Swift To-Do List has been around for a long time, enthusiastically marketed by its developer. It's a nice program, hitherto limited by being confined to Windows only. But that's not necessarily bad - the latest version (9) has added some great features, including support for tables and spreadsheets (not unlike AM-Notes, but rather smarter). It's turning into a very powerful two-pane outliner.

And the latest features update includes a teasing hint that iOS and Android apps are imminent. Now that would make it highly desirable!

More details: http://www.dextronet.com/swift-to-do-list-software/features

Cheers,
Bill

I've been lurking round here for about a year (thank you), but just joined to post this. No affiliation to Dextronet at all, but I do really like their software. It strikes me as very well designed - features tend to do what I want and expect them to do first time, so I find it very easy and natural to use. Also, the tech support is prompt, human and intelligent (you know, as opposed to the cut-and-paste-robot variety), and they're responsive to suggestions.

I've not seriously thought of using it for information management - I have UltraRecall, and I've got very fond of having items with multiple parents - couldn't do without that.

Only snag I have is with backing up the database. They're currently working on its inbuilt cloud synch for the latest version. It also can't be backed up when the file is open, and getting the backup software (Syncback) to force the program to close doesn't free up the file for backing up either - it has to be closed from within the program. So as far as I can see, backup can't currently be automated. Well... I can always add a reminder...

I've always liked it, I must say, but been put off by the lack of cross-platform compatibility. What you say about sync and backup is also interesting.

But it appears a Big Step Forward is imminent. And given the responsiveness of the developer, I'm hoping for good things!

THE CANCER INDUSTRY VS. THE SW INDUSTRY

"given the responsiveness of the developer"...

Well, there's sometimes sort of pseudo-responsiveness, but let's discuss this...

"And the latest features update includes a teasing hint that iOS and Android apps are imminent. Now that would make it highly desirable!"

I

In journals, there's often an "editorial", i.e. a page where the editor-in-chief spreads his views of things...

Most of the time, I don't read those, and that's why it's been just today that I had a furtive look into Christof Windeck's c't editorial in issue 21/2013, where he writes,

"Den viel zu früh verstorbenen Steve Jobs bewundere ich (...)",

which in English means he admires Steve Jobs, and he considers Jobs to be gone much too early.

Well, my conception is different, and I said so upon his death, calling him "that corpse from Cupertino" in the UR forum; I got NOT censored upon this, and that's exactly why I, on every possible occasion, tell people about the BENEFITS of UR, notwithstanding the fact that I had (even then) transferred my stuff into a very special set up of AO and AHK; Kyle isn't "responsive", but he's not a censor, and anytime he'll be willing to "listen", it will not come to his harm.

Jobs was the eponym of an asshole (he's got a "natural daughter", and his M of that "affair" alone makes him despicable forever), and he said so himself - both are facts.

Then, Jobs did NEVER EVER do ANYTHING NEW (and people who think otherwise, bec/of his "Mac", are just poorly informed) - he made his fortune from stealing (and then, very minor adaptions, and from hiring good product designers), exclusively.

The above is not OT, in light of the above citation. SINCE:

Now look, excuse me: Also in the medical industry, some people say cancer isn't exterminated bec. too many high-paid professionals make their splendid living out of - unsuccessfully - treating cancer; I cannot speak for the possible truth in this.

BUT...

It seems obvious that some Jobs, or anybody else, could have made it possible to get us a Win slate with 14 hours running time AND with an 800 g weight - by financing the developments necessary for that: Intel processor amendments.

By lack of this, we've being served, for that last 5 years of so, with TOTAL SHIT, with "Android", which, had the relevant people in the "industry" done "their work", would never have been "necessary" to begin with.

So all this endless manpower waste to "adopt" applics to other OS's is an incredible shame (and if you think the Win system is rubbish to begin with, ok, but then we should have been given the ultimate alternative, on ALL platforms, years ago, and done away with Win) - it totally blocks developers' availability for THINKING, for sw breakthroughs:

Employing ace developers with mechanical "transition work", instead of having them overcome the limitations of the human mind - it's outrageous.

II

Re Swift-To-Do.

The developers markets his main product as a (totally overpriced) to-do sw, BUT as I see it, it also could be a very valuable "outliner", as we discuss IM sw here (and together with clones), and in this respect, it would not be overpriced at all.

On the other hand, the developer markets some sort of a (totally overpriced) outliner but which seems to be nothing more than a "sub-product" of the above one, which he calls "Tree Notes" (both products were on sale on bits recently). Now, Tree Notes is completely worthless, but Swift-To-Do is not.

Which makes me wonder if you really could use Swift-To-Do with, say, 100,000 items, and what would be the, say, "difference to UR", then.

Thus, if somebody out there, ever, tried to put it to heavy duty outliner use, please speak out! ;-)

ad I

I'm sorry, my point (which I had left out) had been that instead of propagating the unnecessary and harmful divergation of IO's, Jobs should have employed 1 billion of his 150 billion or so into developement of a "Mac slate", by thus having overcome Win predominance altogether, AND having spared all of us these endless, fruitless searches for "compatibility". Btw, my "smart phones" are Nokia Communicators (which I had adopted very early on, together with the appropriate sw, so I'm speaking from experience here, even though I have always refused to adopt cloud solutions).

I picked up swift pro v8 on bits and used it for quite while. I find I start out enthusiastically with tree based programmes, but as the tree gets bigger and it requires more effort to file items away correctly, I eventually give up on them. Swift has some nice features, such as the ability to drag emails across to create tasks or to store for reference.

The new features in v9 would be nice to have, but the upgrade price from v8 to v9 of $50 seems excessive. Although, not surprising as the cost is high anyway. For example, spell checking is withheld from the pro version and reserved for the ultimate version which is $150! Also, major versions are released quite frequently- seems like once a year, so if you want to keep current with bug fixes etc, you need to think about ongoing costs.

I guess like most app developers these days, jiri has his eyes on a subscription based web service which will be necessary to sync the desktop versions with the online version and iOS/android versions. Like many other developers, eg PersonalBrain, the plan seems to be to get desktop users to payout big money for minimal changes to desktop versions dressed up as major releases, in order to fund ios/android development.

NW, I thank you very kindly for your confirming what I've said before, Jiri's overpricing his offerings (which is his legitimate choice), AND we're driven into subscription models which ain't in our, the users' interest.

This being said, I perfectly understand that some developers want to make "real money" out of their offerings, not only get handouts; IS (Info Select) is a prime example for that stance, which I acknowledge wholeheartedly. But then, of course, those devlopers should "deliver", and the question remains if Juri "delivers", speaking from the pov of a heavy-duty "IMS user", i.e. some user who tries to put thousands and thousands of info items into his main product, and I fear that's not the case; btw, his info M product, TreeWhatever, does NOT seem to be a "sub-group", functionality-wise, of his main product, but certainly a spin-off of it, but I want to express, it has probably been a false perception of mine to suppose that, anyway, his main product was able to do everything that his (sub-standard) outlining spin-off delivers, "and more"; technically, his main product "should" be able to be "a heavy-duty regular 2-pane outliner with clones", but in fact, I don't know if this is wishful thinking of mine.

Let's face it, in today's (perverted) world (cf. my writings yesterday on "withholding" programmers' "man hours" within endless adaptation work, instead of paying them for "real" work, i.e. finding better solutions to today's tasks, sw-wise), Jiri's not among those who don't see reality, but belongs to the select group of developers-who-try-to-adapt-to-things-as-they-currently-are, which is a positive point. But of course, his core product should deliver, just adopting inferior products to several platforms certainly could not be a valid answer to today's IMS sw probs.

Hence my question how Jiri's core product delivers if you try to manage let's say 20,000 items with it - let alone my about 150,000...

You're joking, 22111. Are you?

Hence my question how Jiri's core product delivers if you try to manage
let's say 20,000 items with it - let alone my about 150,000...

We're talking about a to-do list. Do you plan to collect a life's to-dos in one file?

By "items" he might mean posts to OutlinerSoftware.

About 'overpriced' - well, yes, the price gives pause for thought. But maybe it's more accurate to say 'priced enough to keep the software in development'? The alternative seems to be to have the developer despair of making a living and abandon development. (I once suggested to the developer of UR that he pre-sell a substantial upgrade with much-requested features like tagging and a full calendar. I reckon he still has - or had - a sufficiently enthusiastic user-base who'd support that: there were some of us who bought the latest upgrade just as a gesture of support, after all. He wasn't remotely interested in the idea.)

I haven't tried STDL with a very large database. I do use it just as a to-do list and UR for thinking and journalling, though if STDL ever gained the ability to have one item with several parents, that might change. Maybe I should ask for that...

I use Swift To-Do and recently paid for the upgrade to 9.0. It's pricey, no doubt about it, and I did hesitate about the upgrade. It's a very nicely put together program with excellent support. I finally decided I was willing to pay extra for that.

I agree that it has potential to be a full-featured PIM, not just a To-Do list. Information is displayed in a three-pane format: a tree on the left, a list of items in the top right pane, and a notes section at the bottom right.

Individual items are displayed with columns (fields) that can be freely re-arranged. There are a couple of columns that can be customized. Jiri is looking at providing more customized columns in an upcoming update. If that happens, I'm going to try it out as information manager. Note, however, that it doesn't have tagging. And the searching is not sophisticated.

I'll probably end up sticking with Zoot but the three-pane format is kind of enticing.

Wayne