Hello,

First of all I would like to say hello to everyone as this is my first post. I was introduced to OutlinerSoftware through DonationCoder where I've been also searching for recommendations.

To provide a quick overview, I am looking for a personal information management software that combines the following features that I've greatly enjoyed with other apps:
- fast-as-you-type search with multi keyword highlighting (different color per word) similar to X1 search
- note title fast-as-you-type filtering like in TreeProjects
- Builtin file viewer and indexer of most popular document files including PDF, DOCX, XLSX, XLS, PPT, etc similar to X1 utilizing Outside In libraries from Oracle (previously Stellent). If a document file needs to be edited, there should be an option to edit using the native app (i.e. MS Word, MS Excel, Acrobat, etc). Once the edits are made, the updated file should be automatically saved in the manager's database (similar to Evernote or TreeProjects)
- Rich text editing of notes with advanced table support (merged cells, cell margins, hide borders, border styles, etc) and basic image editing tools (crop, rotate, resize, border shadow, draw shapes on top, etc). So far My Notes Keeper would be the winner in this category but it's still lacking image editing
- create sticky note using a global hotkey - each sticky note should have full rich text editing capabilities (including images) and should be displayed in its own minimalistic windows, similar to GloboNote and Notezilla (both lacking advanced table features and image editing). Once a sticky note is closed, double-clicking on it in the main manager should bring it up again in its own minimalistic window with always-on-top, roll up and transparency options
- automatic capture of clipboard content including text, images, web pages, etc. and saved in a specified folder inside of the manager's database. Clipboard Help & Spell does this very well but is lacking rich text editing. Also, global key to paste text as plain.
- Portability would be a plus
- Alarms and flags (similar to GloboNote)
- rearranging of notes by drag and drop (custom), date, alphabetical, etc (similar to TreeProjects)
- would be ideal to have each note saved in it's own encrypted file for easy synchronizing using services such as google drive or dropbox. Having to synchronize one huge database file every time there is a small change would be a mess.
- database encryption like in TreeProjects

I know this is asking for much but it never hurts to have dreams :-)
Looking forward to all recommendations.

Cheers!

you forgot to mention another feature : cleaning home

MotionTwelve wrote:

I am looking for a personal information
management software that combines the following features that I've
greatly enjoyed with other apps

An alternative option, in case you can't find such a software that can do it all (I don't know of any), is to find the two or three software that can do most of these features and then link them to each other to form a **toolchain** supporting your desired workflow via

* URL links from one item or file in one application to another item or file in another application

* compatible export/import formats

* AutoHotkey (or similar) scripts to automate transfer of info

* copy and paste

@MotionTwelve, interesting list

"information manager" -- a post-it note and pencil combo is an "information manager". What specific tasks are you looking to do? Research? Project management? Write a novel?

Cleaning my house and a back massage would definitely make it perfect. Lol
I know my wish list is over the top but there must be others with similar needs. The main feature for me is being able to quickly take down a note without losing focus of the main task at hand. Therefore, a hotkey to instantly create a sticky note would be ideal. However, I would still like to have management ability for organizing and retrieval. So far the only powerful information manager that I could find that also has sticky notes is AML Pages. Overall it's a great package but two areas that it struggles with is importing document files (pdf, docx, xlsx, etc) and outdated search. Other than that it basically covers my needs. I think being able to undock individual notes in their own simplified windows like in AML Pages is so crucial when multitasking. Since it supports plugins, I am hoping they can add a powerful internal document viewer. I already made a suggestion on their site. Also, basic image operations like crop, rotate, resize, border could be implemented for visual note takers like myself.

"would be ideal to have each note saved in it’s own encrypted file for easy synchronizing using services such as google drive or dropbox. Having to synchronize one huge database file every time there is a small change would be a mess"

As is said above, very simple macros could successfully mock a missing in-built instant note function.

No index-relying search tool (X1, etc.) "reads" any PIM format, not even (and astonishingly so) the quite widespread though SQLite format, which means by choosing any PIM, for all its content, you deliberately renounce upon any better search functionality such dedicated search tools could have, and exclusively rely upon the strength (or weakness) of the inbuilt search tool of the specific PIM; of course, external tools could only show hits within their specific context, and a click on that hit there would NOT bring the record/item in question to the screen, within the PIM: You would have to search again there. (This double search would not be devoid of sense in many cases, though, since more sophisticated external search could perhaps better show you the relevant hit(s), and showing their context, you could then do an internal search that would be better targeted. As said, this is not possible at this point in time since those external tools do not even index PIM records.

Syncovery has both cloud copying and delta copying (which relies not on specific db records but on specific (= not copying again and again unchanged) hdd sectors, and if it combines cloud with delta (i.e. if it's able to apply delta to cloud synching, too), it will partly solve your cloud synch problem at least.

It derives from the above that for the time being, pc users who refrain from using a PIM but try to contain their stuff in X1-etc.-readable formats instead, with multiple groupings made possible by tagging strategies, are not doing totally wrong. (Since as explained above, even X1-or-similar's over-due integration of the SQLite format would not resolve the problem of identification of / navigation to the relevant db item containing the relevant hit. Or then, X1 (or some other tool) would also retrieve the respective record ID, of which display could then be triggered by an API of the PIM in question. Chance is such a thing will not come tomorrow, X1, etc.'s markets numbering in millions, PIM's markets being 3 zeroes smaller. In other words, a willing PIM would probably have to pay X1 for doing such (technically easy) integration, and that would not help for Copernic users.)

This splicing up of your stuff - for one, individual files that are searchable by X1 and consorts, and then all the stuff put into your PIM - is the biggest problem for data integration PIM users face; hence the interesting approach of UR and such to extend their internal search to external documents, by indexing them internally.

And instead of asking for image editing within a PIM, UR's concept of integrating a pic viewer could of course be extended to integrating the pic editor of your choice, by simply displaying its window within the PIM's content frame (as UR does with Word e.g.).

Currently, there are some systems on the market which splice up your PIM's "records" into multiple individual files; all of them are plain-text only, but technically, it would be easy to do the same with rtf, html or xml files, and as plain text files, these would be searchable without problems by X1 and consorts and thus re-integrate with your non-PIM stuff. In a word: PIM not as a distinct data repository anymore, but as a dedicated tagging-and/or-sorting structure.

You would have X1 or similar, you would have your file system, and you would have a very light PIM overlaying your file system, in order to get better grouping functionality as your file system offers. Or then, replace ntfs with something compatible but much more powerful.

In other words, PIMs are just crutches for trying to overcome the incredible lightness of MS's thinking work into what a file system should deliver.

And Caleb, thank you so much, you made my day!

If you ever succeed in finding an information manager that does all those things, I hope you'll let the rest of us know about it. Meanwhile, I would say that Evernote and OneNote can each do about 75 percent of the items on your list, in slightly different ways.

Workflowy and Gingko are definitely worth looking at.

Workflowy could be a kind of info HQ with links to other applications as needed.

Gingko provides another perspective for a whole bunch of things from information management to creative work.

The key aspect, especially if you have crores of files (seemingly - oops, a crore is 10 million), is having a fast, simple, present everywhere central registry - a map as it were. Workflowy can do that.

So can a notebook and a fountain pen. And I am not talking about hybridized analogue/digital notebooks which Moleskine creates and sells at horrendous prices. Each individual, though, is responsible for amounts to be spent on, and numbers of, fountain pens and inks. For this I highly recommend Canada's own WonderPens.ca - reasonable prices, great service. Also GoultetPens.com in the US. I believe both companies, though unrelated operate with similar commitment to customer service and personalizing the fountain pen/notebook experience in a good way.

I appreciate all the suggestions. As 22111 commented, leaving everything in unrestricted formats definitely has many advantages. With a more powerful file manager like Directory Opus or XYplorer, you can replicate many of the outlined features such as fast-as-you-type file name filtering or quick previews (both Dopus and XYplorer support Quick View Plus from Avantstar which is another example of Oracle Outside In's technology). However, the biggest disadvantage using such standard approach is that you have to deal with the files individually. In my case, for instance, I have to constantly switch between files back and forth while making frequent changes. With most advanced information managers, I can quickly arrange my urgent notes and have them available with one click, without the need to worry about opening and saving or figuring out if it's already running, etc. The only way I could see that using file manager approach would work if I had 50 files open at the same time, which would be such a mess on the sreen.

Like per my previous post, there are some mangers that are getting very close (i.e. AML Pages). For instance, if UltraRecall or RightNote had the ability to undock individual notes and improved their search and editing, I would be set.
Also, like someone else mentioned, another option to improve more advanced editing is to use the native apps (MS Word, Excel) right inside the main manager window, just like TreeProjects does.

Have you looked at InfoQube?

http://www.infoqube.biz/

I think I have checked it (InfoQube) out a while ago but I will give it a go again. Thanks Dr Andus. Btw, didn't I see you on DonationCoder as well? lol

OneNote looks great on paper. Once I've started using it, the limitations started to appear. For instance, when inserting documents like PDF, DOCX, etc. it actually converts it to images and show it in a strange zoomed out view. I know that it OCRs it just like Evernote but not good when trying to reuse data.
Also, you would think that table support would be top notch since it's the same company behind Excel. Try merging cells or hiding borders. No go (this is referring to standard OneNote tables, not the excel component that you have to edit through actual Excel). For search, it almost gets my vote (still can't compete with X1).
Lastly, I don't like OneNote's style of free form editing where you can insert cursor wherever you wish. I prefer the more standard top to bottom approach. It does, however, offer sort of sticky notes but it's a bit awkward (you will know once you try it)

On another note, check out The Journal if you want to see embedded image editing. Any of the MS Office apps also provide such tools.

I think the features I am after are not out of this world and numerous products are getting closer. I think speaking about it more might speed up development in the right direction.

"However, the biggest disadvantage using such standard approach is that you have to deal with the files individually. (...) The only way I could see that using file manager approach would work if I had 50 files open at the same time, which would be such a mess on the screen."

That's precisely the reason why I did NOT mention current file managers as a possible solution yet. But just imagine a PIM without its own storage, but working as a file manager, but as a spiced-up one. You would have your trees as in any traditional PIM, and you even would have pre-fetch of the presumably relevant files, just as there is pre-fetch of the presumably relevant SQLite records in UR today (or as there is pre-fetch of the pics of a folder and its sub-folders in FastPictureViewer).

Your user experience would not differ from a traditional, db-based PIM, but X1, etc. would have access to the individual rtf/html/xml/or such files (in place of db records), and there, and clicking on such a hit in X1/or similar would display the file in question within the new-gen PIM.

As you rightly evoke, today's file manager developers don't see this market (yet).

@22111: I am beginning to think that I might have to take that path. What PIM would fall in this category?
The two recent ones that caught my eye and include sticky notes are Essential PIM and WizNote. If WizNote could be setup completely offline, I would look no further. Evernote should take example from these Chinese developers. Clean GUI, powerful editing, low resource usage, document import, docked and undocked notes, etc. Simply amazing! The only problem is that it's a cloud based app and I would like to avoid that. EssentialPIM, on the other hand, is somewhat limited with things like editing and document import but allows cloudless operation.

My son, a budding film director, pretty much lives in EssentialPIM, rather to my amusement. It has its quirks, but it's a very impressive application, especially if you want to store a lot of data. Having said that, I've always been somewhat dissatisfied with its search function, which isn't quite as comprehensive or stable as it could be.

Possibly the best search engine ever, anywhere, is the one built into Adobe Reader. This is capable of searching through multiple PDF files in multiple folders (including subfolders), producing a useful list of ALL the results (with a bit of surrounding text for contextual purposes), and highlighting the results in the individual PDFs. All this without indexing. When you stop and think of just how clever that is, it's actually quite breathtaking.

Speed is something of an issue, but the more you use it, the faster Adobe Reader's search function works. So for example, I keep dedicated repositories of PDFs for different clients. If I want to search through my reference texts for a particular client, I simply point Adobe Reader's search function at the set of folders I've dedicated to that client. As I keep searching for stuff in there, the searches become faster and faster, presumably because AR uses a cache function.

The good thing is, it's easy to turn more or less any file into a PDF. On a PC, you can use a "print to..." app like CutePDF. On a Mac, you can generate PDFs as a matter of course (it's built-in). So if you're looking for a solution that's not app-dependent, using pure PDFs is a good option. Not least because Adobe Reader isn't the only piece of software that can search rapidly through lots of PDFs. On a PC, you could use e.g. Copernic Desktop or X1. On a Mac, you could use Spotlight or FoxTrot Pro. And there are plenty of other PDF apps out there, too (like the brilliant PDF Xchange Editor for PC, for example).

Cheers,
Bill

1

Don't bring down your selection to the "instant note" feature; as said, a short macro would go to your PIM, create a new item in its "inbox" part":

assign a shortkey to:
go to (ever-running) PIM (high-brow macro languages can do this without your minimized PIM becoming visible: you just see the inbox(es))
go to parent item called "0", on top of the tree (or if there are several trees in tabs, go to the "inbox" tree/tab)
show an input box (you can have two very similar macros instead, but the following is much more elegant)
if your very first char you type is a dot, your input will become the title of the new item (here, it's written in a variable first),
and after your "enter", a second inbox will appear for your note (which you will close with a "shift-enter", so "enter" will remain available for note's paragraphs; your input goes into a second variable)
else (no leading dot): your text is considered the note's text (closing the note by "shift-enter" as before, and your text goes into variable 2),
and the macro will create the note's title from precise day and time (with seconds; you will revise these unique but quite meaningless titles in a row, afterwards, this title goes into variable 1)
THEN (in both variants):
the macro will create the new item as (another) child of the "0" parent item, with title from var1 and text/content from var2
and the macro will hide the PIM again (in case the macro language had not been able to work on the minimized PIM anyway) and revert back to the application you had worked when you had triggered the "quick note" shortkey

2

I don't know of any current PIM creating items as files, except for some exotic ones that all do just .txt files, i.e. don't allow for formatted content, which is unacceptable; it's quite ironic some PIMS create such distinct files on export, though, but replicating their tree structure to/within a folder structure (root item becoming parent folder, level 1 items becoming first-level folders in that, with level 2 items becoming sub-folders of the respective level 1 folders, and so on), "hoping" that other PIMs will be able to rebuild a tree, from this folder structure. (In a new-gen PIM described above, those distinct content files would NOT replicate the tree structure, but perhaps be stored by 1,000 or such, in different siblings folders; any tree classification would only be present within (multiple) trees.)

I've got a very high 3-digit number of ActionOutline files which I access from dedicated PM software, from the file system, as well as any other files, i.e. I both restrain the scope of any outline, and enlarge the "utility factor in different contexts" as much as possible, for any outline, as for any other file (pdf, Excel, Word/in fact Atlantis), i.e. I treat my outlines as "regular files", as any other regular file, i.e. I try to maximize the wanted(-by-me) singularize-effect for outlines, too. (In the past, I posted lots of considerations on this subject here in this forum, my main point being that most pc users, perhaps more than 90 p.c., do NOT use dedicated outlines, but just do (at the very best) some outlining in Word, etc., so perhaps they are not all wrong, and our "outlining folly" might be some weird infatuation; my cutting up things, then recombining them again, in a "higher" sphere, i.e. by a file system PM tool, was done by my wish to revert my IM to something more "regular", more "normal".)

It goes without saying that even in a traditional "power outliner" like UR and such, you can replicate such a "sensibly-fractionized-then-recombined" system by heavy usage of internal linking resp. cloning "sub-parents" as children of "adoptive parents" elsewhere in the "big tree", and then hoisting.

But, it's interesting (or should I say, passionate?) to see that quite "flattened-out" IM tools like Evernote, CintaNotes (which has become both quite expensive (no more 10$, or 20$ for a lifetime license) and quite elaborate (but I have doubts about its capabilities vs. EN, but anyway, I consider its linking capabilities quite cute)), and even MS OneNote, seem to get incomparably more users than traditional outliners: This catenation/juxtaposition concept seems to please the "big number" much more than obviously does the hierarchies-brought-to-a-max concept (on this topic "flat vs. deep", too, you can find some elaborations of mine in these threads here).

A personal note (anyone else's mileage might radically differ): Since I've been "misusing" a (primitive) outliner (as said, AO) as "a better Word", i.e. holding my outlines "short and flat", but recognizing that for data, such dedicated outlines are much better though than, say, Word files in which you hamper with "formats" in order to get some "outline", I've stuck to ONE system for quite some time now, and I'm always striving to optimize this system (by optimizing my file-system-based PM tool which overlays (and overlooks) those innumerable (outline, and all other) files), whilst in the past, I changed my IMS (including my own one, almost 20 years ago now) regularly, forth, even back, and to some third one, and endlessly so (= crimping); from my not-looking out anymore for some "better" commercial PIM, I deduct, just for me, that my concept of holding light compounds of data, but do a max for smartly combining these compounds in various ways, serves me best, or better at least than any other IM concept I ever tried before (and of course, the fact that seemingly 90 p.c. or more of people out there neither are into heavy outlining, confirms my perception of not doing entirely wrong, whilst traditional big-scale outlines always got me to miss the forest for the trees, or was it the other way round?).

3

Either way, you also need quick search results over it all, and as said, current index-building search tools do not search outlines: They simply refuse to index all files, big or small, with the respective suffixes. So what can you do?

A traditional PIM like MyInfo offers multi-outlines search in two flavors: over all currently opened MI outlines, and over all MI outlines within some directory; there are some other such PIMs, it seems, but not many: The otherwise much more robust* UR does not offer that often-asked-for "global" search (so you will be always tempted to create monster files in it). (*= "robust", well, very unfortunately, MI, for me, never got rid of its bugs, or more precisley, always introduced new bugs for exterminated ones, and just some weeks ago, I trialled the then most recent version of it for a special, finite task (for which I needed cloned items) I was so fed up with doing it in askSam; well, it took me about 10 minutes of trying to have it shaped my task's way (sorting by different of several attributes/columns), with just some 6 or 8 (empty) items, and it crashed again, and that had unfortunately be my experience in the past with MI, so I again discarded that application.

Also, UR's (quite elaborate, since SQLite-based) search is not very robust, i.e. you never know if it displays all hits, or if it does not, and no user ever, over at their forum, really got to the intracacies of this UR "translation-for-the-user" of SQLite's inherent search functionality (from which such missing of hits should very probably not arise originally) - the developer tries to be helpful, but perhaps he should have another very good look in those parts of his code? I really don't know about it, but from my experience - and I tried really hard -, I would not advise to rely entirely upon UR's search function.

Again, what can you do? Run FileLocator (Lite or Pro) on your monster file resp. on your several quite big files? Perhaps on an ssd? And perhaps you should buy Pro indeed, since you will need its "near" feature, in order for such an approach to make sense.

What do I do? (Remember, my (outline and other) files are small enough in order to not necessarily need that "near" keyword). First, FLP does not have "search in search results" (as invoked by me in a thread here dedicated to that refusal on the part of the developer). Second, neither FLL nor FLP (to which such functionality could of course have been restricted) search for European characters in my files (could be similar in UR, etc., but the same trick would apply), so if I want to search for a term like über (German for uber, ha, ha, ha), FL must search for \'fcber, but then will find that word (and display it as such, with its context, in its hit table), the developer not being interested in integrating a simple transcription table into his code, while these encodings are standard rtf char codes though.

That's the double reason why I always refrained from buying FLP, but of course, I've got respective AHK macros to translate my "über" to its above, FL-readable transcription, from my input box into the respective FLL text search field; of course, my not wanting to give the developer my money, takes away some functionality of that program for me, so perhaps one day I'll overcome my reluctance to pay for this tool.

Now for the trick I've been going to share. Whenever I search for some search term combination, this would take 15 minutes: For about 6 gb of data, it had been some 6 minutes before; now that I've got my data on an external hdd (usb 2.0), these searches have almost tripled in time. That's why I finally got interested in FL's possible speed enhancements for me, and yes, the pro version only could work more speedily if I had got multiple cores, which I don't (and which is a third reason in my case to not hand over my money to the unhelpful developer).

In fact, I advise you to click onto the help button to the right of the file name field (I previously only had been interested in "help" for the search term field, which was a big mistake of mine indeed): You will see that even (the current version of) FLL (so beware of a possibly more-crippled later one, cf. how Copernic Free had been more and more crippled from one version to the next, to the point of being crap today) is able to combine search scopes; let me give you a real-life example:

*.ao:0;ps*.ao

which means FLL will search in all .ao files, in the folder (and, if you want it to do so, its subfolders) specified in the "Look in" field, that either have "0" anywhere in their filename (= some inboxes), OR of which the filename begins with ps (a sub-range of files; in that help pop-up, the developer gives even more elaborate examples, incl. "not" (!)) - it's clear as day from the above that (even) FLL (not speaking of FLP) is an invaluable tool for anybody who needs to search "non-standard" files, and as for me, my standard searches with FLL have come down to some perfectly acceptable 30 or 50 seconds again, and for anybody, with proper tagging within his or her file names, this should be a reasonable horizon, too: No need to search your car or your health files, let alone all your business things, if you just wanna look up some educational stuff for your family, but which might be put in some inbox or any one of 4 or 6 files out of perhaps several hundred (of that file type).

This "trick" is a classic example of continued overlooking the obvious, AND of so many people raving of some thing, but without giving reasons, without giving specifics.

4

To summarize, if (you think) you need very large files, try applications like UR and similar, together with FLP (and discard the former if the latter cannot read its file format), on an ssd, and if you think that a multitude lighter (but properly tagged) files are preferable, try some lighter applications, again with FLP (or FLL): As for the question if FL can, or cannot, read the respective file format, just open a copy of such a file within an editor and look for how characters are encoded, then search for exactly these (possibly weird) search terms.

You can always combine X1 (for the non-exotic stuff; well, I cannot since current X1 version does not work anymore with XP: waiting for WinTen) with FL, and yes, I left out dtSearch here (which would be your very first try if in case you're willing to accept their asking price: I know about the possible irony to use a 30$ applic for processing your stuff, and then use a 250$ tool to search within that stuff, but such is life, right? It's all about multiplied costs for the last mile of the journey. Btw, integrated dtS would be the ideal search component (which would even be available at a price) for the above-described newgen outliner, processing myriads of distinct files of all formats.).

It's clear as day that in IM, there are different styles, and everybody should first identify the style he or she will be most comfortable with, then only decide upon the application combo least harmful to preserve that style to a max, to the point of deliberately renouncing features you originally might have considered mandatory, cf. my having temporarily done away with (single item and subtree) clones I had had in any former IMS, except for AO, to which I then went back from UR, in order to better adhere to my IM style I do better work in - ok, there's my elaborate PM tool, too, without which (or similar) such nonchalance would not have been possible, but then, there are different tagging systems on the market, which can do a lot for anybody who's trying to splice up into more manageable parts his or her perhaps currently too compact info and working material compounds.

Re Tagging

If you're willing to do tags in file names (be it in the form of original name incl. or plus some key words, or in the form of added codes: #keyword, £keyword, !keyword and similar), you not only will have got "exportable" tagging (which is not the case with most dedicated tag tools), but you also have tremendous possibilities in at least three counts:

- You quickly add new tags in almost any file manager (even FC), by "multi rename" or similar: You control-click files in order to constitute a group (or you search for some common element in their names, then do some fine-tuning by control-click on the result, discarding some, adding others), then batch "rename", i.e. add a new tag to the group (in most dedicated tag tools, this is not as easy)

- Ditto for further drilling down the tags: You search for some tag, again in almost any file manager, and from the results, you discard (= de-select) any file of which the tag in question is not to be fine-tuned (yet); to the remaining selection, you apply (for visually acceptable filename tags, refer to my post here where I list acceptable tag forms (= nothing new then, but less ugly than most)) the batch rename, replacing the old tag by the new, more specific one (this is a recurrent problem when your file number increases); then, perhaps, you will search for the files with the original tag, and rename that original tag to something more specific, too (ad libitum)

- You can use your usual file manager for finding-by-tag(s), or even some tools like Voidtools Everything (double click on the hit will open the file)

If you absolutely abhor tags in file names, or in general, for additional, useful i.e. accessible (!) info, there's another free tool, Search My Files (Nirsoft), by which you can even search for files by their ADS (which is more than rare), and there are tools by which you can quickly add/alter ADS data/tags. (And yes, you could do both, writing and reading ADS, by AHK, too, which will only make sense, of course, if you're willing to script the necessary results pane, too. And yes, it would be easy to shuffle tags from file name into ADS or back, or then, in a little db, or from a dedicated db into the respective file names or ADS or whatever direction you want that add-on info go; if you opt for a dedicated tag tool, make sure that the tags you assign therein will be "exportable", whatever their target location some day may be: another db, ADS, file name or other multiple virtual folders.)

There's plenty of ways to group individual files, just take care that assigning tags and tag combinations is as easy and fast, as is selectively (!) renaming, and as is finding them, and don't accept proprietary, non-exportable tags. (This exportability to other locations is another reason, beyond more precise search results, for choosing "encoded" file name tags: whilst a keyword transfer you will probably have to do manually, transfer of .keyword can be fully automated. And last, if you make your file name tags easily exportable, that will probably help a lot to implement them to begin with in spite of your not being entirely happy with them. And as explained in that other thread here, you could have hierarchies in the like of .a, .aa, .ab..., .b, .bf, .bfo...)

This being said, if you're more comfortable with monster outlines, trial FLP and its NEAR search option(s) upon them.

There's another post of mine at the bottom of page 3 which I somewhat hid by the above one.

Re Search

If money is not your priority, enterprise search tools might be a viable solution, e.g.
http://www.toolsjournal.com/tools-world/item/145-10-of-the-best-enterprise-search-tools

You have to distinguish 2 kinds of search:

a) in which file is what (i.e. the search term and its context which) I'm looking for; it's clear as day that here, non-indexing search tools are near worthless; of course, there's a variant of this search where parts of file names should suffice (hence the importance of Voidtools Everything and similar), in order to get to the right file (or, as described above, to narrow down the number of files to be searched for their respective context)

b) to which context in my current file (or files group, e.g. if in MS Word, you cut off your manuscript of 10 parts into 10 files) should I jump, for editing that context (given that my search term occurs dozens or hundreds of times throughout my manuscript), with the obvious variant of some more elaborate, compound search term, a and b, a/or b and c, a not c in the "vicinity", etc.; the beauty of this b) alternative being that here, non-indexing search tools are not really needed

In both alternatives, you would need "hit tables", and in both alternatives, you would need a tool that is able to search (and in alternative a), to index) your respective file format(s); for alternative b), it's obvious most people would discard an application (e.g. outliner) if the in-built search functionality does not come with such a hit table, and would therefore consider quite insane that somebody wanted to go back (in my case: literally) from UltraRecall to ActionOutline, for example.

Alternative b)

As described above, both FL Pro and Lite search .ao files as if they were .rtf files, so I get my hit table (and for an ordinary file, in some seconds), but then, as said above, I manually have to enter a more specific search term, from those results, within AO, in order to get to that part in my file I want to edit (or to inspect), because FL (Lite at least) does not allow for selecting a part of a hit line, for then to copy it to the clipboard. (For AO search, I could not enter a and b occurring within the same text line, but of course I could select the given search term in the relevant hit, together with some words before or afterwards, then search that selection within AO, all by macro after the selection having been made by mouse; as said, this is not possible in FL.)

That's why I looked into FileSeek, and indeed, for alternative b), i.e. for searching just one file (or a little file group), it presents some obvious advantages over FileLocator (Lite, can't say about Pro):

- it shows you not only the immediate context of your hits, but 1, 2, 3... lines above and/or beneath that hit term line (Pro, 9$)
- it allows for copying any parts of those hits (' contexts) (even the free version): not in the hit table, but in a display field beneath it (and which in the case of the free version will only replicate the hit line, but copyable)

It's clear as day that for editing a big manuscript in any text processing environment that doesn't come with a hit table itself, FileSeek (especially Pro) is of extreme utility:

- you will have two screens or one large one, both tools are visible at the same time
- you search in FS if it's a common (not rare) search term
- you browse in the hit table (which displays those lines, with their context lines, in Pro)
- in Pro, you even can do a search within search, a thing the developer of FL refuses to do (see the thread on this subject here), to narrow down your hit list
- you select some more words around the relevant hit (even in Free; you could even automate this, i.e. include the selection of the line begin and then of a string of some 40 chars, into your macro)
- you start a macro (see previous) which switches back to your text processor, goes to file begin, calls search, enters the above string (which does not even need to include your original search term), triggers the search...

... and the whole workflow will be almost as smooth as if you had a correct search functionality within your text processing applic...

with the additional advantage that most in-built hit tables over there would vanish by editing one of the hits, or at the very least you would have to jump forth and back within the same applic, whilst your external (here: FileSeek) hit table will remain visible and functional all the time.

Now, what about the file format? Can FileSeek search .ao or other exotic file formats? No and yes (not: yes and no): Rename your exotic file to .rtf, and it will search it (in the case of .ao and in many other cases, I'm sure) as does FileLocator from start on; but in order to do a "live" search, i.e. a search on the (in case, previously saved) file open in your text applic, you can't rename the suffix?

No problem, just tweak the Win registry (it's explained in the FileSeek help file). (And yes, keyboard shortcuts are rare for FS, unfortunately (whilst the language setting, once for a lifetime, has got its own shortkey, hilariously), so my FS macros contain lots of mouseclicks into controls, but that's just another example of the desirable priority of a tool's or an applic's core functionality as your "buying" criterion over lesser ones: over quirks that can be overcome by scripting or a 20-bucks macro tool.

Alternative a)

Similar tricks have been discussed for indexing search tools, cf. http://forums.x1.com/viewtopic.php?t=728 (2004) and http://forums.x1.com/viewtopic.php?t=2958 (2007), i.e. an indexing search tool that refuses to index your seemingly "exotic" file, would perhaps index it, more or less, once it will be tricked into believing it's a "known" format (in fact, a congeneric one); "viewer" problems should not prevail, just a (even cluttered, see above) hit table production will be so much more than you get out of the box. And yes, in most cases, dtSearch would be an immediate solution, hence its price, and its renown (not to mention the beauty of such search tools in general, displaying (hopefully) all the results from various sources for you at the same time).

And yes, doing proper tagging in your filenames will greatly reduce your waiting time if you need to fulfill a) tasks with b) tools (e.g. because X1 "isn't there" and dtSearch is too expensive).

I misunderstood the term "file handler", and I did something wrong. In fact, "file handlers" would be third-party programs that would have to be installed; there are NOT registry entries. And, FileSeek searches .ao files, as well as it does .rtf files, without any renaming to .rtf or whatever, and notwithstanding the fact that in the "File Handlers" list in the program, you cannot enter an additional suffix (e.g. .ao"). As for the context lines of hit lines, since those .rtf \par entries get their own line, so often, in order to get (some of) the line above and below, you must show 2 lines above and below, but as said, this context display will not elongate the hit list, but is done in an extra window.

Thus, FileSeek is probably your tool of choice for many a one-file search of files in various formats. (As for searching in file groups, I'll stay with File Locator, but FileSeek has joined it, and Everything, in my autostart folder, for continuous, concurrent use, each of them providing its respective strengths for particular tasks. Btw it's extremely difficult, in AHK and such, to maintain an up-to-date repository of your key assignments, your functions, and your applications (= scope for the scriptlets); think about (outcommented) tags in your code, and then hit tables, and search-in-search, again: way better than trying to resolve it with cloned items, db's and such (this applies to outliners AND to editors).)

Search can never be too good. Truly instant results, with context, and as-you-type, liberates whole new ways of thinking and working. To me the key is speed. I have used both X1 search and dtSearch in their pricey enterprise versions, at previous workplaces, a couple years back, and they are awesome.

I doubt anything cheap is going to have their power anytime soon. Maybe on Mac - it's already pretty good and they've actually been improving. Windows Indexed search is also pretty good, but they haven't made any significant improvements in over a decade. I reckon in their push to mobile that search performance will diminish and/or "simplify", not grow.

I too would love an integration of file manager / outliner / super-search. Maybe someday. But it would be very hard to do, and I don't think there's a large market for it. So... expensive.

Weird, I was just browsing the OneNote dev blog and they have this:

"Introducing the OneNote Search API (Beta), powered by Bing"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/onenotedev/archive/2014/11/17/onenote-search-api-powered-by-bing.aspx

I don't get this at all. OneNote Search is already top notch and super fast (if properly indexed) so this seems a step backwards. "Let us have access to all your stuff through the cloud and we'll, uh, we'll, hmm, we'll make it better! Promise!" Barf.

( Re Search, continued: )

"I too would love an integration of file manager / outliner / super-search. Maybe someday. But it would be very hard to do, and I don’t think there’s a large market for it. So… expensive."

As for the outliner part and the large market, that would probably be in function of the obviousness (= "getting into the way" for non-outliner-affin users) of the outlining character of such integrated software, and as said above, if every item is a file in itself (with pre-loading of file groups, and even with an additional pane listing sub-items within any file (not only a traditional outliner part, but also headings within a Word or a pdf file, but that additional pane would be displayed just in case the user would WANT that "outliner" part of it, so it would not bother all the other users just being after an optimized file manager); and of course, buyers shouldn't have the impression that they pay extra for the outlining part of the thing.

At the end of the day, outlining within a file manager would not be so exotic, it would just be an AUTOMATED drilling down the hierarchy within the file system for specific parts of it (as you can do today, manually, by opening sub-folders into additional panes in cascade

(if enough of such additional panes are available (but often hidden behind tabs; but see X2's scrap panes or DO's additional windows with additional "listers"; also see the Miller-columns-style file managers which remain exotic ("tiny market") since for everyday use of a file manager, you don't Miller columns, i.e. you are only interested in the sub-folder deep down, but not in its multiple parents, so the latter should not take 3 quarters of your screen estate))),

AND with the additional functionality that all those lists are not necessarily sorted by just automatisms anymore (abc, suffix' abc, etc.), but will have to be sorted manually, too, for any one of them, wherever the user decides so (and also in different sort orders for different contexts in which they appear); cf. XY's manual sorting in their latest releases... but which, on further looking, is restrained to what in fact are virtual folders only; in other words, the integration of files-as-they-are in the file system, AND of files-(virtually-or-not)-relocated (to "other" positions or additional positions) has not been made (yet) in this set-up (so that in spite of the advertizing, XY's "manual sorting" is nothing more (yet) than X2's scrap panes (I don't know if DO's listers' capabilities lately go beyond these?).

All this should be available, and be easy (!) for the user, but be far from intrusive.

As for a market for integrated search, that market would be immense, and I think that a file manager in the region of 100 bucks (DO) should indeed offer such functionality. As said above, search tools sell development kits, too, but at high prices, and the virulent problem is that if you sell dtSearch for 250 or 300 bucks, perhaps plus TVA, you can't sell the development kit to a file manager developer at a price that would entitle him to sell his combined product for 100 bucks: His sales would not only cut into yours, but literally raze your own market (and if you sold a crippled version to the file manager's developer, that quickly would become known, and it's him who would be blamed to sell some overpriced "fake").

From what precedes, it's evident that with a tool such as X1, integration possibilities would be quite more realistic, but here again, file manager at 50 bucks, or with X1 integration 100, and X1 alone 50 bucks again, would mean that the price the file manager's developer would have to pay to X1, would be rather high, in order for X1 to not lose money, but get more (from the sharply risen market penetration of their product) than before.

In other words, the core technology being the search technology (whilst "anybody" could create another file manager), integration should probably come from the search engines' side, not from the file managers' side (and that means the above-mentioned outline, or folders-INTEGRATING-virtual-elements technology cannot be expected to arrive soon - it's much more probable that some file manager will quite soon integrate some third-rate search technology (for which even some free offerings exist), and that people will then have to live with that substandard solution (the standard being defined by what should be possible, financial considerations put aside).

I would not dare comment on OneNote (had had version 2003 coming with some Toshiba laptop out of the bux, but quickly discarded that version), but their Bing integration makes sense to me, from THEIR point of view at the very least:

Bing is crap: Whenever I try, I do not get "other" hits, but I get a (strictly leatoric, not "better") subset of what I get from google by the same search; people know this, so not many of them use Bing. On the other hand, search integration between your desktop (remind yourself not many people maintain monsrous knowledge "databases" on their pc, as we, outliner freaks, do) and the web has often been discussed as highly desirable, and in fact, I often do both searches, albeit with slightly different search terms then, for my search within the web (and everybody would probably do the same).

Now if the MS product "integrated" web search, and most people being quite "lazy", i.e. they accept an "acceptable" offer in spite of their knowing just one step further, there is a better offering (and which doesn't "cost" them any more than just that one more step to go), it's to be expected that (perhaps even more or less "automated", even unwanted / unneeded Bing searches will see the light of the day: MS's commercial objectives reached, and if you really need good web search results, you'll do the google search immediately afterwards.

But two things remains to be seen: First, will MS/ON/Bing invariably phone home even your internal searches (terms, let alone the results?): a) when you do a combined search (that would necessarily be positive, except for the results of course), b) when you don't even want to search the web for it also?

And then, the graphical rendering of such Bing searches in ON: The only beautiful search I've ever seen in a website (I said this before) was in the TheBrain help forum, whilst I abhor sites which integrate google search, and I certainly would not want goggle-style search results in a desktop applic (see above for "some lines above and below the hit line" NOT in the hit table (and by that cutting off the hit table into non-digestible pieces), but in an additional pane).

As always, MS does what makes (some) sense to MS (alone): Well, I could have told you before, and anyone could have done that. This being said, some google (web) search integration would be welcome, but would not make any sense for google: No ads, and no blah-blah around the hits anymore... (I HATE those google hits, among the very first 5 (!) or so, where for "somesoftware review" I then get "Be the first to write a review!")

Oh, I've got a hint for your smoothing your google searches: Currently, you will probably open too many even dubious hits because it's not so easy to revert to the search tab, for clicking on further hits in case of not having got a sufficient number of satisfying ones yet.

Just do your searches in the very first tab, not from the tab you accidentally happen to be when you start your search: Most browsers have got a shortkey for going to the very first tab at least (or even tab 2, 3..., i.e. a tab you can remember, for a specific search - so if you need to have open some 2 or 3 searches concurrently, allocate tabs 1, 2, 3 to google from start on), so this will help in not precautionarily opening a plethora of probably unworthy hits for fear of not finding your original search anytime soon (and without the need of another particular FF/Chrome add-ins); the same would apply to dict.cc and such...

Which would imply you had "go to lastused tab" toggle of course, so I looked this up and found, under superuser.com, this:


"browse about:config
find browser.ctrlTab.previews
set true

wow! thanks! this what i've been looking for.

@Dashed You poor soul, waiting 1 year for the best answer.

And I've been waiting for several years! Thanks!"

This is a spin-off of page 32 (!) of this thread http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2434.775 ,

since I don't think real info should be buried within page 32 or 33 of a someday gross-page-long thread of which readers will perhaps read page 1, and then the very last (pages) only; on the other hand, even buried on some page 32, wrong and/or incomplete "info" should not be left unattended.
____________________

Re searching:

Read my posts in http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5593

(re searching, and re tagging, the latter coming with the 260 chars for path plus filename limitations of course if you wanna do it within the file name... another possibly good reason to "encode" tags, in some form of .oac (Organisation(al things) - Assurances - Cars), instead of "writing them out")

Among other things, I say over there that you are probably well advised to use different tools for different search situations, according to the specific strengths of those tools; this is in accordance with what users say over here in the above DC thread.

Also, note that just searching within subsets of data is not only a very good idea for performance reasons (File Locator et al.), but also for getting (much) less irrelevant results: If you get 700 "hits", in many instances, it's not really a good idea to try to narrow down by adding further "AND" search terms, since that would probably exclude quite some relevant hits; narrowing down to specific directories would probably be the far better ("search in search") strategy; btw, another argument for tagging, especially for additional, specific tagging of everything that is in the subfolder into which it "naturally" belongs, but which belongs into alternative contexts, too (ultimately, a better file system should do this trick).

(Citations from the above page 32:)

Armando: "That said, I always find it weird when Everything is listed side by side with other software like X1, DTSearch or Archivarius. It's not the same thing at all! Yes, most so called "Desktop search" software will be able to search file names (although not foldernames), but software like Everything won't be able to search file content." - Well said, I run into this irresponsible stew again and again; let's say that with "Everything" (and with Listary, which just integrates ET for this functionality), the file NAME search problem has definitely been resolved, but that does not resolve our full text search issues. Btw, I'm sure ET has been mentioned on pages 1 to 31 of that thread over and over again, and it's by nature such overlong threads will treat the same issues again and again, again and again giving the same "answers" to those identical problems, but of course, this will not stop posters who try to post just the maximum of post numbers, instead of trying to shut up whenever they can not add something new to the object of discussion. (I have said this before: Traditional forum sw is not the best solution for technical fora (or then, any forum), some tree-shaped sw (integrating a prominent subtree "new things", and other "favorites" sub-trees) would have been a thousand times better, and yes, such a system would obviously expose such overly-redundant, just-stealing-your-time posts. (At 40hz: Note I never said 100 p.c. of your posts are crap, I just say 95 or more p.c. of them are... well, sometimes they are quite funny at least, e.g. when a bachelor tries to tell fathers of 3 or 4 how to rise children: It's just that some people know-it-all, but really everything, for every thing in this life and this world, they are the ultimate expert - boys of 4 excel in this, too.)

Innuendo on Copernic: Stupid bugs, leaves out hits that should be there. I can confirm both observations, so I discarded this crap years before, and there is no sign things would have evolved in the right direction over there in the meantime, all to the contrary (v3>v4, OMG).

X1: See jity2's instructive link: http://forums.x1.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=9638 . My comment, though: X1's special option which then finds any (? did you try capitals, too, and "weird" non-German/French accented chars?) accented char, by just entering the respective base char, is quite ingenious (and new info for me, thank you!), and I think it can be of tremendous help IF it works "over" all possible file formats (but I so much doubt this!), and without fault, just compare with File Locator's "handling" (i.e. in fact mis-treating) accented chars even in simple .rtf files (explained in the outliner thread) - thus, if X1 found (sic, I don't dare say "finds") all these hits, by simply entering "relevement", for finding "relèvement" (which could, please note, have been wrongly written rélèvement" in some third-party source text within your "database" / file-system-based data repository, which detail would make you would not find it by entering the correct wording), this would be a very strong argument for using X1, and you clearly should not undervalue this feature, especially since you're a Continental and by this will probably have stored an enormous amount of text bodies containing accented chars, and which rather often will have accent errors within those original texts.

X1 again, a traditional problem of X1 not treated here: What about its handling of OL (Outlook) data? Not only that ancient X1 versions did not treat such data well, but far worse, X1 was deemed, by some commentators, to damage OL files, which of course would be perfectly inacceptable. What about this? I can't trial (neither buy, which I would have done, otherwise) the current X1 version, with my XP Win version, and it might be this obvious X1-vs.-OL problem has been resolved in the meantime (but even then, the question would remain which OL versions would possibly be affected even then? X1-current vs. OL-current possibly ok, but X1-current vs. OL-ancient-versions =?!). I understand that few people would be sufficiently motivated to trial this upon their real data, but then, better trial this, with let's say a replication of your current data, put onto an alternative pc, instead of runningg the risk that even X1-current will damage any OL data on your running system, don't you think so? (And then, thankfully, share your hopeful all-clear signal, or then, your warnings, in case - which would of course be a step further, not necessarily included within your first step of verifying...)

Innuendo on X1 vs. the rest, and in particular dtSearch:

"X1 - Far from perfect, but the absolute best if you use the criteria above as a guideline. Sadly, it seems they are very aware of being the best and have priced their product accordingly. Very expensive...just expensive enough to put it over the line of insulting. If you want the best, you and your wallet will be oh so painfully aware that you are paying for the best."

"dtSearch - This is a solution geared towards corporations and the cold UI and barely there acceptable list of features make this an unappetizing choice for home users. I would wager they make their bones by providing lucrative support plans and willingness to accept company purchase orders. There are more capable, less expensive, more efficient options available."

This cannot stay uncommented since it's obviously wrong in some respects, from my own trialling both; of course, if X1 has got some advantages (beyond the GUI, which indeed is much better, but then, some macroing for dtSearch could probably prevent some premature decision like jity2's one: "In fact after watching some videos about it, I won't try it because I don't use regex for searching keywords, and because the interface seems not very enough user friendly (I don't want to click many times just to do a keyword search !)."), please tell us!

First of all, I can confirm that both developers have (competent) staff (i.e. no comparison with the usual "either it's the developer himself, or some incompetent (since not trained, not informed, not even half-way correctly paid "Indian"") that is really and VERY helpful, in giving information, and in discussing features, or even lack of features, both X1 and dtSearch people are professional and congenial, and if I say dtSearch staff is even "better" than X1 staff, this, while being true, is not to denigrate X1 staff: we're discussing just different degrees of excellence here. (Now compare with Copernic.)

This being said, X1 seems to be visually-brilliant sw for standard applics, whilst dtSearch FINDS IT ALL. In fact, when trialling, I did not encounter any exotic file format from which I wasn't able to get the relevant hits, whilst in X1, if it was not in their (quite standard file format) list, it was not indexed, and thus was not found: It's as simple as that. (Remember the forensic objectives of dtSearch, but it's exactly this additional purpose of it that makes it capable of searching lots of even quite widespread file formats where most other (index-based) desktop search tools fail.

Also, allow for a brief divagation into askSam country: The reason some people cling to it, is the rarity of full-text "db's" able to find numerics. Okay, okay, any search tool can find "386", be it as part of a "string", or even as a "word" (i.e. as a number, or as part of a number), but what about "between 350 and 400"? Okay, okay, you can try (and even succeed, in part), with regex (= again, dtSearch instead of X1). But askSam does this, and similar, with "pseudo-fields", and normally, for such tasks, you need "real" db's for this, and as we all know, for most text-heavy data, people prefer text-based sw, instead of putting it all into relational db's. As you also know, there are some SQLite/other-db-based 2-pane outliners / basic IMS' that have got additional "columns" in order to get numeric data into, but that's not the same (, and even within there, searching for numeric data RANGES is far from evident).

Now that's for numeric ranges in db's, and now look into dtSearch's possibilities of identifying numeric ranges in pseudo-fields in "full text", similar to askSam, and you will see the incredible (and obviously, again, regex-driven) power of dtSearch.

Thus, dear Innuendo, your X1 being "the absolute best" is perfectly unsustainable, but it's in order to inform you better that I post this, and not at all in order to insinuate you had known better whilst writing the above.

____________________

Re ntfs file numbers:

jity2 in the above DC thread: "With CDS V3.6 size of the index was 85 Go with about 2,000,000 files indexed (Note: In one hdd drive I even hit the NTFS limit : too much files to handle !) . It took about 15 days to complete 24/24 7/7." Note: the last info is good to know... ;-(

It's evident 2 million (!) files cannot reach any "NTFS limit" but if you do lots of things completety wrong, and if you persistently left out 3 zeros, it would have been 8.6 (or, with the XP number, 4.3, but nothing near 2.0:)

eVista on

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/772dbf1a-536c-47d3-8a8d-f773c90b8a5e/maximum-number-of-files-allowed-to-exist-per-ntfs-volume-under-windows-vista-32bit-home-premium?forum=itprovistaapps :

"In short, the absolute limit on the number of files per NTFS volume seems to be 2 at the 32nd power minus 1*, but this would require 512 byte sectors and a maximum file size limit of one file per sector. Therefore, in practice, one has to calculate a realistic average file size and then apply these principles to that file size."

Note: That would be a little less than 4.3 (i.e. 2power32-1) billion files (for Continentals: 4,3 Milliarden/milliards/etc.), for XP, whilst it's 2power64-1 for Vista on, i.e. slightly less than 8.6 billion files.

No need to list all the google finds, just let me say that with "ntfs file number" you'll get the results you need, incl. wikipedia, MS...

But then, special mention to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/197162/ntfs-performance-and-large-volumes-of-files-and-directories

with an absolutely brilliant "best answer", and then also lots of valuable details further down that page.

I think this last link will give you plenty of ideas how to better organize your stuff, but anyway, no search tool whatsoever should choke by some "2,000,000 limit", ntfs or otherwise.

Kind of type (in fact, lack of attention) above:

"Note: That would be a little less than 4.3 (i.e. 2power32-1) billion files (for Continentals: 4,3 Milliarden/milliards/etc.), for XP, whilst it's 2power64-1 for Vista on, i.e. slightly less than 8.6 billion files."

EDIT: OF COURSE THAT IS NOT TRUE: The number you get everywhere is 2power32 = slightly less than 4.3 billion files, and I read that's for XP, whilst from Vista on, it would be double of that, which would make it a little less than 8.6 indeed (I cannot confirm this of course), and that would then be 2power33, not 64 (I obviously got lead astray by Win32/64 (which probably is behind that doubling though)).

typo ;-)