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Whoops! I meant: IdeaMason vs UltraRecall
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Posted by Cassius
Mar 22, 2007 at 03:12 AM
Lately, we have had topics comparing MyInfo with UltraRecall and MyBase with Surfulater. If anyone has tried both InfoMason and Ultrarecall, any comments comparing the two would be most appreciated.
Thanks!
-c
Posted by Hugh Pile
Mar 22, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Cassius
InfoMason? Would that be the Crimper’s perfect Christmas present? ;)
UltraRecall and IdeaMason are “apples and oranges”, or at least lemons and limes. UltraRecall is a knowledge and information management tool, in many respects one of the most sophisticated available but also possessing one of the steepest learning curves, in my view. IdeaMason is an excellent drafting and writing tool, aimed at the academic and general factual markets. Both stand out in their niches.
I would not want to use IM for knowledge management on any significant scale. I have tried to use UR for writing, but it’s really far from ideal for this, and there are much better writing tools, including IM.
H
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 22, 2007 at 02:44 PM
Hugh, what would make UltraRecall a better writing tool for you?
I agree with your assessment of the difference between IdeaMason and UR.
But I think there are times, with UR being such a good knowledge manager, that I would prefer to do my writing there, as long as I didn’t need the academic references.
I recently wrote the UR group that I would like to see the option for a ruler in text, as well as multiple windows.
What else might be helpful?
I wonder whether UR is new coming close to that killer ap, the all-in-one, that golden grail of CRIMPERs? I thnk ADM had had the chance once until they so gloriously shot themselves in the foot. And given the profound round of silence from Arne, I suspect ADM is now working on the other foot.
Daly
Hugh Pile wrote:
>Cassius
>
>InfoMason? Would that be the Crimper’s perfect Christmas present?
>;)
>
>UltraRecall and IdeaMason are “apples and oranges”, or at least lemons and
>limes. UltraRecall is a knowledge and information management tool, in many respects
>one of the most sophisticated available but also possessing one of the steepest
>learning curves, in my view. IdeaMason is an excellent drafting and writing tool,
>aimed at the academic and general factual markets. Both stand out in their niches.
>
>I
>would not want to use IM for knowledge management on any significant scale. I have
>tried to use UR for writing, but it’s really far from ideal for this, and there are much
>better writing tools, including IM.
>
>H
Posted by Dominik Holenstein
Mar 22, 2007 at 03:31 PM
Daly,
I can’t stop laughing!
I really hope they get both foots back on service.
UR can be used as a writing tool as long as you don’t need academic references.
The possiblity to open several topics in tabs is very useful for the writing/brainstorming process.
Further, as I am working with MS Word, the possiblity to open a topic in word and do the editing and layouting there is also a plus. Yes, I hear you asking ‘But when I am not using Word?’. Well, I don’t have the answer yet but I will try to open an UR item in the Writer of OpenOffice. Update will follow.
I am not sure that Kinook will add any more features to the text pane in UR as they want to keep it as simple as possible.
Dominik
PS: Take care of your foots! (still laughing…)
Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Hugh, what would make UltraRecall a better writing tool for you?
>
>I agree with your
>assessment of the difference between IdeaMason and UR.
>
>But I think there are times,
>with UR being such a good knowledge manager, that I would prefer to do my writing there,
>as long as I didn’t need the academic references.
>
>I recently wrote the UR group that I
>would like to see the option for a ruler in text, as well as multiple windows.
>
>What
>else might be helpful?
>
>I wonder whether UR is new coming close to that killer ap, the
>all-in-one, that golden grail of CRIMPERs? I thnk ADM had had the chance once until
>they so gloriously shot themselves in the foot. And given the profound round of
>silence from Arne, I suspect ADM is now working on the other foot.
>
>Daly
>
>Hugh Pile
>wrote:
>>Cassius
>>
>>InfoMason? Would that be the Crimper’s perfect Christmas
>present?
>>;)
>>
>>UltraRecall and IdeaMason are “apples and oranges”, or at least
>lemons and
>>limes. UltraRecall is a knowledge and information management tool, in
>many respects
>>one of the most sophisticated available but also possessing one of
>the steepest
>>learning curves, in my view. IdeaMason is an excellent drafting and
>writing tool,
>>aimed at the academic and general factual markets. Both stand out in
>their niches.
>>
>>I
>>would not want to use IM for knowledge management on any
>significant scale. I have
>>tried to use UR for writing, but it’s really far from ideal
>for this, and there are much
>>better writing tools, including IM.
>>
>>H
Posted by Hugh Pile
Mar 22, 2007 at 05:11 PM
Daly
What would make UR a better writing tool for me? I spent quite a while thinking about this last year. The answer came to me when I read a thread in this forum called something like “An Outliner of Outlines”. UR would need an outliner of outlines, explicitly within the software. (But actually I don’t think it should have one, because I don’t think UR is or could be a top-notch writing tool.)
I think many people write in a non-linear fashion, gathering bits and pieces of research, writing up their own “best bits”, adding bridging material, tucking in project to-dos and so on. If one works in this fashion, and wants to stay in a single piece of software (of course one doesn’t have to), one needs a repository/library/database/binder for the bits, and then separately one needs a true “structural” outliner to fit them all together. (The repository doesn’t have to be a heirarchical tree; it could work with tags.)
Not many programmes have this dual outliner functionality. IM does. Scrivener (for the Mac) does. UR doesn’t. I thought I’d made a small breakthrough last year, when, as I wrote in this forum, I’d put MS Word into UR and was able to template its outliner in UR. But Word lost its menus (not its buttons) in the process, and the functionality seemed a tad clunking. For me it wasn’t a solution.
An ideal writing tool would also require such functions as simple ways of importing and exporting text, RTF and Word files, smooth handling of citations, project and document targets, timers and word counts, a recent history pane, versioning/snapshotting, a word usage counter, formatters that help with basic writing styles (academic, novel, filmscript, TV stage-play), revision/review/tracking tools, annotation tools, and several other widgets and gizmos that would make the writing task easier and more pleasurable. For fiction, a lot of people would favour formatted character and location sheets and the like, but personally I think that’s a Nineties fashion which I’m glad has passed.
But the fundamental requirement would be an outliner of outliners. Once I’d have tried to encourage the developers of UR (and similar programmes) to go in this direction, but now with the emergence of such tools as IM and Scrivener (and probably others that I’m unaware of), I think that’s unnecessary (and probably potentially bloating for perfectly good knowledge-managment software).
H