@Daly
@Graham
@Eduardo

I consider ConnectedText as one of the most impressing applications available today even I don't have use case for it.

PersonalBrain is the perfect tool for me. That's neither good nor bad nor does it mean that PersonalBrain is better than ConnectedText. In the end, I can't even compare these two applications because they are so different.

Apart from creating links to other thoughts with jumps/parents/childs you can add direct links to other thoughts in the notes section of the active thought similar to the wiki style: Just type the name of the thought you want to link to -> highlight it -> right click -> choose ?"Insert link to a thought" and you are done.


All the best,
Dominik

@Daly

If you are still interested in giving CT a trial, there are some topics in the "Welcome to ConnectedText" project written by users which can help you get started. The one I found most valuable is named "Texting to your Taste." You can search for this topic, or -- in some ways easier -- open the Topics pane (via the View menu). I like to keep this pane open all the time anyway; I drag it to the right side of the screen where it anchors. You now have a handy index of all the topics in the project arranged alphabetically. Anyway, the Texting to Your Taste topic provides some handy advice for how you might approach using CT.

I would add, as a pretty novice user myself, that I think the best way to approach CT if you're feeling stumped is to open the Topics pane (as described above) for reference and then to just create notes as you need them. Don't worry about linking notes unless it feels natural. While CT is a desktop wiki, it is first and foremost a notes database. Wiki links is just one of the handy ways to organize and relate those notes. But the beauty of CT is that it provides many other ways to work with them. I'm stilling learning these.

I do agree that one of the bigger stumbling blocks is the wiki markup. Basic markup is pretty easy to master. But using some of the more advanced features like setting attributes requires learning some expressions, and I personally don't have a good mind for learning these easily. Baby steps is how I'm approaching things.

As an aside, I've started seeing ConnectedText as the Windows version of Tinderbox. There are a lot of similarities in the programs. Great power for those who invest the time to learn to use them properly; a mysterious mashup for those who (reasonably) prefer their applications have a more intuitive feel.

Steve Z.

Baby
steps is how I'm approaching things.

Yes, I think that's the right approach and agrees with my current CT learning experience.

Otherwise my own learning approach was slightly different. After reading the help topics Stephen points out, I actually chose to create a single topic and then work it to death rather than creating multiple small topics. Because of the interlinked nature of the beast, I wanted to understand what happens as you add markup. So I imported a topic, changed the layout, added images and so on, to check what happened. Then I added URLs and internal links and checked what happened. Then I added properties and attributes, and checked what happened. And so on. I found this enabled me to work out what would happen if I ..., because CT does a lot of background work which is valuable and saves extra input. For example, if I add the capital city of each country in a different topic but add a "capital city" property to it, if you do it right you'll get a new topic with all the capital cities together.

If you're interested in where I've got and what I've produced, you can look at http://www.grcdi.nl/cttest/hungary.HTML

Graham

@Graham,

Impressive! Thank you for sharing what you can do with CT.

Steve Z.

Connected text looks interesting, but:

As I am now retired (am I the only one here?), I really have little use for it.

The need to learn a markup language is a turn-off. It seems to me that the markups could be semi-automated with menu items (with associated keyboard entries) that would insert the markups, possibly without the symbols appearing on-screen or with common words or symbols appearing in place of the markup symbols. EASE OF USE is what sells software.

@Daly (and others)
I use CT regularly in my writing, so here's my take. Find a simple project, and just start using it. As your project grows, you'll discover more features in CT that make life easy. As others have said, just jump in.

I don't use 50% of the features, including some of the power features. But what I need is there, and works great. I've never had CT crash, and find it easy to work in its environment.

One other added benefit, Eduardo is amazingly responsive as a developer. When I've emailed for support, I got a response quickly - and a real response, not an auto-responder saying message received.

I'd describe CT as a writing environment. To me, taking notes is writing; brainstorming is writing; outlining is writing. CT does all of these tasks well. I use other tools too, but my projects all reside in CT.

First of all, I hope that I'm not one of the "professors" you've mentioned . Second, if you look back at my posts, you'll find that although I am a strong proponent for Eduardo and ConnectedText, I use many different applications for different purposes. CT is a personal wiki - it is not a panacea for outliners, nor is it my GoTo application for everything. In fact, for writing and organizing content, I prefer the WYSIWYG hierarchical outlining features of MyNotesKeeper (MNK) or MyInfo over CT's outlining capabilities.

As for other desktop wikis, I've tried TiddlyWiki, Wikidpad, and ZuluPad Pro, and I've yet to find anything near the stability, power, or quality of CT. I hope that this statement does not sound like software snobbery; it certainly is not. Otherwise, I wouldn't own 10 of such applications. I am just sharing my personal opinion of yet-another-productivity-tool that I hope will help better inform other users. CT is a wiki with a wiki-markup language. It is not Word or EverNote or PersonalBrain -- all of which I use for their strengths.

All my best,
Glen

p.s. Having said this, I have requested a WYSIWYG front-end in the past to make CT easier to use for novices. For an excellent example, check out the PBWorks online wiki. Instead of having VIEW (read-only) and MARKUP (writeable) modes like CT, PBWorks allows WYSIWYG processing in their "VIEW" mode, while allowing wiki-markup language in their MARKUP mode. The perfect solution in my mind (although I appreciate the development difficulties.)

DaXiong wrote:

One
other added benefit, Eduardo is amazingly responsive as a developer. When I've
emailed for support, I got a response quickly - and a real response, not an
auto-responder saying message received.

I would strongly second this observation. I had a problem over the weekend trying to install CT5 on my MacBook using VMWare Fusion emulation. Before the weekend was over, Eduardo had brewed me up a specialized version that would run fine on my Mac.

Steve Z.

Glen, thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.

No, you were not the professor I mentioned.

However, your article on using CT is one reason I have long wished I could get my head around it in terms of using it for managing information and references.

I see you have a video on the site on using CT for a library project, and I'll be downloading and watching that. URLfor the video:
http://www.connectedtext.com/movies.php

Cheers,

Daly

Glen Coulthard wrote:

First of all, I hope that I'm not one of the "professors" you've mentioned .
Second, if you look back at my posts, you'll find that although I am a strong proponent
for Eduardo and ConnectedText, I use many different applications for different
purposes. CT is a personal wiki - it is not a panacea for outliners, nor is it my GoTo
application for everything. In fact, for writing and organizing content, I prefer
the WYSIWYG hierarchical outlining features of MyNotesKeeper (MNK) or MyInfo over
CT's outlining capabilities.

As for other desktop wikis, I've tried TiddlyWiki,
Wikidpad, and ZuluPad Pro, and I've yet to find anything near the stability, power, or
quality of CT. I hope that this statement does not sound like software snobbery; it
certainly is not. Otherwise, I wouldn't own 10 of such applications. I am just sharing
my personal opinion of yet-another-productivity-tool that I hope will help better
inform other users. CT is a wiki with a wiki-markup language. It is not Word or EverNote
or PersonalBrain -- all of which I use for their strengths.

All my best,
Glen

p.s.
Having said this, I have requested a WYSIWYG front-end in the past to make CT easier to
use for novices. For an excellent example, check out the PBWorks online wiki. Instead
of having VIEW (read-only) and MARKUP (writeable) modes like CT, PBWorks allows
WYSIWYG processing in their "VIEW" mode, while allowing wiki-markup language in
their MARKUP mode. The perfect solution in my mind (although I appreciate the
development difficulties.)

Eduardo,

I'm posting an issue with Connected Text here, as it might be of interest to other forum members considering purchasing CT. I don't expect a quick answer, so don't worry if you see this after a few days.

Following a successful trial of CT, in the footsteps of Stephen and Graham, I decided to register the program, as it is perfect for a project I'm working on these days. I opted for the One User license, as I use most of my software in 2-3 PCs, at home, office and on the road (a cheap laptop where I only have my lighter programs installed).

I am now working from home, on a Windows 7 64-bit PC. For security reasons, I have a separate administrator account, which I use for installations and maintenance, but I usually log in as a normal user. Following the CT instructions, I installed the program from my administrator account. I then tested it as a normal user, which worked fine.

However, after purchasing, the following occured:
- I was unable to register the license as a normal user, which I am able to do with the majority of purchased programs
- I closed down CT, logged off, logged in as the administrator and registered the license correctly; I also updated to the latest maintenance release, checked the About box and saw my name prominently displayed
- I logged off from my administrator account, logged in as a normal user and... found that I am still using the TRIAL version!

Is this normal? I should note that I found an easy solution, which is to select Run As Administrator for CT from within my normal account; I can even set this as a parameter to SlickRun which I use to start my programs, so it's not a serious obstacle.

However, I wonder whether this behaviour is on purpose. Is it a way to ensure that only one user will access the program even in the same PC? Would I have avoided the issue had I purchased a One Computer license?

Alexander,

CT need Administrator rights during install in order to register the OLE interface. You don't need to run CT using Administrator rights, just during install. However, when you install CT asks where you want to store your projects. If you plan to use CT using a different user you have to choose a folder that can accessible by this user.

"I was unable to register the license as a normal user, which I am able to do with the majority of purchased programs".

Could you explain what happened? When you register a file called LICENSE.LIC is created in ConnectedText folder under yours My Documents (Documents) folder. If you log with a different name, CT will ask again to register since the license is stored under a different name.

So, I suggest to do the following: log as normal user. Check if there is a folder named ConnectedText under My Documents (Documents). If it is does not exist, create it. Run CT and it will ask to register. Enter you license. If it does not work contact me so I can further help you.

Best regards,
Eduardo

Eduardo Mauro wrote:

So, I suggest
to do the following: log as normal user. Check if there is a folder named ConnectedText
under My Documents (Documents). If it is does not exist, create it. Run CT and it will
ask to register. Enter you license. If it does not work contact me so I can further help
you.

Excellent, that worked! Thanks for the really quick reply on a Saturday :-)

(Indeed, CT probably couldn't find the ConnectedText folder and gave an error message, because I had set from the beginning a Dropbox folder for storing projects instead of the default)

I'm very happy that it was just a technical issue and not one of policy. Thanks again.

We did this change recently in order to avoid storing the license in the same folder where projects are stored, because it caused a problem when a Dropbox folder is used.

Dropbox has become a de facto standard for many people working from various locations like myself; I personally also use also Nomadesk which provides integrated encryption.

It is indeed not evident that programs are capable of working with a service like Dropbox without adjustments, but as users we have come to expect this. In my case, I use very much the 'junction' utility, creating subfolder redirections from My Documents (which many programs will use as a default) to folders of the same name under Dropbox.

Anyway, for Connected Text I have kept the project folder under Dropbox and the regular 'ConnectedText' subfolder under My Documents so all should be well. Thanks again!

Eduardo Mauro wrote:

We did this change recently in order to avoid storing the license in the same folder
where projects are stored, because it caused a problem when a Dropbox folder is used.

Eduardo,

I understand that Connected Text has been developed as a _personal_ wiki, but I wonder whether it allows for team use, e.g. via a shared network or Dropbox folder.

I'm not contemplating collaborative work as such --e.g. concurrent editing- but rather read-only access by various users.

Alexander, sorry for the late answer.

I've never tried but I think CT can be used via Dropbox by many users as long as all of them do not change anything in the project. Just read its content. As I said, I've never tried and I don't know if it will work or not.

CT uses a SQL engine that prevents opening the database in a networked drive. Such limitation can be lifted using a newer version of the engine (which I don't think is stable enough) but I won't let the database be opened by more than one user.

Many users request a network version of CT. We have some ideas about it but it will require extensive changes.

Best regards,
Eduardo

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Eduardo,

I understand that Connected Text has been developed as a _personal_ wiki,
but I wonder whether it allows for team use, e.g. via a shared network or Dropbox
folder.

I'm not contemplating collaborative work as such --e.g. concurrent
editing- but rather read-only access by various users.

Eduardo, thanks, I'll try it out.

I actually have the CT files in a Dropbox folder, for my own access from several PCs and I think this works fine, so I'll test granting others access as well. Unfortunately Dropbox can't be set to grant Read-Only access, so I'll keep my backups.


Eduardo Mauro wrote:

Many users request a network version of CT.
We have some ideas about it but it will require extensive changes.

Well there really is a huge market out there for collaborative solutions, and I can tell you that most of them offer very little functionality compared to Connected Text...