Two threads in one ....

I was playing around with I-Navigation today (http://www.exswap.com/ - looks good on the site but was a disappointment to me when I tried it), when it struck me that the outliners with all the power (ADM, Whizfolders, Surfulator, Zoot) and many others all have tree based navigation systems. Programs with sophisticated mind-like interfaces have weak data storage and management capabilities. I-Navigator makes a great mind map, but what can be stored at each node is very basic. Personal Brain, which has great potential as an interface, is still really just a novel way of finding and opening files - a graphical Windows Explorer plus a little note taking - and it has hardly moved on in years (though I know a new version 4 is being created). Other programs have been designed purely for mind mapping, which is not something I have much use for and which only scratches the surface of what might be done.

I can understand that developers of these swish navigation systems have been putting all the work into making the graphics look good, but I think adding the note taking or information storage abilities of a program like Whizfolders into a program like Personal Brain would be a real boon.

Is there a program which has the power but uses a non-tree based navigation system?

Which brings me on to my second thought (I must have been having a good day ....). There are programs which base themselves on rtf, such as Whizfolders, which gives great editing and export possibilities but brings limitations such as poor image support, poor table support and inability to properly store html snippets. Then there are programs such as Surfulator which harness the power of html but don't allow the editing flexibility of rtf systems. Are there any outliners which have managed to merge the two environments successfully?

Graham

Graham Rhind wrote:

There are
programs which base themselves on rtf, such as Whizfolders, which gives great
editing and export possibilities but brings limitations such as poor image support,
poor table support and inability to properly store html snippets. Then there are
programs such as Surfulator which harness the power of html but don't allow the
editing flexibility of rtf systems. Are there any outliners which have managed to
merge the two environments successfully?

Graham,

The first program that came to mind when I read your question is The Journal (www.davidrm.com). Like all these programs, it too presents a compromise, but I think David Michael, the developer, does a pretty good job in coaxing the power out of his application. The editor is very robust and seems to handle graphics and tables pretty well. The "outliner" is fairly cumbersome, but is useful. All in all, The Journal is a nice application for writers, with multiple notebooks that can be accessed through tabs, automatic daily journal pages, and a host of other tools. As has been stated about Whizfolders, in The Journal you can apply keywords (what The Journal refers to as Topics) to individual sections of text for later searching.

As for your other observation about slick navigation PIMs having limited power for editing and data management, I think you're dead on. Not only are the editors usually pretty rudimentary, they usually lack meta data capability. I'll be interested to see if anyone suggests a powerful PIM with a slick navigation system.

Steve Z.

re Personal Brian - I have been playing with V4 beta now for about 2 months... In the past few weeks there has been an extraordinary acceleration of powerful features and a lot more to come - so it now combines a new, brilliant dynamic graphical user interface with increasingly powerful information management functions - its much, much more than a pretty way to navigate your files!

See the new forum here: http://forums.thebrain.com/tool/mb/thebrain

One way also of using it, if you use UltraRecall, and/or Whizfolders, EverNote or OneNote, which all provide the facility to copy external links - is to place such links in Thoughts in TheBrain - the Brian uses these links as if they were web links, and launches them with no problem navigating you straight to the linked location in whichever application it is...

Regards, Ian Goldsmid

Graham,

MyBase ver. 5.3 with the plug-in WebCollect uses both RTF and HTML, will search both, and, I think, edit both. Note: The developer [www.wjjsoft.com] says that it runs under Vista but WebCollect sometimes has problems when used with IE. Developer suggests using FireFox with WebCollect if you have Vista.

Ian, thanks for Info on Brain. It certainly appears to be the kind of thing Graham is looking for. EverNote certainly has a different interface...or can one even call it an interface? More of a dumpster, I think. In DOS days, the creator of MaxThink also created a program that linked among nodes pretty much any way you wanted.

Even back in DOS days there were PIM programs that let you create hyperlinks to anything along with a path back. While the idea appeared marvelous, I found that, in practice, flitting from one item to another, to another, to ... via hyperlink soon led to my becoming lost, even with the bread crumb path back. I'll let my brain flit, but I need some structure for saved information.
[Shouldn't butterflys be called FlutterBys?]

-c

Graham Rhind wrote:

Personal Brain, which has great potential as an interface, is still
really just a novel way of finding and opening files - a graphical Windows Explorer
plus a little note taking - and it has hardly moved on in years (though I know a new
version 4 is being created).

I think PB 4 may be your break through. I believe its been released but I'm not sure. In any case my understanding is that they have added many functions which will make it much more convenient as a PIM. For instance I think there's some kind of calendar-type view.

PB 4 is also probably the best designed for this. The way the interface centers the current item really helps.

Tom S.

To round this off, I made a move on some of the suggestions (thanks for those everybody!).

I'm still awaiting approval to get involved with the Personal Brain beta.

I tried Journal. It's clearly rtf-based - html can't be pasted into it correctly. It has very impressive table support for an rtf product, but it has the same frustrating image limitations as, for example, Whizfolders, which cannot handle large images. After I pointed this out to Sanjay at Whizfolders he added capability to reduce image size to allow it to be pasted. When trying to insert a large image into Journal the program deosn't crash, but it doesn't paste the image either. It just does ... nothing.

Onto myBase. I like the idea of having an rtf tab and an html tab side-by-side, but it has some very peculiar limitations. It can only insert pictures with pasting (no right click->insert support) and its table handling is very primitive. Html files in the browser can't be pasted without an additional module, or editted. Very surprising to me is that you can't use the browser to browse - there's nowhere to type in a URL. I did like the way it dissasembled web pages into component parts as attachments - I haven't seen that before in any program. I can see its potential, but it would drive me slightly loopy in its present form.

I've been resisting looking again at UltraRecall because I really don't want to start shifting data again to a new program. But given everybody's enthusiasm here for the new version I weakened, downloaded it and ALMOST had a wow! moment. I was tempted to reach for my credit card but, very surprisingly, the rtf editing is very poor indeed. No table support at all. No image support except if pasted. And even then I managed to get UR to crash with startling and frightening regularity whenever I got near to an image, regardless of size. Did I miss something? If not, what a shame and what an omission.

Graham

I should correct this. I've found in the meantime a way of editting html files in myBase.

Graham

Graham Rhind wrote:

Onto myBase. Html files in the browser can't be ...... or
editted.

Graham,

You can drag image files directly into the tree in Ultra Recall (they don't necessarily have to be pasted into the RTF text editor to be viewed). Also, look at the forum for some tips on advanced editing - while I don't use this, there is even a way to open up the RTF text for editing in Word. Finally, I've been running UR for over two years and the number of times it has crashed is literally in the single digits, so you may want to email their support with any problems you're having.

Chris

Also, it's not advertised as a feature, but if you search the UR forum you will find a method for editing the stored/captured web/html files in UR. One thing I like about Kinook is that they will offer up workarounds or suggestions for how things might be accomplished even beyond the documented features.

Chris

Yes, I'm not having problems with putting images into the tree. It's putting it into an rtf note (i.e. as an embedded image within a text) which doesn't work (a link is embedded rather than the image). I do find that a major issue. I know it's not intended to be a word processor, but given its strength in other areas, I'm surprised this hasn't been given any attention.

Graham

Chris Murtland wrote:

Graham,

You can drag image files directly into the tree in Ultra Recall (they don't
necessarily have to be pasted into the RTF text editor to be viewed). Also, look at the
forum for some tips on advanced editing - while I don't use this, there is even a way to
open up the RTF text for editing in Word. Finally, I've been running UR for over two
years and the number of times it has crashed is literally in the single digits, so you
may want to email their support with any problems you're having.

Chris

There are some things on the forum about using different DLLs for the rich text editor in UR, and you can opt to use the Office RTF editor during installation. I haven't had problems pasting images into the editor, but I've only used images with fairly small file sizes. I also don't really use any formatting or tables, so I'm probably not the person to comment on RTF editing. In the few cases where I have to create a formatted document, I just use Word.

One interesting thing, at least for Word users, is that UR can index and store Word files as well. So, I just store the Word docs that I need in UR alongside everything else, and can launch them at any time. There is also a way to edit Word files directly within UR (Word is loaded in the same way that it can load within Internet Explorer), but I haven't found that useful enough to enable it.

Chris

Hi Chris,

At the risk of turning this into a support forum ... a final comment about this:

Even using the Office DLL and downloading the alternative from Kinook, what happens to me is this:

1) I am typing some text as a topic (or whatever Kinook calls them)
2) I want to add a picture. I cannot add a picture from a file (which I want to do). Instead I have to open up another program, open up the picture file, copy it to the clipboard, then go back to UR, and then paste it. For me this is ludicrous and already a reason not to use it. BUT:
3) I now get a LINK to the image (NOT the image) in my text. To view the image I have to click the link, so the image opens in the "browser" window of UR.
4) I.e., I don't get the text and image together.

Looking at the forum, I see others have reported this, and Kinook seem to have regarded it as a bug, though I get the impression from the thread that they don't really understand what the "complainer" was getting at in the threads and that UR is made that way. Anyway, (2) above still seems to be a really major issue, but there we are ....I'll keep an eye on the support forum to see if they resolved the issue. It's been outstanding for a while.

Graham

Chris Murtland wrote:

There are some things on the forum about using different DLLs for the rich text editor
in UR, and you can opt to use the Office RTF editor during installation. I haven't had
problems pasting images into the editor, but I've only used images with fairly small
file sizes. I also don't really use any formatting or tables, so I'm probably not the
person to comment on RTF editing. In the few cases where I have to create a formatted
document, I just use Word.

One interesting thing, at least for Word users, is that UR
can index and store Word files as well. So, I just store the Word docs that I need in UR
alongside everything else, and can launch them at any time. There is also a way to edit
Word files directly within UR (Word is loaded in the same way that it can load within
Internet Explorer), but I haven't found that useful enough to enable it.

Chris

Graham Rhind wrote:

2) I want to add a picture. I cannot add a picture from a file (which I want to do).
Instead I have to open up another program, open up the picture file, copy it to the
clipboard, then go back to UR, and then paste it. For me this is ludicrous and already a
reason not to use it. BUT:

I agree that there should be the ability to browse for an image file to insert.

3) I now get a LINK to the image (NOT the image) in my text. To
view the image I have to click the link, so the image opens in the "browser" window of
UR.

That's odd. That doesn't happen for me, but I guess there is something machine-specific going on.

I do think UR has been positioned as an information storage database and that editing features are pretty basic. I think it's evidence that at this point (or ever?), one tool is not going to suit every purpose.

Chris

Apologies to all: one final remark - maybe somebody, sometime will find it useful.

This discussion stirred an ancient memory of a problem I had some time ago with Whizfolders, and its resolution. If you have problems in pasting images into programs such as UR or Whizfolders using rtf editors (i.e. a link is opened instead of the image), open a new Word document, insert the image, copy the image to the clipboard then paste it to UR/Whizfolders/whatever. For some reason this works whereas pasting from other applications doesn't.

Graham

Chris Murtland wrote:

>3) I now get a LINK to the image (NOT the
image) in my text. To
>view the image I have to click the link, so the image opens in the
"browser" window of
>UR.

That's odd. That doesn't happen for me, but I guess there
is something machine-specific going on.

Chris

Graham

Rtf is a tricky issue for software developers.
There seem to be several dlls and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) available to integrate into an application.
IdeaMason has a short description regarding this issue here:
http://forum.ideamason.com/viewtopic.php?t=21

It gets more complicated now with having Win2000, WinXP and Vista around.

Dominik

Hi Graham R.

You said,

"Onto myBase. I like the idea of having an rtf tab and an html tab side-by-side, but it has some very peculiar limitations. It can only insert pictures with pasting (no right click->insert support) and its table handling is very primitive. Html files in the browser can’t be pasted without an additional module, or editted. Very surprising to me is that you can’t use the browser to browse - there’s nowhere to type in a URL. I did like the way it dissasembled web pages into component parts as attachments - I haven’t seen that before in any program. I can see its potential, but it would drive me slightly loopy in its present form."

You later found that a saved Web page could be edited.. (I do it by pressing F2.)

I don't know what you mean by primitive table handling. I pasted a table from a` Word 2000 document with no problem. [I put cursor at left top corner of table. A small box appeared. I right-clicked on the box, selected copy, and pasted the table into a "Text Note" tab.] I can also do some editing in the table, but not everything that I can do in Word.

With respect to pictures, I don't know what you mean by "no right click->insert support." Maybe I've missed a useful function available in other programs?

The WebCollect module is really vital. Without it, MyBase is not worth having.

You can browse the net from within MyBase, but they admit, that is not its primary use so it is somewhat primitive. Here's how: At a "blank" "Webpage" tab, there is a box into which you can type a URL. You must include the "http://&quot prefix for it to work.

This version can also do indexed searches that include both the rtf and html tabs.

It appears that there is some keyword facility, but I haven't tried that yet.

I've just started working with this version...I expect to find lots of goodies!

Finally, on my old laptop, parts of MyBase 4.x ran, but very slowly. Version 5.x is supposed to be faster, but I can't compare as I am running 5.3 on a new laptop with a 2 ghz Core 2 duo and 2 gb of RAM.

-c

Hi Cassius,

Please see my responses interleaved below.

Cassius wrote:

I don't know
what you mean by primitive table handling. I pasted a table from a` Word 2000 document
with no problem. [I put cursor at left top corner of table. A small box appeared. I
right-clicked on the box, selected copy, and pasted the table into a "Text Note" tab.]
I can also do some editing in the table, but not everything that I can do in Word.

I'm not talking pasted table here, but native table support. You can't create a table with more than 9 columns. You can't change column sizes. You can't add or remove columns or rows. That's really what I mean by primitive. Their help file admits that it is a basic table system. You can alter the contents, but not the nature of the table itself once it's there.

With
respect to pictures, I don't know what you mean by "no right click->insert support."
Maybe I've missed a useful function available in other programs?

The same thing as my issue with UltraRecall. Whilst editting I expect to be able to right click to get a menu which will include "Insert->Image". Whizfolders has this, for example. myBase does not - you have to paste from memory, which means opening the image in another program first to be able to copy it into memory. I don't like having to jump through hoops that way. In that respect myBase is like UltraRecall - it keeps stuff it can edit in rtf and stuff it can display in a browser strictly separate.

You can browse the
net from within MyBase, but they admit, that is not its primary use so it is somewhat
primitive. Here's how: At a "blank" "Webpage" tab, there is a box into which you can
type a URL. You must include the "http://&quot prefix for it to work.

Unless I missed something (a distinct possibility), this is only possible when you first open the browser and get the default page. After you have entered a URL and surfed to a new page, there is not way to surf further except by following weblinks. There is no place (that I found) to type in a URL again. As you say, they admit it's not its primary use, but I think it would be a useful (and easy) feature to add.

I've just started
working with this version...I expect to find lots of goodies!

Keep us posted!

Thanks,

Graham

Graham,

I'm no UR expert but I've run some quick tests with UR v.3.1 and here's what I've found:

In the rtf editor (this would be the detail pane of a Text Item) when you drag-drop an image file from Windows Explorer a link to the file is created - the link will be absolute if the file location is NOT a child folder of the UR data file, otherwise the link is relative. The same will hold true if you select an image file in Windows Explorer and Copy, then Paste into the rtf editor - a link is created.

The only way that I could get an image to paste into the rtf editor was via the clipboard - which means that you've got to get the image itself into the clipboard, which means employing an external program to open the image, then copy to the clipboard.

The rtf editor appears to lack a File-Insert function.

The UR File-Import function will allow you to import an image file, this importation will create a new Doc Item (this is a different Type of Item from the Text Item) and should show the image in the detail pane (the Doc Item Type employs the UR Internal Browser). From here you can select-copy-paste into the rtf editor - in essence you are placing the image into the clipboard.

I guess you could call this a work-around, but it does eliminate the need to employ a separate image program to open and load the image into the clipboard for pasting.

Depending on your Import Option settings, the imported image will either be Stored or Linked.

As Chris mentioned, the only other option is to use Word for editing.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways:

The simpliest way is from a new Text Item (or any Text Item) do a Ctrl-J (Open Document) which will launch Word (assuming that rtf is associated to Word under Windows). Now from Word you can use its advanced rtf features to create tables, insert images (Word also provides automatic resizing and other image manipulation options). After editing in Word is complete, close Word and the document is now available back in the UR Text Item (may need to access it via one of the links that appear in the rtf pane).

Building on this, you could create a Word document with a table already created and image options already set, then Import this Word Document to the UR Template Folder (a new Doc Item will be created). Then from Tools-Options-Browser for File Extensions to Display in Broswer add the .doc extension. This will elimanate the need to launch Word when using this UR Template.

Anyway, as mentioned previously, the UR rtf editor leaves a lot to be desired and there are other programs that handle this funcitionality better. But if you have Word on your system, the above method may be the best solution.


Later,
KenA



Graham Rhind wrote:

1) I am typing some text as a topic (or whatever Kinook calls
them)
2) I want to add a picture. I cannot add a picture from a file (which I want to do).
Instead I have to open up another program, open up the picture file, copy it to the
clipboard, then go back to UR, and then paste it. For me this is ludicrous and already a
reason not to use it. BUT:
3) I now get a LINK to the image (NOT the image) in my text. To
view the image I have to click the link, so the image opens in the "browser" window of
UR.
4) I.e., I don't get the text and image together.

Steve,

Thanks for the reference to The Journal. I have needed something to re-stimulate my journaling habit. I was using GemX's TexNotes the past few years for this purpose, but got bogged down by the complexity of the software.

I tried The Journal out over the weekend and registered it. CRIMP attacks again, but I really think this app will make a difference in my writing frequency; I really want to write more often.

I appreciate The Journal's focused simplicity. I too find its topic marking method unique and useful.

Regards,
Wes

Wes Perdue wrote:

Steve,

Thanks for the reference to The Journal... I tried The
Journal out over the weekend and registered it. CRIMP attacks again, but I really
think this app will make a difference in my writing frequency; I really want to write
more often.

I appreciate The Journal's focused simplicity. I too find its topic
marking method unique and useful.

Wes,

I'm pleased to be able to recommend the Journal. David Michael, the developer, is the very model of a responsive programmer. He is actively involved with the Yahoo forum for The Journal, answering questions almost as fast as people submit them. He upgrades his product frequently, and he even distributes a (somewhat) monthly e-newsletter. In short, he's just the type of programmer that it is a joy to support. Plus, his products quite good.

Happy writing!

Steve

Graham Rhind wrote:

Two threads in one ....

I was playing around with I-Navigation today (http://www.exswap.com/ - looks
good on the site but was a disappointment to me when I tried it), when it
struck me that the outliners with all the power (ADM, Whizfolders, Surfulator,
Zoot) and many others all have tree based navigation systems. Programs with
sophisticated mind-like interfaces have weak data storage and management
capabilities.

A strong and interesting claim embedded in this message, if I'm reading correctly, is that mind-map navigation is more sophisticated than tree-based navigation. Which is to say, I suppose, that tree-based navigation is archaic. Perhaps Personal Brain 4 will tell.

Personal Brain, which I have not yet tried, aside--I think if I wanted to build a pim with mind navigation, I would look to Mind Manager, plus investigate the applicable third-party add-ons, based on which a veritable Mind Mgr subculture seems to be developing.

Tree-based and mind-based navigation isn't an exhaustive catalog. Don't forget liner, time-based navigation, i.e. Evernote. If your purpose is to locate notes, Evernote's insight is significant. You should look to cues in episodic rather than semantic memory, because your acts of labeling and classifying are after all acts and will be stored as such. If you're like me, you've avoided Evernote mostly out of habit and inertia.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Personal
Brain, which I have not yet tried, aside--I think if I wanted to build a pim with mind
navigation, I would look to Mind Manager, plus investigate the applicable
third-party add-ons, based on which a veritable Mind Mgr subculture seems to be
developing.

This is true but Mind Manager is quite a bit more expensive.

I was very enthusiastic about Personal Brain. But I soon started to butt heads with a flaw. You end up connecting an item to quite a number of different characteristics (context, start date, due date, project, personnel, etc...) When you think about it we link data with an awful lot of characteristics. Before you know it there a a lot of them and keeping track of them with all of those connecting lines can be a pain.

Tom S.

Tom S. wrote:

I was very enthusiastic about Personal
Brain. But I soon started to butt heads with a flaw. You end up connecting an item to
quite a number of different characteristics (context, start date, due date,
project, personnel, etc...) When you think about it we link data with an awful lot of
characteristics. Before you know it there a a lot of them and keeping track of them with
all of those connecting lines can be a pain.

I've downloaded and even installed it, but I haven't tried it. I feel a lot of inertia about trying global solutions. Maybe I should just decide to kind of rule them out a priori. That's what I've tentatively done about Idea Mason. It just seems too unlikely that one product could approach a well-tailored and personalized collection. This is particularly true when it costs only $79.

As regards this particular deficiency in Personal Brain, isn't the situation you describe the same as an outline where you have an excess of items at a level. The conventional solution is to introduce intervening levels, and then hoist when they get very plentiful. I understand Personal Brain has a sophisticated self-centering hoist, which I think may be an option in the upcoming version of Mind Manager also. Is there a reason why the problem you mention can't be solved by the traditional tactics?

Is there something about the complexity of creating mind map programs that leads to them being so epensive?

A few years ago I bought VisualMind 7 -- it was the worst software investment I ever made.

Nice program, when it wasn't crashing.

And it was always crashing.

So when I do mind mapping I use FreeMind, which is certainly more stable than the over-priced VisualMind.

Unfortunantely it is not able to to create the same variety of map formats.

I wonder if there is a reasonably priced mind map program that offers the variety of a VisualMind or MindManager without the excessive cost?

Daly

Tom S. wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

>Personal
>Brain, which I have not yet tried,
aside--I think if I wanted to build a pim with mind
>navigation, I would look to Mind
Manager, plus investigate the applicable
>third-party add-ons, based on which a
veritable Mind Mgr subculture seems to be
>developing.

This is true but Mind
Manager is quite a bit more expensive.

I was very enthusiastic about Personal
Brain. But I soon started to butt heads with a flaw. You end up connecting an item to
quite a number of different characteristics (context, start date, due date,
project, personnel, etc...) When you think about it we link data with an awful lot of
characteristics. Before you know it there a a lot of them and keeping track of them with
all of those connecting lines can be a pain.

Tom S.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

As regards this
particular deficiency in Personal Brain, isn't the situation you describe the same
as an outline where you have an excess of items at a level. The conventional solution is
to introduce intervening levels, and then hoist when they get very plentiful. I
understand Personal Brain has a sophisticated self-centering hoist, which I think
may be an option in the upcoming version of Mind Manager also. Is there a reason why the
problem you mention can't be solved by the traditional tactics?

I'll say up front that I haven't tried PB4 which may be better with these issues. But IMO the problem with using the previous version for this was that it was really just a bare skeleton for organizaing items.

Think of it this way. Say you create a task in a typical outlining PIM as it exists today. Chances are it will have a backend which will automatically organize the data by due date. Either that or it will sync with something like Outlook where such things are taken care of. It will do the same thing for start date, contact, etc... True, still you end up placing the item in multiple places in the outline but its nothing like it would be without these standard orgaizational tools.

With PB, I wasn't just connecting to different projects and such. I was connecting to everything. Dates, contacts, any standard item that is associated with a task or appointment. One thing that made it better was the ability to embed links in the item. This helped a great deal because you could link an item into the Yahoo web PIM tools. But it ws clumsy and not ideal.

Probably the best mindmapping PIM solution on the market is Mind Manager, which appears to integrate pretty well with Outlook. But, as Daly implied in his response, the price is prohibitive. Very prohibitive. Good grief.

By the way you mentioned the self-centering hiost that PB has. I hated it at first. I thought it was just fancy graphics that were there to dazzle me. Boy was I wrong. Great idea. Focusing on one particular item would have been very difficult without it.

Tom S.