Hi.

I got a used Dell XPS 10 tablet with keyboard. It has Office 2013 incl. Outlook and OneNote on board, I have already installed Dropbox and Evernote.
So: Any suggestions re. mindmapping, wiki or kanban software?

I'll report my impressions of the Dell machine in the next few days (though it has been discontinued by the end of last year).

Franz

There's a mindmapper called Novamind that works pretty well and an outliner called Mind Outliner. The latter can read and write to OPML, which makes it useful. I've made heavy use of OneNote and OneDrive (SkyDrive renamed). There's also a neat pdf package called Drawboard PDF which seems to be the best of the bunch.

I've stopped using Dropbox in favor of OneDrive and I stopped using Evernote in favor of OneNote - I got 200 GB by registering my Surface Pro 2; I also have an all-in-one with Win 8.1 and I've been looking to simplify and consolidate - I had stuff spread out all over the place and I began losing track of what I had and where it was located.

Hope this helps.

-Mike

Thanks Mike.

Novamind was already on my list - I use it on the iPad.
Dropbox - maybe I'll drop that on my Dell, too. I haven't figured out yet, how to exclude certain folders that I do not need on the Dell. Will look into that the next days.
I guess I'll stick with Evernote as most of the material I want to work on the Dell is in EN and not in OneNote.

Bye, Franz

Franz, I've used Freeplane and Xmind on Windows, both free, both bristling with features, and different enough from each other that I think you'll find them a good introduction to the genre.

Thanks, Jaslar.

I used to use Xmind Pro on my Windows machine, now I use Freemind. Both are not available on Windows RT as far as I can see.

Bye, Franz

Ah RT. Missed that.

Franz Grieser wrote:

Dropbox - maybe I'll drop that on my Dell, too. I haven't figured out
yet, how to exclude certain folders that I do not need on the Dell. Will
look into that the next days.

I don't know if it works the same in Windows RT, but in desktop Windows you can open the Preferences from the Dropbox tray icon, go to the Advanced tab, click on Selective Sync and uncheck the folders you don't want to sync locally. The selection only shows top level items by default, but you can also click on Switch to Advanced View to show the full tree and select in greater detail if you want.

Alex.

That is exactly what I miss in Dropbox for Windows RT. There simply is no such option.

Thanks Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

That is exactly what I miss in Dropbox for Windows RT. There simply is no such option.

Interesting; your response made me suspect something and I made a brief search online. If my conclusions are correct, there is a very simple explanation: the Windows RT Dropbox client (apparently the same as the Windows 8 'app', i.e. non-desktop) works like the Android client, which does not sync _anything_ on its own, other than the lists of folders and files, and only downloads/uploads file on demand.

See:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023853/dropbox-for-windows-8-arrives-missing-some-key-features.html
http://forums.wpcentral.com/microsoft-surface-windows-rt/239430-dropbox-integration-windows-rt.html
http://www.winbeta.org/news/dropbox-app-windows-8-and-windows-rt-receives-minor-update

In brief, the Windows RT Dropbox client does _not_ keep a full local copy of your Dropbox content. To verify this, try to access a file in Dropbox while offline.

Here is a possible solution:
http://solved.tweakblogs.net/blog/9543/dropbox-integration-in-windowsrt.html

In contrast, the Skydrive/Onedrive Windows RT client seems to work as we have come to expect from Dropbox desktop.

Alex.

You're right: No automatic sync, you only get a list of folders and files in the Dropbox storage. As long as you have Internet access, you can open files (only then, they are downloaded to the RT machine) or you can download files to the Windows download folder (so you can access them when offline).
But: I haven't found a way, yet, to upload a file I edited on the RT machine back to Dropbox. All I get is the option to upload it to Skydrive.

Well, this way Dropbox is unusable on the RT machine for me. I guess I have to swallow the bitter pill and use Skydrive. Too bad, as I use Dropbox to exchange files between all my machines, including the iPad.

Thanks for looking, Alex. Bye, Franz

I should add one thing: It would be OK for me, if Dropbox for RT only downloaded folders and files after I told it to (instead of automatically download everything that is in my Dropbox storage). So I would not have to worry about disk space on the RT machine (I only have 32 GB, though 20 GB are still left).
But the way Dropbox handles downloads is cumbersome, and the missing upload is simply inacceptable (maybe there is an upload option somewhere, but I couldn't find it).

Franz

With the Android Dropbox app you can "star* files (and I think folders) to store them locally on the Android device. I don't know whether this is also true of the RT app--but worth looking into!
Cheers,
critStock

Thanks CritStock.

In Dropbox for RT there are only 2 options:

1. Open the file in the corresponding application and store it wherever you want. There is no Dropbox folder, though (so no syncing).
2. Select the file and download it. The file is saved in the Download folder of the RT system.

I uninstalled Dropbox for RT yesterday and copied the files I need in the next few days via an USB stick. The place I am going to next week will have no Internet access so Skydrive is no option for the moment.

Franz