpage it is very handy and useful. WhizFolders adds the link to the orginal website to the text snippet. This link works fine and is correct compared to other applications where sometimes a wrong or incomlete link is added.

Quick Note taking:
I feel that it is easier in WhizFolders than in other applications to add new notes while being on the phone or having a new idea. WhizFolders is the general data pot for not seriously structured data for me. When I need an information later then I add it to UltraRecall or to IdeaMason.

Again Brainstorming and text development:
Very easy and fast, and similar to how you can do it in UltraRecall (UR allows to open several topics as well in tabs).

Keywords/Metadata:
Definitely not the key feature in WhizFolders and it is not developed for that purpose. If I really need a structured approach then I use UltraRecall (task management for example). Very handy: I can add an universal link from a UR text pane to a WhizFolders topic.
Assigning keywords to topics and text passages is very useful.

Dominik