I've used askSam for twenty years but the time has come to bail out (prompted by continual crashes when trying to export). I have Ultra Recall and MyInfo installed, but does anyone know of a modern alternative which offers a Search-as-you-Type facility?

If you hadn't written "modern alternative", I would have suggested InfoSelect. For me, it's the prototype of search-as-you-type PIM. But I can't recommend buying the current edition (neither the one before).

Franz

I would suggest you look at Zoot (www.zootsoftware.com). It has a search as you type capability, which, while not blazing fast is pretty good. You'll also find similarities with AskSam. For instance, it is freeform, but you can add fields by typing the field name followed by a colon right in the content area. It has smart folders. Where it is less powerful than AS is in its reporting and printing capabilities.

The other caveat is that there is currently no good documentation, so it will take a lot of poking around in the user forum archives (Google Groups) to learn the basics. Though the forum is active and people are happy to offer advice.

Steve Z.

Many thanks Franz and Steve,

I did try Zoot some years ago as it seemed to be the best program for another need (Outlook backup), but abandoned it in part because of the lack of documentation and also not wanting to depend overly on a one-person program as, at the time, development was glacial. But I'll give it another try.

Thanks again,
Geoffrey

Development of Zoot has been moving along just fine. It's the development of the documentation that seems to be glacial. Tom Davis promises that it is in the works, but it has been a long time coming.

Steve Z.

I can't speak to how it compares feature-for-feature with AskSam, but Workflowy does this quite well.

OneNote's search is very good and is search as you type.

Geoffrey Miller wrote:

I've used askSam for twenty years but the time has come to bail out
(prompted by continual crashes when trying to export). I have Ultra
Recall and MyInfo installed, but does anyone know of a modern
alternative which offers a Search-as-you-Type facility?

If you are satisfied with MyInfo you could stay with it. I am also looking for such a facility and the developer of MyInfo told me already some time ago that Search-as-you-Type will come with the next major version of MyInfo (MyInfo 7).

To be more specific: The Search-as-you-Type facility should come at least for the search among the documents' names. (Which is completely sufficient for my purposes.) I do not know if it also intended for the full text search (search within the documents). If this would be of interest for you you should contact the (very cooperative) developer or ask in the Forum of MyInfo.

Hello Peter,

I am after full text search, but have always been very happy with MyInfo otherwise and will almost certainly upgrade.

I also installed the trial version of Zoot yesterday and have the feeling that it is one of those programs where everything suddenly clicks into place. At the moment, however, it hasn't done so!

Geoffrey Miller wrote:

I also installed the trial version of Zoot yesterday and have the
feeling that it is one of those programs where everything suddenly
clicks into place. At the moment, however, it hasn't done so!

A few principles that helped me as I was learning Zoot:

- Zoot is great at working with multiple databases, but it is best to keep things simple to start. Make one database and put all your information in there. You can always move it to new databases down the line. In fact, you can have Zoot move it for you based on custom criteria.
- Basic organization within a database is via folders, but these are virtual folders and do not reflect, necessarily, the structure on your hard disk. Notes can appear in more than one folder.
- I like to hide all the folders that automatically populate new databases under a top level folder I create called "Administration." Then I create another top level folder I call All My Notes. I just put everything in that one folder, because Zoot can reorganize your information on the fly as you need it, but until you learn how to do that, you can just dump info into it.

I guess what I'm saying is that Zoot can be as complex as you need it to be, but until you need it to be complex, keep it as simple as possible.

Good luck.

Steve Z.

Geoffrey Miller wrote:

I have Ultra Recall and MyInfo installed, but does anyone know of a modern alternative which offers a Search-as-you-Type facility?

A new version of InfoQube has just been released (v0.9.26PreRel54) with tons improvements !
Details here:
http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/2732

It has database-wide search-as-you-type (with Boolean operators support and match highlighting). You can specify to search a specific field or all text fields (including the rich text pane)
In addition, IQ has a per-view filter-as-you-type and auto-search.

Feel free to explore and ask questions, should you have any.

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer
http://www.infoqube.biz