I have purchased licenses for both and have formed opinions about which suits me better. NoteCase Pro is deceptive in appearance because it is surprisingly feature-rich. It works on multiple platforms (I do not need this) and imports and exports many legacy formats (I may use this, but not likely). It has cloning which is very useful. While it can do almost everything you could expect, you have to take the LONG way around to accomplish what you can in other programs in one or two clicks. An example is simple tagging. Tagging should be simple. Too many steps are involved. The tree and list views are useful (RightNote has one view) and can display columns. However, the column data is not editable in these views and setting up and using custom columns is horrendous.

RightNote is heavily influenced by KeyNote and that is generally a good thing. It lacks the ability to clone, but other functions are more streamlined. So many programs of this genre lack the ability to select more than one node at a time, and this is true of both RightNote and NoteCase Pro. Yes, I know both programs offer ways to do this, but they are extremely clumsy and not intuitive. RightNote also has the ability to capture url information from Opera which NoteCase currently cannot do (I asked the developer about incorporating this in NoteCase Pro and he was very receptive). However, I discovered that RightNote MUST be opened before the browser in order to capture correctly. Tagging is easy.

The intended use is for writing and research.

Are there other people experienced enough with both of these to provide me with an informed opinion?

Thanks.

Jon

I should also point out that while tagging is extremely cumbersome in NoteCase, filtering the tagged items is a breeze. There are multiple ways of doing this, and there is a tag cloud which can be disabled. The likelihood of me using tags in NoteCase is diminished by the chore of actually tagging the items, so I guess the benefits of filtering and the tag cloud are diminished.

Jon

Jon Polish wrote:

The intended use
is for writing and research.

Does that mean you have given up on WhizFolders then? http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3413/15

Obviously "writing and research" is a huge category and there might be dozens if not hundreds of tools targeting that area. Could you perhaps spell out how you settled on RightNote vs. NoteCase Pro in the end (what your selection criteria are)?

MyInfo is my main note-taker, but I bought a license for RightNote recently because it looks promising. So far I've used it mainly for its virtual notes feature. I have a lot of miscellaneous files in various formats (mostly pdf, txt, and rtf) scattered around my hard disk, and it's nice to link them to a RightNote file and then be able to search them easily. The RightNote searches are extremely fast and show words/phrases in context. It's also possible to edit the txt and rtf files from within RightNote. Bear in mind that these files are not swallowed up by RightNote; any editing you do will alter the original files in their original directories. RightNote simply provides a means of viewing, organizing, and editing scattered, miscellaneous files from within one centralized piece of software.

Evernote lets you do something approximately like this, but it actually absorbs the various files into the EN file, which will eventually become spectacularly large if you try to do it very often, whereas the RightNote file remains modest in size, because it's not bringing in these external files, merely indexing them and making them accessible through a virtual link.

As for more general note-taking, MyInfo seems to me to offer greater advantages.

Bill

Dr. Andus:

No, I continue to use WhizFolders for writing chunks of text to be refined (re-organized) in WhizFolders later. I continue to rely extensively on UR and InfoQube for storing, organizing and retrieving information. But like all of us, I like to explore what else is out there that might be valuable. I really like the way I can clip stuff from the web into RightNote.

Will:

I use a similar approach. It is flexible and effective. I can do the same thing in UR but RightNote is simpler, and sometimes that is better for me. Like you, I bought a license to explore the program more extensively. I liked KeyNote, and this is very similar. I'm not committed to it as I am with UR, IQ and WF Just kicking the tires and bothering others for their opinions.

Jon

Jon Polish wrote:

Dr. Andus:

No, I continue to use WhizFolders for writing chunks of text to be refined
(re-organized) in WhizFolders later. I continue to rely extensively on UR and
InfoQube for storing, organizing and retrieving information. But like all of us, I
like to explore what else is out there that might be valuable. I really like the way I can
clip stuff from the web into RightNote.

Thanks for that, Jon, it's always interesting to see the overall context in which individual tools are used within a given use scenario.

Jon Polish wrote:

Are there other people experienced enough with both of these to provide
me with an informed opinion?

I am not experienced in either but I am looking at purchasing one and have been experimenting with both. I would like to ask a question on exporting and tagging.

I plan to use the software as part of my project management of housing projects and the compiling of basic monthly reports for each project.
In the report there are often tasks associated for myself, collegues, other consultants or government officials

I will also use the software for my own notes and task management

I aim to tag nodes/notes with staff names etc. and once a week as part of my task management recall the tag and then print the node/notes associated with the staff member

In Notecase pro I am able to filter a tag and in the left pane see all the node/notes associated. Then I can export/print just those nodes/notes associated with the tag and forward on to the staff member in question

In Rightnote, as Jon says the tagging is easier, but from what I can see it shows the tree structure of the tag in a separate right hand pane but I cannot export or print just those nodes/notes associated with the tag
Your exporting and printing options are the same as if you had no tag.

I could well be wrong, both software have an extensive amount of options and both have very useful help files and I have not been experimenting for long.

In terms of exporting I have been impressed with both Righnote and Notecase pro.
The automatic numbering is very good and useful for me in both of them although at present the export of Notecase pro does export to Word as a large Courier New 16mm font for some reason. I am not sure if this is to do with my Word settings or a Notecase pro default. The developer has said he would look at it as he suspects it might be a Notecase pro default. You can in Word select all and change the font but it is useful in reports to have your headings a different size font to your body of text.


So far Notecase pro seems to suit my needs better, I do not have that many tags so the tagging is not a big issue. But both are excellent options for my intended use and I will continue experimenting. Any comments on tagging and exporting would be welcome.

Andrew

Andrew:

I'm pretty sure this will complicate your life, but you might want to think about tools that could better meet your needs. I'm thinking of InfoQube and Ultra Recall, but these could be overkill. Have you looked at CintaNotes?

Jon Polish wrote:

Andrew:

I'm pretty sure this will complicate your life, but you might want to
think about tools that could better meet your needs. I'm thinking of
InfoQube and Ultra Recall, but these could be overkill. Have you looked
at CintaNotes?

Jon

I once tried Info Qube but could not get it to install on my pc. That was a while ago and I remember the developer was very responsive and we were communicating via email but I failed to get it installed and gave up. It was awhile back and I am under no pressure to purchase any software now so I will give it another go. Ultra Recall I have also tried in the past and it would be worth a re look

Cintanotes I am playing around with. The method of pasting notes in it is brilliant and the tagging and speed of the software is excellent. I would really like the tree structure for my reports so I am not looking at it at this stage.

Andrew