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myBase Desktop v6 released
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Posted by Wojciech
Sep 17, 2011 at 12:08 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
> Early on, I tried several other tools and
>purchased licenses to Endnote and IdeaMason; soon enough I dropped them though,
>which was a good thing; thereon I focused on the actual job.
This is also my feeling - I always invest more time managing program like the two you mentioned than save benefiting from using them.
>I am now also trying out
>Citavi—which is Swiss, incidentally, and I’ve always had some kind of attraction to
>Swiss products…
That’s right, Citavi is Swiss (like another nice productivity tool, i.e. NoteTab). I’ve just bought the licence (CRIMP) and try to figure out what is what and will be happy to learn your impressions.
BTW, another smart tool for academic writing was Scholar’s Aid but it’s development stopped a couple of years ago. It was also very good for storing web captures. Unfortunately, now I have plenty of information saved in SA with no idea how to export it to some other program.
Greetings!
Posted by Pavi
Sep 21, 2011 at 08:42 AM
Hi, just wanted to give my quick impressions of myBase 6. I tried a lot of the betas until the one prior to release (17?), but didn’t purchase a license, although I was tempted by the Bitsdujour offer. I just downloaded the v6 release to refresh my memory and see if any new features were implemented. I may have missed or misinterpreted some features due to the short time I spent with the program.
In the end I chose UltraRecall, and here is a quick rundown of what I thought of myBase 6:
Pros:
- Fast, simple interface, low learning curve
- Attach files to window without being child nodes (one drawback to UR), high compression
- Labels tree removes the need to multiple link items
- Can view files within main window
- WebCollect functions from Chrome (I didn’t test this)
- Can edit web pages
- Can have multiple windows, BUT it seems like it is impossible to have different nodes open (they both change to current item!)
- Quite a few more that were in 5.5.1 and standard for this category
Cons:
- Search is still lacking, can’t make multiple Boolean constraints
- File viewing within main window takes an extra step
- Attachments, Item links, Symbolic Links and Labels are tabs in the same pane (relationship pane). This is very annoying, as in 5.5.1 item links were in a separate window under the tree. Having to click tabs constantly reduces the strength of information overview
- No “Notes” pane: this is pretty handy to write a quick synopsis of a PDF, for example
- The look is very 1990s, and the calender is particularly old school
- No forms or attributes as in UR, this limits the type of data one might enter
- View changes based on action, but doesn’t reset to default. ie, after a search
I chose UR due to several factors: better search, forms/attributes allows for more types of data, 2-way Outlook sync (e-mail archival, GTD tasks), saved searches, better support including forums, and just more power and flexibility. I wanted all my main data to be cross-referenced, and cross-database search is on their near-future road map. Of course, there is a lot more learning curve!
MyBase 6 would be idea for research projects where you dump in data and a lot of files that might need compression, using the standard tree structure/linking. For me, though, the extra benefits of UR for GTD, mail archiving, file search, and customized forms make it the better solution.
Best, Pavi
Cassius wrote:
>I’ve just started looking at myBase 6 and already THINK I have some concerns. I’ll post
>my comments on this thread after I’ve looked at it a bit more. Perhaps other users might
>wish to do the same?
Posted by jimspoon
Sep 21, 2011 at 04:11 PM
Pavi, very good review, thanks very much.
Posted by Cassius
Sep 21, 2011 at 09:16 PM
Pavi is correct about the lack of Boolean logic searching. The myBase developers probably thought that the inclusion of regular expression searching would cover this, but I expect that most users, me included, don’t know the regular expression syntax. Yesterday, I emailed them about this. I also noted that in version 5, one could search just the tree. That seems to have disappeared in version 6.
Posted by Cassius
Sep 22, 2011 at 04:21 AM
Wjjsoft, the developers of myBase, has answered my first comment to them. They intend to add more search options, such as Boolean search and tree search, in future versions/updates. The regular expression search was added because many programmers requested it.