So many times I read posts and wonder, "has this person tried Ecco? It might find that it is the closest thing to what he's looking for." For speedy single-pane outlining on Windows, with user-defined fields/columns, I still don't think it can be beat.

An extension for the original Ecco Pro is actively developed, and it greatly extends the capabilities of the original program.

First, you need the original program - here's a download link - just unzip it and put it in a folder somewhere in your "c:\program files (x86" folder.

http://forums.eccomagic.com/forum/Attachments/pre-release-Manual_Install_001.zip

Then you need the file eccoext.exe. It's up to version 4.6.4.8. Just copy it into the same folder where you put ecco32.exe. Then all you need to do is run eccoext.exe.

Eccoext.exe is available at the following link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ecco_pro/files/eccoext.7z

To be able to download this file, you'll have to join the group. Go here and click the blue "Join this Group" button:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecco_pro/

Lots of folks there ready to help you with any questions.

jim

@JimSpoon: Thanks. I last tried ECCO in 2007 and found it no good for my needs. I decided to revisit the thing as a result of reading your post.
I requested to join the forum (Yahoo Group) and am awaiting approval by a moderator. Really you know, that group application/approval procedure seems to be an archaic, tedious and constipated process, developed by a sadist. You should get that fixed.

Hopefully, said process will not entirely defeat my intention to give ECCO a fresh retrial. ;-)

I am not sure how JimSpoon would "get that fixed," unless he is the group owner.

And I'm not sure you'd really want the process change.

I know the process is a bit of a pain.

However, there's good reason for it. I know because I own a group with several thousand members. At first there was no approval required. But then we started to get the first of a never-ending onslaught of spam - including some of the worst pornography you might imagine. Some of the spammers would send 30 or 40 posts to the group in a one hour period. I tried to get rid of it as quickly as I could, but too much was on the group for too long.

One of the members, with more experience in Yahoo groups than I, suggested approving new members - and putting all new members on moderated status until they had posted at least one legitimate post. As soon as they did, I'd take them off of moderated status.

We went to virtually zero spam in very short order. A little bit would get through now and then. Behind the scenes I was trapping dozens of spammers when their first post would come through for my approval and it was clear it was porn, or get rich quick, or on some topic completely unrelated to the group. I'd simply remove them from the group and trash their posts.

Yahoo says it deals with spam on groups - I can tell you they don't do a good job. At any one time, groups without our approval process are battling spam of all kinds.

So in the long run, the approval process works to everyone's benefit.

Daly

Slartibartfarst wrote:

@JimSpoon: Thanks. I last tried ECCO in 2007 and found it no good for my
needs. I decided to revisit the thing as a result of reading your post.
I requested to join the forum (Yahoo Group) and am awaiting approval by
a moderator. Really you know, that group application/approval procedure
seems to be an archaic, tedious and constipated process, developed by a
sadist. You should get that fixed.

Hopefully, said process will not entirely defeat my intention to give
ECCO a fresh retrial. ;-)

I "applied" to join the InfoSelect yahoo group, and was entirely ignored. Yahoo sent a message two weeks later saying that my application was not responded to. As a result, I won't be buying Info Select, since I would never buy such software if there was not a forum I could participate in. Tech support/sales said that they have nothing to do with the forum. In all, it seems very odd to me.



Slartibartfarst wrote:

@JimSpoon: Thanks. I last tried ECCO in 2007 and found it no good for my
needs. I decided to revisit the thing as a result of reading your post.
I requested to join the forum (Yahoo Group) and am awaiting approval by
a moderator. Really you know, that group application/approval procedure
seems to be an archaic, tedious and constipated process, developed by a
sadist. You should get that fixed.

Hopefully, said process will not entirely defeat my intention to give
ECCO a fresh retrial. ;-)

Hi - I hope they don't mind, but I've uploaded the key Ecco files and manual pdf to a shared folder on Dropbox - this is the link :

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wgcy1a4m9bjb1o8/j3CMqzSGkx

Be sure to run them through your virus scanner.

jim

p.s. it's a good idea to join the Ecco Pro group anyway, they're very helpful. And the latest updated version of the extension is always there. I do wish they'd make it all a lot easier.

jim

@Daly de Gagne: Thanks for taking the time to make your comment above.
___________________________
@razorboy: I was interested in what you had to say above. I have been a member of Yahoo Groups in its various forms since 2000, and a user of various InfoSelect versions since 1997. You may have received no response to your request to joining the group because the moderator has apparently abandoned the group.
As a general principle, user groups would usually be independent of the supplier, and the InfoSelect user group had been independent of InfoSelect until the moderator role was taken over by Miclog CEO - James (Jim) Lewis - per his post announcing this, in the group forum, dated Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:02 am.
Quote: "...With the upcoming release of the long awaited Info Select 10, Micro Logic is pleased to take over moderation of this forum."

Unfortunately, under Jim's stewardship, through 2010 and 2011, the general tenor of the forum seemed to enter a period of dismaying and progressive deterioration, with issues/difficulties in development and collecting/matching user requirements seeming to be the cause. Quite a few of the users seemed to become seriously disenchanted with it all and vociferously (some acrimoniously) critical of Jim and/or IS10ß, and some even split off to form a separate splinter user group in protest. None of this seemed to achieve much in terms of ameliorating or addressing whatever might have been the root cause of the issues raised, which continued to fester.
Then, at some point, the moderator (still Miclog CEO Jim Lewis) seemed to have abandoned the forum without prior notice/comment. He went "off the air", did not reply to forum posts, or return emails, and Miclog Tech. Support apparently started to advise enquirers that "...they have nothing to do with the forum" - as they did with you, it seems.
I don't understand it. There seems to have been an apparently churlish disregard for existing users, and that sort of behaviour would seem to be unlikely to inspire confidence in the support for the InfoSelect product, for existing and potential future users - e.g., such as yourself.

The forum itself still has its members and discussions (though certainly not so many discussions recently), and the membership includes/included longstanding members such as Daly de Gagne - also a member of the outlinersoftware forum and a self-professed longtime critic of Jim's - and myself. Sadly, Daly's criticical stance seems to have been proven to be well-founded.

If you search and read this (outlinersoftware) forum, you will find posts on the subject of InfoSelect/Info Select - e.g., more recently I posted a bit of a comparison of InfoSelect versions, from my experience as a user with IS5, IS7, IS8 and as a trialler with IS9 ("2007") and IS10beta and final release. I am a fairly proficient IS user, and have stayed with IS9 as it best suits my peculiar needs.

So don't let the moderator's abandonment of the forum dissuade you from trialling InfoSelect. The software has always been very good (in my experience), though I cannot speak for IS10, and you may well find a version that suits you if you take a "suck-it-and-see" approach - which I would always recommend. Paper-based reviews will only be able to tell you so much.
Bear in mind that, if you get an older version, then some of its functionality will likely have been defeated or made obsolete by changes or newer technology in the Windows OS - e.g., in IS8 and under WinXp and Win7, the ability to display HTML/web pages in the IS viewer pane no longer seems to work (I think that may have been dependent on the interface to a now deprecated/obsolete version of IE).
___________________________

@jimspoon: many thanks for providing the Dropbox link to those files. Very responsive and helpful of you. I shall commence trialling the "new" ECCO.

PS: Sometime inbetween commencing writing this post and changing my son's nappy and now, I received an email that the ECCO Yahoo group moderator had "...approved your request for membership".
I went to the group and have added its RSS feed to my feed aggregator (Google Reader).
http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecco_pro/rss
___________________________

Thanks for that.

I did the trial of IS 10, quickly got rid of it, and did the trial of IS 9, which is good. However, I see no point in using software which has no forum, not when there is competing software available.

Jim,

Thank you for the instructions about how to get EccoPro working on a new Windows machine. I tried installing it a few months ago without any luck. Now I'm back up and running again.

Steve Z.

Ecco is very feature-rich and can be a bit overwhelming. To get a feel for the outlining features, just use the File/New command, and a file will be created with sample data. You'll be put into a "Notepad" view called "How to Use this File" - the notepad title is shown in the tab at the bottom of the notepad. A "notepad" view is where outlining is done.

You can move items around with drag and drop. I rely heavily on keystroke shortcuts. Use tab (or alt-right) to indent, shift-tab (or alt-left) to outdent. You can double-click an item to collapse/hide items. Ctrl+number is used to collapse/hide all items to a specific number of levels. For example, Ctrl+1 shows only top level items. Ctrl+2 shows all first and second level items, and so forth. Ctrl+Shift+number works only on the highlighted item. For example, Ctrl+Shift+1 collapses a particular item to a single item; Ctrl+2 shows the item and all items on the next level down, etc.

Ctrl+Shift+S splits a single item at the cursor location, into two separate sibling items. Ctrl+Shift+J joins multiple highlighted items into a single item.

Two very nice features added by the Ecco Extension are filter-as-you-type, and highlight as you type. To use either or both of these functions, just type something in the search box directly above the notepad, and click the "filter" or "hilite" buttons.

These commands should be enough for you to get a feel for the outlining in Ecco.

The eccoext.eco file contains a detailed description of the features added by the Extension, with screenshots, and the changes added to each new version of the extension.



Also - the file eccoext.eco gives a lot of information on the features added

So, this is EccoExt thing is pretty neat. Though, it claims to add hoisting but doesn't explain how one does this. Anyone know?

jimspoon wrote:

Hi - I hope they don't mind, but I've uploaded the key Ecco files and
manual pdf to a shared folder on Dropbox - this is the link :

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wgcy1a4m9bjb1o8/j3CMqzSGkx

Thanks for this, Jim. Now I just need to find a use for ECCO in my arsenal... :)

@shatteredmindofbob re how to hoist --

quick answer - Ctrl+Shift+H to hoist, Ctrl+Shift+U to unhoist.

Notice the "folder icon" in the notepad will change to indicate that item below has been hoisted up

longer answer:

Hoisting is one of the features I never bothered to use. I'm sure there's a toolbar button for it, but I don't even use the toolbar. I turned it on using Tools / Toolbar. I found the keyboard shortcuts for Hoist and Unhoist by going into EccoExt options - right click EccoExt icon in system tray, EccoExt Options, Shortcut, Item category, Hoist. In that same list of shortcuts, I also see commands for Hoist Up Level and ReHoist, don't know what those are. Somebody would in the Ecco_Pro yahoo group, though.

@drandus - I hope you find something useful in Ecco. If nothing else, it can be used as a simple outliner / text editor, and it excels at that.

Another resource for eccoext -

http://eccoextdoc.wikispaces.com

I see that compusol (?????) is marketing Ecco Pro. What do y'all think of this version?

Hi Razorboy,

I'd stay away from Compusol. The guy behind Compusol doesn't own the Ecco Pro software; I think he just cobbled together an "installer" for it, and I think he offers consulting. Ecco Pro was owned by Netmanage which sold out to a company in England called Micro Focus. I think Micro Focus was interested only in the networking software; they have no interest in doing anything with Ecco Pro.

The place to go is the ecco_pro (with underscore) Yahoo group - not the "eccopro" group (without the underscore). The ecco_pro group is a very active group and you can get everything you need there - including the actively-developed "Ecco Extension" - without paying anybody. The "eccopro" group is connected with the Compusol guy, and it's pretty dead.

As an aside, a new version of the Ecco Extension (4.6.5.3) was just released a couple of hours ago!. It is written by a fellow in China who goes by the name of "Slangmgh". It's always fun to see what new feature he's added to the software.

jim

Thanks, Jim.