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An in-depth RightNote app-praisal
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Posted by donleone
May 16, 2014 at 07:03 AM
Having just recently seen some old RightNote posts getting “revived”, and being actually
a daily RightNote user myself, i thought to provide once a more in-depth review
(or you might call it rather an “app-praisal”), of what makes RighNote to me clearly one of the Top 3 Info-Managers on Windows,
when specifically considering (and needing) the unique combination of its integrated power-features mix,
that i am now in this post endeavoring, to bring out and “outline” in a more detailed way,
as to be the following:
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Great Database Foundation
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- since RighNote runs on SQLite 3 and loads only one item at a time it is power capable to grow to a huge database size
(of even tens of GBs, not just theoretically but practically, as in the case of when for example having many stored attachments in it)
providing that each attachment is kept systematically ideally below 20 MB as so to retain a fast user & loading experience,
since when files of say 50-100 MB get attached, RightNote will take each time ca. 20s to just load them up,
as soon as that attachment gets clicked, or even just selected upon.
- And even though automatic attachment changes/editing updating & saving, is sadly not supported yet
(so that thus only those attachments which are non-changing/static in nature, are thus useful to be internally stored)
RightNote on the other hand, does have a rather unique ability to not only allow for externally linked files (as many others do),
but with the added RightNote bonus, that even all these externally linked attachments become also automatically
fully indexed and search-able as-well (as if they were internally stored), providing that they are in an index-able file format, such as:
Text (.txt/.rtf), Word (.doc/.docx), Excel (.xls/.xlsx/.csv), HTML (.htm/.html) or PDF (.pdf).
and with any one of them (or all), being remove-able from the indexing at any time, via RightNote’s Options dialog.
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Special Tagging Features
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while there are of course many programs nowadays that offer tagging, it is very rare to my knowledge
that any one of them is able like RighNote:
- in the tag search results, to also display the item icons (in front of the item’s title)
AND their special tag icons (at the end of the item’s title, as in RightNote even each tag can be assigned an individual icon as-well,
that then of course gets applied unto all the thus tagged items as-well) and thus allowing for an extra level
of classification & instant-recognition when browsing through the tag search results list
- additionally, to have the tag search results also automatically grouped (and individually group collapse-able)
by on what tab/page/tree they are located on, makes it thus that much easier again, to quickly
by a mere glace find and zero-in unto exactly the section of results that you are interested in,
and without getting distracted by any other items that may appear in the tag results as-well,
just because they were once classified under the same general tag as-well.
- the tag search bar not only auto-suggests tags (which in of itself is a great feature)
but it does so suggesting not just in a mere word-completion manner (as many other apps only do),
but from the entire item name’s title - so that you can find a tag you’re looking for quickly,
even if the keyword you typed in is placed in the middle of the title AND WITH also the benefit
of having the auto-suggested type-matches instantly being yellow color highlighted
for an even faster recognition & drilling down to it ability, such as e.g. by simply pressing the down key.
- the alphabetic tag list that contains ALL the tags of your database, can be turned on/off by a simple toggle button,
so that you can at any time switch between seeing your entire list of tags in alphabetic order,
or else just using the tag search field, to thus typingly find your tags.
- also the “automatic folder tags” feature, that allows one to set tags for an entire folder and its sub-items,
is especially useful for the included feature, that one is able later, additionally to add to the folder
and have them additionally also then automatically assigned/changed to all the folder’s child items
AND to also any items that you from there on decide to drag into that folder as-well. Likewise,
if one drags an item out from a tagged folder, into another tagged folder, then of course all the tags
of the dragged items become automatically updated & changed, without any manual efforts at all.
- Similarly, if one simply needs to bulk tag assign/delete or bulk tag change/rename multiple specific item tags at once,
one can do it so in RightNote in at least 3 different ways, of either manually multi-selecting the desired items and tagging,
or more systematically via a searching of them out and then simply the search results re-tagging as desired,
or thirdly just renaming them simply in the alphabetic tag list directly, with again of course all the to that tag belonging items
being instantly bulk updated as-well.
- last but not least, also “tag merging” is possible, should you ever need to fuse 2 tags into 1,
with likewise of course both child’s items being auto-updated unto the new tag as-well.
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Great Tree Flexibility
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- item titles in the tree can be multi-line, up to as many multi-lines that you want,
by simply enabling that Option in the Tree Properties. (Too bad only that it is not yet possible
to then also retain that multi-line title display in the Search results or in the Tag search results as-well,
but there they get displayed as single-line only again, without of course changing the original multi-line)
- the ability to hoist the tree (and thus to focus-into just one section of the tree) which can also be helpful
- tree items can be of course assigned icons, and when the freely available “Complete Icons Pack”
is downloaded from the RightNote Website, one gets over 1000 icons to choose from for free additionally.
- tree items can have check boxes
- the tree can be alphabetically auto-sorted or just manually ordered
- the tree items can be automatically numbered too, in various simple or detailed styles
- item titles can be full row colored, or just the item name background colored, which also is a rare feature to see
- every tree of every tab/page can be individually configured just for itself, and retains perfectly exactly its last grouped/expanded state
on every program start, giving you thus a uni-form, and yet individual customize-able view
- finally also the ability to have the tree displayed as either in a Left or in a Top position over the Editor,
and be able again, to set that option individually for any of the tab/page’s trees, is also a very nice feature,
as some section of your database may lean itself to be displayed more a vertical tree style (as when having many items)
while another section of your database may lean itself to be better for a more horizontal tree style display
(such as when having very long title names or even phrases/sentences right in the tree’s multi-line titles, as in my case,
and then the horizontal view-ability of the tree becomes extremely useful as a quick scroll-through-glancer
over all your existing items of that section, without having to actually open any one of them)
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Useful Spreadsheet Note-type
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- the integrated spreadsheet-ability (no matter all its limitations) is still a very handy and rare feature,
that only a handful other info-managers on the market can native-integratingly offer, such as namely only
Memomaster, Swift to do List 9, AM-Notebook, Piwi Suite and Yozo Office.
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Flexible Security & Backup
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- The entire Database, and individual items on a note by note basis, can be AES encrypted & password protected
- Automatic backup and Automatic saving (to the same file) are configure-able at custom defined times
- and finally, the integrated so called “page transfer” AND “floating tree” feature, that both allow one to transfer
in & out items on either a per tab/page basis (page transfer) or an individual per folder notes section basis (floating tree)
from & to another notebook (actually up to & from 3 others open simultaneously) - is also a very helpful feature
when for some reason one should need to do a partial, or even entire database transfer.
- good import / export features with many exporting options, including the ability to merge multiple notes into a single output file.
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Other Useful Features
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- the ability to assign custom shortcuts to virtually every available command, is of course also a very handy feature
- and finally, not only does each tab (called “page” in RightNote) have its own distinct tree for itself,
that can be fully customized and configured individually without affecting any of the others (as described before)
but the pages feature becomes even more useful, when one selects in Tools/Options to have them displayed on the left side
and selects the text as to be “horizontally shown”, thus thereby creating a kind meta-menu side bar on the left
by which one can quick access the greater sections/pages/trees of one’s database.
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So that’s about it.
Greetings
donleone
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 16, 2014 at 08:56 AM
Excellent review - much fairer to RightNote than previous dismissals, I think. Thanks!
Posted by jimspoon
May 17, 2014 at 09:20 AM
Thanks for this very interesting post. I will take another look at Rightnote.
Posted by terry
May 17, 2014 at 03:52 PM
I’m a daily RN user too and I’m not sure I remember seeing real check boxes. Unless you mean the ability to have icons on the branches?
Posted by terry
May 17, 2014 at 05:20 PM
Never mind. I found it on the tree properties. That’s one irritation with this program, often options are in places you wouldn’t expect. I’d expect to see this on the Note properties or a general system setting but that’s just me.