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:


________________________

Great Database Foundation
________________________


- 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.



________________________

Special Tagging Features
________________________


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.



________________________

Great Tree Flexibility
________________________


- 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)



________________________

Useful Spreadsheet Note-type
________________________


- 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.



________________________

Flexible Security & Backup
________________________


- 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.


______________________

Other Useful Features
______________________


- 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.

___________________________


So that's about it.

Greetings
donleone

Excellent review - much fairer to RightNote than previous dismissals, I think. Thanks!

Thanks for this very interesting post. I will take another look at Rightnote.

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?

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.

terry wrote:

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?

Real checkboxes that can be clicked can be enabled individually for any tree separately,
by simply right-clicking on the tree and then going to "Tree Properties / Checkboxes = Yes".

Indeed, there are many such more "hidden" features that are sadly not well documented,
such as for example also the following 2 more power-tagging features that i forgot to include before:



Mass Tag Importing
___________________


You can pre-create for example in Excel, and then import your entire tagging system from a huge list at once
(at a rate of about 300-1000 tags a time, and about a 30s waiting time in-between, while it processes & alphabetically sorts them),
by simply using the regular "Tags..." entry field (which likewise can be accessed by just right-clicking on the tree)
and then NOT just entering only 1 tag and hitting enter as it says, but instead pasting into that tiny-looking field
100-1000 tags at once, in a comma separated fashion, and no spaces in-between, like this:

tag1,tag2,tag3,

which gets perfectly recognized and automatically processed into then creating/importing all the tags at once.
(and thus giving you the ability, to quickly re-create/bulk import your entire tagging system when for example switching to a brand new file)

Also remember, when mass importing, to create an empty dummy item to which you will assign all the tags initially unto,
so that you can upon completion just delete the dummy item, and thus auto re-setting thus all the tag counts back to "0",
while but still retaining all the once entered tags in the database still. And also, when needing to import / set-up your database
with multi-thousands of tags, it is not advisable to tag a single dummy item ever with more than 1000 tags, or it can slow the import down too much,
so simply in that case, create multiple dummy items, each to be loaded-up with up to 1000 tags at most at once.

On that note, it should also be said, that RightNote is very scalable in its tagging system,
and i have effectively tested (and am using it daily) with over 10K of tags put into it (try that with another software that does not run on SQLite)
without no slowdown whatsoever, and with only the initial import taking a while (just let it finish fully 20-30s each time),
but once they are in, everything goes blazing fast from thereon.

And also, when wanting to navigate say thousands of tags in the alphabetic tag list,
you can best quickly do so, by pressing/holding the PageDown/Up button inside the tag list.




Mass Tag Deletion
___________________


Likewise so, while it is sadly not possible to just directly "multi-select" multiple tags in the alphabetic tag list,
and just press delete to delete many at once - you can instead just simply focus the mouse on the red "minus" button above it &leave it there,
and when then starting from the lowest item selected (or from where you want to quick delete from) in the list,
you can then just quickly click,click,click,click (a hundred times or at this point use a simple macro tool to mass repeat a left mouse click)
to thus delete quickly many at once - since after deletion of a tag RightNote auto-jumps (without any dialog or anything) right to the next tag above it,
making thus a mass deletion possible in usually 30s or less.


Greetings
donleone

ah yes, and this one too is a hidden one

the Tree Items can not just be "bold" as provided in the quick access bar:

but actually when going to the "Note Properties" by a simple double click on the note (or pressing F2)
(to enable the double click you have to set it so in the Options / Tree (options) / Edit note properties on double click)

and then you get full selection menu, as follows:

bold
bold italics
bold underline
bold italics underline
italics
italics underline
strikeout

with especially the "strikeout" being possibly a useful one.

So, yes, RightNote is known to could use some "usability" improvements,
but makes up more than enough for it, in its great stability and scalability.

Greetings
donleone

"much fairer to RightNote than previous dismissals, I think"

Would you please be so very kind as to compare the starting date of this thread here with this other one,

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=oesiu6cupudd9v84af2n01sqh2&topic=37935.0 ,

and yes, it's always a good thing to cross-reference, at least when lengthy posts are spread over several fora.

Thank you so much.