Anyone have any views on Whizfolders Deluxe? Is it worth the price? Double the price of Whizfolders Pro, $80 seems a bit steep to me.

I'm evaluating the v 5.6.3 Pro trial as a place to compose short non-academic writing and like it (a lot) and expect to be happy with version 6 Pro, available to paid users only.

Just wondering about the v 6 Deluxe version. Do tables, keywords and templates make any great difference to your Whizfolder experience?

Tables - nice but not necessary for me. Templates - I can add boilerplates using other apps. I'm most curious about keywords. I use tags, categories, keywords wherever I can. Is it easy to keyword individual words, pars in Whizfolders Deluxe? Whole topics? Justifies the price?

Ike

Anyone have any views on Whizfolders Deluxe? Is it worth the price? Double the price of Whizfolders Pro, $80 seems a bit steep to me.

Coincidentally, I had just been looking at the specs for both and thinking the same thing. The comment that updates to the Pro version will only contain bug-fixes within the two-year free period, and not new features (aka "upgrades") like the Deluxe version, is also a bit ominous, IMO. See: http://www.whizfolders.com/compareeditions.aspx?did=mws

It looks as though the WF people may be trying to reposition their product in the market. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it also gives the impression that the Pro version is being put firmly on the back burner.

Derek

My understanding of the difference is that the Pro version is basically version 5 and will simply not be improved in the future. The Deluxe is the version that is actively being developed. So, if the pro version does everything you want, don't spend the money. On the other hand, if you are posting on this site its hard to imagine not wanted to get the updates as they come out.

I bought the Deluxe version after first seeing whizfolders referenced on this forum. I am extremely happy with it. I just couldn't get my head around programs like zoot and UR. Whizfolders is very straight forward, nimble, and, seemingly, rock solid. $80 did seem like a lot of money for the program, but it does what I need it to do and the learning curve for using it is very reasonable.

Matty wrote:

I am extremely happy with it. I just couldn't
get my head around programs like zoot and UR. Whizfolders is very straight forward,
nimble, and, seemingly, rock solid. $80 did seem like a lot of money for the program,
but it does what I need it to do and the learning curve for using it is very reasonable.

I agree, and would be happy to pay that price too (though my upgrade was free). Not just because of the software (which is very good but hampered by being built around the Microsoft rtf engine, limiting some of its possibilities), but for the support offered. Sanjay, the developer, answered every single query of mine promptly, made every change I requested promptly, and provided a support which is worth far more to me than any of the extra features less well supported software (to put it charitably) can provide.

Graham

My slight irritation with Whizfolders, the reason why I'm whining about the price, is that the trial software isn't the latest version. According to Sanjay's blog, this should change any day now.

In the meantime, and you crimpers will appreciate this, I'm left with a trial I like and a burning desire to get hold of the improved version - just a click away if I whip out my credit card. And there's an even better version which again I can only experience if I buy it first - and it's double the price...

Goes against my shareware habits to buy without trialling first... but I'd like to support a good developer and I'm keen (to say the least) to try the new features. And so I find myself in crimper's limbo and venting here.

The software itself, the old version, is great. As a writing environment rather than a full-blown PIM.

Re earlier forum criticisms: I don't have any problem with the number of folders; shortcuts fly me from one window to the others quite well. I find the buttons, their number and colors, a bit much, but I'm getting used to them, don't find them too distracting.

I'm happy to pay extra for hard-working developers. I just want to know how the extra features in the deluxe version work in practice.

Ike

Ike Washington wrote:

I'm happy to pay
extra for hard-working developers. I just want to know how the extra features in the
deluxe version work in practice.

I've been using the Deluxe version for many months now, and, as it has been incrementally improved, I can not longer make a good comparison of its feature set again the older 5.x version.

I don't use the keywords option (I don't use it in any program). Tables are very important for me. Table support is rather awkward in Whizfolders Deluze because it has to happen outside the rtf interface (as the rtf engine doesn't directly support it). It is useful for making small adjustments to existing tables, but for any more complex changes I find it simpler to cut and paste the table to MS Word, make the changes, then cut and paste it back to Whizfolders.

The template option is useful, and I like the fact that the template button sits permanently to the right of the screen, like the keywords button, to fly out the templates window whenever required. I think this has been implemented far better in Whizfolders Deluxe than, for example, in OneNote, where templates are too many clicks away for my liking.

If one were just to look at the price angle, I don't think that the improvements are worth the hike per se; but Sanjay, and many of his users (myself included) felt that the software (even the 5.x version) was underpriced, and this is the reason for the price hike.

Hope this helps (more!)

Graham

Graham, thanks.

Earlier on in the year, I was pretty excited by ideaMason as the place in which I could do all my writing. But I found that it just wasn't fast enough. Waiting four, five seconds for a window to open isn't on when you're reading, thinking, writing. Reading your earlier forum notes led me back to Whizfolders. Which, as Matty points out, is very nimble.

Yeah, given how happy I am with v5, how well its various features fit together to create a pleasant writing environment, the price hike, for me at least, is okay.

Sanjay seems to understand what writers need in the way of features. I like Whizfolder's rich text, multiple floating windows, good linking and searching. And I particularly like its export features, being able to copy any topic titles and/or any topic contents with just control+c, being able to export the whole tree as an RTF file with just two clicks.

Let's see how it develops.

Ike

Graham -

I must say that Whizfolders did give potential buyers plenty of notice about the price hike, and offered a generous upgrade to existing users earlier this year. But there seems to be some question hanging over the long-term future of the Pro version. Maybe this is a misleading impression, though.

One interesting really interesting new feature I noticed on the WF blog is:

"Export to MS Word Outline RTF: On the menu "Tools–Export selected topics," a new menu item appears that allows you to export the RTF in a Word Outline format. You need to open the resulting file in Microsoft Word to appreciate how this feature works."

For those who are happy with outlining the two-pane way, it's good news that these outlines can now be properly transferred into Word's outline view.

Single-pane editing in a WF editor window is a different matter - and something that many users might also like to see implemented. I noticed that it is WF's stated intention to keep using standard MS richtext editors (now at RichEdit4). If RE4 is anything like earlier editions, there is no built-in outlining facility. Do you know if the WF people have any plans to develop single-pane outlining? Since they have managed the new Tables support using a different editor-control and interfacing it with the new WF RT4 editor - see the blog comments: http://whizfolders.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/01/table-tool/ - could they not do the same for single-pane outlining?

Here's hoping. That would certainly make me open my wallet (I am already sorely tempted having just read through the WF blog).

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

But there seems to be some question hanging over the long-term future of the Pro
version. Maybe this is a misleading impression, though.

Whizfolders Deluxe is version 6 (6.0.8. to be accurate), and I've never had any other impression than that Deluxe is an upgrade of 5.x (Pro), and renamed for whatever marketing reasons Sanjay might have. I suppose Sanjay might have decided to keep a dual pricing policy, allowing the older, simpler version to be sold at the lower price, but I would be very surprised if he continued to develop it in a different direction. A recent e-mail to users suggests that he's thinking of version 7 already.

"Export to MS Word Outline RTF:
On the menu "Tools–Export selected topics," a new menu item appears that allows you to
export the RTF in a Word Outline format. You need to open the resulting file in
Microsoft Word to appreciate how this feature works."

Whizfolders is superb in its export options - it even allows me to print my 1000+ page book in exactly the right format, with my choice of headers, footers, page numbers, table of contents, page breaks and so on, with just a few clicks in the preferences section. That, above all, was what made me buy it in the first place.

Single-pane editing in a WF editor window is
a different matter - and something that many users might also like to see implemented.
I noticed that it is WF's stated intention to keep using standard MS richtext editors
(now at RichEdit4). If RE4 is anything like earlier editions, there is no built-in
outlining facility. Do you know if the WF people have any plans to develop single-pane
outlining? Since they have managed the new Tables support using a different
editor-control and interfacing it with the new WF RT4 editor - see the blog comments:
http://whizfolders.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/01/table-tool/ - could they
not do the same for single-pane outlining?

I've never tried single-pane outlining, and had to test it in Word to see what it was. Whizfolders can certainly manager standard bullet pointing/indentation etc., but not collapsable structures/outlines as in Word. Sanjay is very keen to provide what the users want and, if you e-mail him at support(((at)))whizfolders.com with your question and suggestion, he'll certainly respond and may put it on his list. As I mentioned, many developers are very fixed in what they envisage for their products, and what I like about Sanjay is his willingness to put his users' ideas into practice.

Graham

Graham -

Whizfolders Deluxe is version 6 (6.0.8. to be accurate), and I’ve never had any other impression than that Deluxe is an upgrade of 5.x (Pro), and renamed for whatever marketing reasons Sanjay might have. I suppose Sanjay might have decided to keep a dual pricing policy, allowing the older, simpler version to be sold at the lower price, but I would be very surprised if he continued to develop it in a different direction.

I got the impression from the comparisons on the web-site that there would be a v6 of the Pro as well as the DeLuxe, but that the Pro would be a cut-down version of the Deluxe, and on a slower development cycle - i.e., only bug-correction updates until a new full upgrade.The Deluxe version OTOH would have more features, and more new developments as part of updating, and not deferred until major upgrades.

Oh, well. All will become clearer in time, I expect.

I'll certainly contact Sanjay about single-pane outlining. Incidentally, if you want to see better outliners of this type (than Word's rather clunky one), try NoteMap or PocketThinker. And, of course, there is the unique Brainstorm...

Derek

In case anyone is interested, I just emailed with Sanjay about the prospect of hoisting in future releases of WF and he assured me that this is something he is actively working on. This will make the program that much more powerful by allowing the user to temporarily focus in on a specific part of the outline, while blocking out the rest.

One of the reasons I find this program so powerful is that you can copy a large text into a single note (say all your notes on a single book or the transcript of an interview) then you can simply select chunks of that text and drag it to different spots on your outline and WF will create a new note from that piece of the text. You can also drag notes from one outline to another. So, for instance, after gathering your notes for an article you can create a separate outline of the article and then start dragging and dropping notes from your notes outline into your article outline. Simple and powerful. These kinds of operations are much slower on many of the other programs I've experimented with. I realize that programs like zoot can automate some of these kinds of tasks (a la James Fallow's article organizer template in zoot,) but damn that program is complicated! It made me feel like a total moron. Whizfolders is exactly the opposite, it may not do a lot, but what it does it does in an intuitive way. I still wish I could have figured out zoot, but time commitment was just too great, and I suspect that Whizfolders is better for my purposes (organizing research notes) anyway.

As for single pane outliners, I love brainstorm. The problem is that Whizfolders and Brainstorm, while very different, are pretty redundant. However, since I own a license for both, I'm going to have experiment with importing outlines from Brainstorm into Whizfolders and see if there is any value added there.

Fun to finally be posting here, I've been reading this forum (somewhat obsessively) for months.

Cheers,

Matt

One of the reasons I find this program so powerful is that you can copy a
large text into a single note (say all your notes on a single book or the transcript of an
interview) then you can simply select chunks of that text and drag it to different
spots on your outline and WF will create a new note from that piece of the text.

I just realized that you can do this with text from any program. So, if I am working on a draft of an article in MS word, and I realize I have written something that doesn't belong in the article, but I might want to save as a note, I can simply select the text and drag it into WF. I'm sorry, but that is pretty cool. Likewise, files dragged into the outline become hyperlinks to those files...

Matt,

Thanks very much for the information. A couple hours ago, I went to the WhizFolders site and used my GoogleBar to search the site for the word "hoist", with no results. I'm glad to know it's on the developer's to do list.

I evaluated WhizFolders 5.x a while back, but it didn't feel right for me at the time. I'm anxiously waiting the 6.x evaluation -- $80 is too much to pay for software sight-unseen, even with a 30-day guarantee.

Welcome to the site!

Regards,
Wes

Matt,

It's always very interesting to read about how other people are using the software discussed in this forum. I think Whizfolders has a lot of potential for writers. It's more a question of how much it can be made to do and whether it can be made to fit comfortably in with one's ways of working.

As you say many outlining tasks can probably be done in two-pane outliners like Whizfolders just about as well as in single-pane ones. In some ways I think it is a question of how much outlining one wants to do or, perhaps, how far along one is with one's thinking and drafting. For example, I still do my outlining largely in Grandview. I also use Grandview as a place for developing the outline into a semi-draft, putting relevant thoughts and so on under appropriate headings and sub-headings throughout the outline, and developing the argument. When I've got a well-established and very detailed outline - the beginnings of a rough draft really - I move things out of GV section by section.

I have recently taken to switching to a text editor at this point. First I used EditPad, but now I use NoteTab Pro because it has a very simple outline view - more a combination of table-of-contents and file navigator - and a few additional features. I reproduce the bare essentials of my detailed outline in this (just the basic headings as a table-of-contents) and build up the draft in self-contained modules, using GV (and Zoot) as resources. I find this the least distracting way of doing things.

Currently Zoot figures mainly as an initial and continuing repository of haphazardly entered notes and ideas, though I also reproduce my major outline categories and logic in it once they become clear in my head. How much and where Zoot figures in the workflow also depends on how big the project is and how far along I am in getting a grip on things.

It seems to me that we are working in very similar ways, it's just the software that is different. That's why I'm interested in Whizfolders. Clearly I could do a lot of what I now do in WF - certainly the Notetab stage of things, and moving to Word's outline format for the inevitable final phase of things would be much easier. I think I'd miss GV for the earlier detailed outlining, however, and Notetab for its simplicity. I know I'd miss Zoot :-).

Derek

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

CRIMP ATTACK!!!

I have looked at the WhizFolders Web site, gone thru the screenshots and read about the new features. Other than using a new version of Rich Edit and a possibly faster interface, I see little different from many other 2-pane PIMs.

I expect that other major PIMs will be updating to the latest Rich Edit within a few months. I wonder: Will the new Rich Edit work properly with older versions of Word, say Word 2000?

Should one replace one's current PIM with WhizFolders? Personally, I think not.

P.S. Doesn't the full-page editor mimic the function of a hoist?

-c

Cassius wrote:

P.S. Doesn't the full-page editor mimic the
function of a hoist?

I had the same thought. But, on comparing the full-page editor with Notemap's hoist function, I can see that, for me, there's more to a hoist than just isolating an item. I often use hoist in Notemap with the full-screen option on and no toolbars: just me and whatever it is I'm working on; no distractions at all. With Whizfolders, at least the trial version, I can't turn off the operations toolbar in the edit window. And its toolbar icons are bright...

Ike

P.S. Doesn't the full-page editor mimic the
function of a hoist?

the full-page editor is great for hoisting a single topic, but say I have a huge outline with notes on various themes, and I want to focus in on one theme, i.e. a sub-section of my notes, hoisting that topic and all of its sub-topics in an outline view would be very useful.

Matty wrote:

>
>P.S. Doesn't the full-page editor mimic the
>function of a hoist?

the
full-page editor is great for hoisting a single topic, but say I have a huge outline
with notes on various themes, and I want to focus in on one theme, i.e. a sub-section of
my notes, hoisting that topic and all of its sub-topics in an outline view would be very
useful.

I should think before posting. Yes, would be great to be able to do this. And if there was an option to take off the toolbars too, would be even better.

Ideally, I'd like all of Notemap's functions - comments, folds, gathers, locks - in Whizfolders. With added clones, please.

Dreaming on,

Ike

For those waiting for the Whizfolders Deluxe trial version, Sanjay has just added a note to his blog about why it is delayed - http://whizfolders.com/blog/index.php/2007/07/14/trial-6-note/

Graham

Sanjay has announced that the Whizfolders 6 trial version can now be downloaded - see http://whizfolders.com/blog/index.php/2007/07/24/trial-60-2/

Graham