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Whizfolders Deluxe
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Posted by Graham Rhind
Jul 12, 2007 at 12:17 PM
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
Posted by Ike Washington
Jul 12, 2007 at 01:44 PM
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
Posted by Derek Cornish
Jul 12, 2007 at 02:55 PM
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
Posted by Graham Rhind
Jul 12, 2007 at 03:29 PM
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
Posted by Derek Cornish
Jul 12, 2007 at 06:12 PM
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