Have you tried Infoqube lately?

Pierre is putting out new versions frequently.

http://www.infoqube.biz/download

InfoQube has come far from its origins as SQLNotes. I'm sure Pierre will extend its lineage back even further, but that is as far back as I go. Everything has been refined so in terms of performance and features, it is worth revisiting if you have not kept up. There is a new calendar for those who need it. Pierre has included several Ecco features and plans to make further improvements. Google synching is next.

Areas that need attention? Printing is a big one. There are some others, but these amount to fine tuning. Pierre has done a wonderful job.

Jon

I've kept tabs on InfoQube for over 5 years. Currently, I use it heavily as the front end for several knowledge bases, where I have a boatload of pdf's that I link up to my topics.

Pierre has done a ton of work over the years to make it a good piece of software. I use the portable version and sync the systems between a Win 8.1 desktop machine and a Surface Pro 2. What doesn't make sense in IQ goes into OneNote.

-Mike

Based on discussions in the Ecco Pro thread, I'm giving IQ another try. Could someone answer a simple question: how do you justify text in a grid column? I've tried everything I can think of and looked all through the IQ website without being able to find the answer.

Wayne

I could be wrong, but I don't see a way to justify text in a column either. There are lots of ways you can format column text, but that doesn't seem to be one of them. If an Item has attached HTML, that text can be justified in the HTML pane.

Wayne K wrote:

Based on discussions in the Ecco Pro thread, I'm giving IQ another try.
Could someone answer a simple question: how do you justify text in a
grid column? I've tried everything I can think of and looked all
through the IQ website without being able to find the answer.

Wayne

Great !
To justify text in a column, right-click on the column heading and select "Field Properties". Text alignment is in the General section. Currently, you need to close and re-open the grid for the setting to take effect. I'll fix that. I'll also add a context menu as in Ecco.


HTH

Thanks, Pierre. I had found that but it wasn't having any effect when I changed it. That explains it.

Since justifying is a pretty standard formatting option you might consider making it a toolbar command along with Bold, Font, etc.

Wayne

I'm adding a Column menu (same as Ecco) to collect all column related commands. It includes the new Alignment commands.
This should improve the UI (and removes clutter on the Grid menu too !)

I have another question for Pierre. Maybe I should switch to the InfoQube forums but I'll go ahead and post it here in case others find it useful for understanding IQ's capabilities. I'll try to not go overboard with questions here.

When I'm doing research I often find it useful to a do partial screen capture of a webpage (eg a table). I then insert it into my notes with the standard windows paste command. Most programs let you do that with no problem but I haven't been able to get IQ to allow it.

The only option I see in the notes pane (HTML editor) is to insert an image file. This requires the web capture to first be saved as a file, then inserted by navigating to the file directory. That's cumbersome and not nearly as fast and convenient as a straight copy/paste.

Am I missing something?

By the way, in Ecco Pro you can paste the capture image as an outline item, then collapse it so it takes up minimal space.

Wayne

Wayne K wrote:

When I'm doing research I often find it useful to a do partial screen
capture of a webpage (eg a table). I then insert it into my notes with
the standard windows paste command. Most programs let you do that with
no problem but I haven't been able to get IQ to allow it.

Hi Wayne,

What software are you using to do the partial screen capture ? I'll see what I can do...
(I use FastStone and it automatically creates a file for me)

Pierre

Pierre,

I use Faststone, too, but have it set to copy the image to the clipboard. That way I can quickly paste images into different programs. I know I can set Faststone to automically save the image as a file but it's still extra steps to insert images that way.

Wayne

Wayne K wrote:

I use Faststone, too, but have it set to copy the image to the
clipboard

OK, I'll see what I can do. One possibility would be for me to do on an image paste:
1- create an image file in the YourIQBase.sndb.files folder
2- Add a sub-item with the link to the image

This allows expand/collapse of the image in the outline, much like you can do in Ecco

Would that cut it for you ?

Pierre
IQ Designer

Wayne,

That is a really neat capability of Ecco to be able to paste an image from clipboard directly into a Ecco item. I've rarely used it but I can see how useful it can be. I wonder how it is stored internally in Ecco, i.e. whether the image is compressed at all, and how much it increases the size of your Ecco file.

I tried pasting an image (copied to clipboard) into an IQ item - no go - and into the HTML pane - no go. This makes sense because IQ's "item" field is a text field, and the ItemHTML field contains HTML text. You can insert a link to an image file in that HTML text.

IQ has four field types - text, yes/no, date, number. Might be useful to have other field types like image, file, URL.

jimspoon wrote:

I wonder how it is stored internally in Ecco,
i.e. whether the image is compressed at all, and how much it increases
the size of your Ecco file.

Just did a quick test. Inserting a 4MB jpeg increased the Ecco file by 26MB. This is exactly the size of that image if saved to BMP. PNG files are also affected, perhaps even more (a 19KB PNG increased the Ecco file by 4000KB)

No need to state the obvious...

Inserting images into an Ecco file should be minimized as much as possible.

HTH

Pierre

Pierre,

The idea about the images inside the outline was just a passing remark about what I think is a neat trick in Ecco Pro. If you think that's a good idea for IQ, I'd probably use it but I don't think It's a critical feature.

My primary concern was being able to paste images directly into the notes pane. I'm not a programmer so I have no idea how difficult it is to do. I guess I was thinking it's probably not too bad since most PIM's, even the simplest ones, have that feature.

The present arrangement isn't too bad...it's just a couple of extra steps every time you capture an image.

Jim,

Yeah, the problem with using it extensively is that it rapidly increases the size of the file. That's why I haven't put it to systematic use.

Wayne

jimspoon wrote:

Wayne,

I tried pasting an image (copied to clipboard) into an IQ item - no go -
and into the HTML pane - no go. This makes sense because IQ's "item"
field is a text field, and the ItemHTML field contains HTML text. You
can insert a link to an image file in that HTML text.

Jim,

But you CAN insert an image into the HTML pane as long as it's loaded from a file. If you can do that, it would seem like you can insert an image by copy/paste. But again, I'm not a programmer.

Wayne

Wayne K wrote:

But you CAN insert an image into the HTML pane as long as it's loaded
from a file. If you can do that, it would seem like you can insert an
image by copy/paste. But again, I'm not a programmer.

Wayne

Yes, it shouldn't be hard to do that. And now that I think of it, I seem to recall that IQ uses MHT format to store internally the content of its HTML panes? While HTML is just text, the MHT format is a container format that contains not only the HTML but also the embedded images, etc.

Good to know that Ecco stores pasted images in an uncompressed format. Too bad!

Wayne I am glad you are raising these points about IQ, because they had never occurred to me before.

I also have a wish list of things that are in Ecco that I'd like to see in IQ eventually. First and foremost is the file syncing feature. With Ecco I keep the same Ecco database on my desktop and several laptops at the same time. Changes made to the database on one computer get propagated to the other computers. It is a very handy feature, and one of the few things that keeps me from almost completely transitioning from Ecco to IQ. But I realize things have changed a lot since 1997 and Pierre may have different ideas on how to produce a similar end result.

Also in Ecco you can arrange the tree of folders (fields) with the same keyboard commands that you use to arrange items in an outline. Sometimes keyboard commands are easier to use than drag and drop.

I'm continuing to work my way through InfoQube. I knew this would take a serious time commitment. So far, I think it's worth it and would recommend that others who have been thinking about it give it a try. I'm going through the tutorials on the website and have created a test grid to try out menu commands.

It's an extremely powerful and flexible program that gives you a lot of control over how you organize information. So far I haven't found any glaring feature omissions.

I may be running into some of the rough edges I've heard about. In the HTML pane, I cannot get text and fill colors to work at all. Other formatting commands seem to work inconsistently. The first time I tried to justify text in a table, it wouldn't work on the first row of text. After a dozen tries, it suddenly started working. I have no idea what was going on with that.

Wayne

Wayne K wrote:

I'm continuing to work my way through InfoQube. (...)
It's an extremely powerful and flexible program that gives you a lot of
control over how you organize information. So far I haven't found any
glaring feature omissions.

Thanks Wayne !

New version is now online which addresses issues raised on this forum:

New: Grid: New Column menu (same as Ecco) to collect all column related commands. It includes the new Alignment commands.
This should improve the UI (and removes clutter on the Grid menu too !)
New: Grid: Improved column selection (supports CTRL and SHIFT)
New: Grid: Easy setting of column alignment
New: Grid: Paste clipboard images directly. A image file will be silently created and placed in the YourIQBase.sndb.files folder
New: HTML Pane: Paste clipboard images directly. A image file will be silently created and placed in the YourIQBase.sndb.files folder
New: HTML Pane: Foreground and Background color menu now shows a list of stock colors

HTH !
Pierre Paul Landry

Nice job, Pierre. I appreciate the quick fixes.

I'm giving InfoQube another try. Probably at least the fifth time I've tried in as many years. The potential, the flexibility, is awesome. I'm running in to the same problems I've had before but I haven't given up yet. I'll put my rant at the bottom...

This particular try I discovered I could do filter-as-you-type which works pretty good, and the web clipper is also pretty good. But here's the specific issues I'm having:

1. Filter as you type. CTRL+G, after you put something in, gives you a nice bar at the bottom of a column where you can type in text and pretty much as quickly as you type it hides all the items that don't contain the text. If you type two pieces of text then lines have to have both pieces, so it's an AND search, which is nice. But, it doesn't seem to have any sort of controls available, no OR, no NOT, no quoted phrases. And, like workflowy, if an item matches, it shows all the parents too. That's cool but I'd like to toggle it on/off with a click/button or something. I tried to find some help on this feature but there's either nothing or I can't find it.

2. Flatten the list. Can I quickly flatten a list and unflatten it?

3. Hierarchy itself. Trying to figure out #2 I fell down a rabbit hole about hierarchy. Functions called "hierarchy", "full hierarchy", "context parents". It's completely baffling. These two sections of the online help seem to say that what InfoQube is doing is completely counter-intuitive and should be fixed four years ago but isn't:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/261
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/1965

4. Search. I've tried using the "Omnibox" and some of the other search methods and I can't get the hang of ANY of them. Only the filter-as-you-type I mentioned above, and the column filter dropdowns make any sense to me.

5. Undo. Sometimes you can't undo what you just did? I don't understand. Help doesn't seem to explain it.

6. Expand and collapse all. There doesn't seem to be a shortcut, the best I can find is CTRL+SHIFT+9 which does 9 levels but not all. Also these only operate on an item and all its children, not an entire grid.

===
The Rant:

Generally speaking the main problem is that the documentation is terrible. What does exist is often outdated. Sometimes contradictory. The terminology is confusing. The homepage link labeled "IQ Documentation" goes to: http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=booktree ...

...and it's very confusing. Many of the things I've looked up have dates from 5-6 years ago and I try to follow the instructions only to find menu items are moved or terminology has changed.

I see there's a help file now, which I downloaded. Apparently it's just all these online help files from years ago packaged up in a Windows CHM. Still, it's better than the online.

There's posts called "Getting Started" and "Demystifying InfoQube" that don't help me get started and just make me more confused. Sigh.

yosemite,

Ctrl+1 ... Ctrl+9 should on all items in the grid, not just the current item. Ctrl+1 should show only top-level items; Ctrl+2 should show all top level and second level items, etc.

If you haven't already you might want to register for the Infoqube forum, and submit infoqube-specific questions there - might be more like to get answers there.

I do agree, Infoqube could be made easier to understand and easier to use ... I hope that will come over time as Pierre continues to work on the program.

Hi yosemite,

I'm the designer of InfoQube. I'll try to answer your questions here.
As Jim mentioned, you can also ask questions on the IQ community web site.

yosemite wrote:

This particular try I discovered I could do filter-as-you-type which works pretty good, and the web clipper is also pretty good. But here's the specific issues I'm having:

1. Filter as you type. CTRL+G, after you put something in, gives you a
nice bar at the bottom of a column where you can type in text and pretty
much as quickly as you type it hides all the items that don't contain
the text. If you type two pieces of text then lines have to have both
pieces, so it's an AND search, which is nice. But, it doesn't seem to
have any sort of controls available, no OR, no NOT, no quoted phrases.

I've updated the documentation on this. Checkout:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/854

In a nutshell, you can do logical AND and OR:
Some examples:
format : shows all items that contains that string anywhere in the text.
format*: shows all items that start with "format".
*format?ing: shows all items that have the string "format?ing" where ? can be any character.
format the item: shows all item that have those 3 words in the text.
*format* form*: shows all items that have the word "format" somewhere or that starts with "form".

You can also do NOT using the column specific filters (click the "Exclude" checkbox at the top of the column filter).

yosemite wrote:

2. Flatten the list. Can I quickly flatten a list and unflatten it?

There are a couple of ways. You can turn hierarchy off, turn context parents off and (recommended) do Hoist of selected items.

yosemite wrote:

3. Hierarchy itself. Trying to figure out #2 I fell down a rabbit hole about hierarchy.

IQ has various display options. It all depends on how the information in structured and what you want to get out. Believe me, all display modes are useful.
This page shows practical examples:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/261

yosemite wrote:

4. Search. I've tried using the "Omnibox" and some of the other search methods and I can't get the hang of ANY of them. Only the filter-as-you-type I mentioned above, and the column filter dropdowns make any sense to me.

The Omnibox can search for favorite items, grids, commands and items. Just enter part of the item text and hit enter. You'll get to a tab showing a live list of items matching your criteria. This search tab has full of options and supports AND OR, quoted string, etc. It is really powerful.

yosemite wrote:

5. Undo. Sometimes you can't undo what you just did? I don't
understand. Help doesn't seem to explain it.

Correct. Undo works for the last edit, most of the time...

yosemite wrote:

6. Expand and collapse all. There doesn't seem to be a shortcut

As Jim pointed out, Crrl+1 .. Ctrl+9 expands all items to the corresponding level


HTH !

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer
http://www.infoqube.biz
Forum: http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=tracker