Hello all, I am a long time lurker on outlinersoftware.com (about 2 years now, dipping in and out for the most part, though for the last few months, most intently) and having read the opinions and experiences of users of this site about the many softwares available for organisation, which I am obsessed with (I could very well be OCPD), I would like to outline 'lol' the feature of all features that I would like to see in a notetaker.

I would like to undertake a search on text where all the words in the software database are indexed; that all sentences/paragraphs with instances of the word (eg music, music.genre, &music;, music film etc) searched for are 'hoisted' out of their various files into one page. The info on this page can then be 'copied' or 'cut' and saved as a new file or in an existing file. 'Copied' when the info belongs in it's original file, and 'cut' when I am jotting down info on the fly and it accumulates as unfiled notes, as I could quickly remove many sentences/paragraphs at a time from the unfiled mass of notes, and then move this collection to an existing file or create a new file for this info to belong.

If there is a software that currently does this or that has this feature on it's roadmap then I would appreciate if users here could advise me accordingly.

Thanks.

I'm not sure if this is what you want, but TreePad Business has this (from the help file):

Saving search results

Inserting search results into article
(TreePad Business Edition only)
You can insert the entire list of search results as node-hyperlinks into the article using
menu⁄insert⁄links to⁄search results

Export search results
Through menu⁄file⁄export⁄search results one can export search result to a TreePad file

WhizFolders also does what you seem to want with the exception of saving and/or exporting.

UltraRecall can also save searches. You can configure the columns to your specifications.

The old askSam could do this, but it has been a while and I cannot describe the specific steps.

Jon

Jon Polish wrote:

WhizFolders also does what you seem to want with the exception of saving
and/or exporting.
Jon

Wrote too soon. WhizFolders is such an impressive program but it is very deep and occasionally I miss some feature. Yes, this can be done.

Jon

What you're describing sounds like a concordance function; there are a few specialised concordance editors out there. I can't remember what they're called offhand, but I'll see if I can dig up some references. Most specialised translation software supports concordance analysis, but tends to be expensive! I know there are specialised text editors that support this kind of analysis, too, but seem to remember they're also relatively expensive. But then you're talking about a form of data mining, so it's not really surprising.

Thankyou for your replies guys.

@ Jon Polish

I haven't tried Treepad before so that is now on my radar. Whizfolders has been on my list of programmes I really want to try, for months now, and it is on my shortlist of programmes that I want to use as my main note taking database; so your bringing up that application in your reply excites me (I really hope that it can do what I posted I want as my most important feature; and I want many features, as do so many posters on this site LOL). I know you have been and may still be a user of Ultra Recall and it is very comprehensive and does impress me with it's power and all round features, though I see it more as a document manager/windows explorer substitute, and it's distinct slow down in continual development since approx 2008 is concerning. Ask Sam is impressive but it's expense is far and away above the other contenders you mention and frankly, prohibitive to me.

@ MadaboutDana

I haven't heard of the concordance feature before and will be making a note of it, thanks. Any advice that you can give me on this feature has to be valuable as although I have been reading and researching data capture, freeform databases, outliners etc for a while, I am aware, having read this forum, that I am in the company of more seasoned users of information management software and the oppurtunity to pick all of your brains is one too good to miss.

Simon.

You should consider Ultra Recall. It can be a document manager, or almost anything you configure it to be. If you ever try askSam, do not get the latest version (7). It is terribly buggy. The last stable version in my opinion, is version 6. Perhaps you could ask for it with a discount. Whizfolders is an excellent writing tool and deceptively rich in features. I always laugh to myself when I think that it would be nice to be able to do X and discover that Whizfolders can.

Jon

I would say don't consider askSam at all. It's fraught with problems, and pricey. Check the forums if they still have them up.

Daly

Jon Polish wrote:

You should consider Ultra Recall. It can be a document manager, or
almost anything you configure it to be. If you ever try askSam, do not
get the latest version (7). It is terribly buggy. The last stable
version in my opinion, is version 6. Perhaps you could ask for it with a
discount. Whizfolders is an excellent writing tool and deceptively rich
in features. I always laugh to myself when I think that it would be nice
to be able to do X and discover that Whizfolders can.

Jon

Daly de Gagne wrote:

I would say don't consider askSam at all. It's fraught with problems,
and pricey. Check the forums if they still have them up.

Daly

I agree, however Simon mentioned askSam, so I provided some comment. It is available for a 30 day trial, and it does have some strengths not found elsewhere. Anyone can try it to see if it is worthwhile for them, but I have long since moved on.

Jon

NVivo can also do something like this. If you're a student/academic and your university provides a copy, then it might be worth checking out. But otherwise I'm reluctant to recommend it, due to its cost and licensing regime:

http://help-nv9-en.qsrinternational.com/concepts/about_queries.htm

Another option could be ConnectedText. It allows you to save search results and also to embed individual queries into the body of a document (called 'topic' in CT), which gets dynamically updated, should the searched content change elsewhere.

I wonder if the authors of Asksam are out of business: www.asksam.com yielded no viable URL.

Try Asksam for yourself. Ignore the "naysayers." I use Asksam version 7 successfully. It has some unique features other programs have not figured out. It is not perfect, none are.

Price for the indexed version is too high. Wait for a sale at Bitsdujour.com.

But unfortunately, this still is true at 8:45pm. Very disconcerting.

reverendmartian wrote:

I wonder if the authors of Asksam are out of business: www.asksam.com
yielded no viable URL.

askSam.com is back up.

Jon

I checked out asksam (the site was live for me) thanks Jon. I see that the standard software is pushing $150 whereas the pro is near $400 and it is this latter that mentions the indexing of all words in the database. I read somewhere that asksam was used by the team unravelling the watergate burglary documents which is impressive, but I'm afraid that it is too rich for my blood. many thanks for mentioning it and Ultra Recall, which I am trialling for 45 days (30 days isn't always enough and 21 days breezes by). I purchased rightnote at the end of november on bits du jour and apart from the spreadshetts in the notes I really like that the developer Rael Bauer is developing actively and is responsive to his users. I have yet to use his product enough to want to send him requests for features. Similarly I am also very very keen on whizfolders as mentioned, I hear too that the developer, Sanjay is also responsive. ConnectedText as Dr Andus suggested, and which I know he uses extensively, and finally InfoQube. The developers of these last two, Eduardo and Pierre-Paul have been active on this site, and their products seem to take a radically different approach in their different ways to note taking and database organisation and retrieval and at such a deep level that my mind boggles.

I have followed a slow path in collecting data on my computer; first using notepad for continuous lists of alphabetized contacts, reminders on my desktop, various tidbits of info and mafia wars by Zynga in a toilet roll style, and then wanting chapters: I found scratch, which I used for about a month until the notes became unmanageable, and further requiring collapsible 'chapters' or properly called, an outline, and then I found mempad. This Horst Schaeffer offering served me for a good while and I created over many hundreds of nodes and then 2 years ago I migrated all of my notes to Essential PIM because it was on offer on giveawayoftheday.com. EPIM houses thousands of pages of my notes, and while i like it's multiple trees and icons which I use to the utmost, I have long since realised that I need to trade up to a much more powerful software for my note taking, storing and retrieval needs. EPIM has a good calendar and contacts feature and is aimed as an alternative for outlook users, but if I knew 2 years ago what I know now then I would have unhesitatingly gone with AM Notebook. Anyway now I am thinking carefully and reading a lot about software features and user feedback and have made a list of features that interest me, (the feature that is the title of this thread has been described in the donationcoder.com thread linked by Dr Andus elsewhere on these boards, (I link here below the two posts relevant to this thread from this earlier linked thread
Something eerily similar to my question at the beginning of this thread was asked by 2 separate posters >>
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.650
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #673 on: April 19, 2008, 08:49:01 AM »

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.750
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #767 on: October 25, 2009, 11:10:10 PM »

I guess that as I have so many desired features, don't we all? It would be the best thing for me to concentrate on currently powerful softwares with VERY ACTIVE and RESPONSIVE developers and then pitch my idea at them to see if they might add it in a future build!