Zoot 5.0 is now available as an official release. Those Zooters who bought their licenses prior to January 1, 2003, can upgrade for $49 US... Those who purchases a copy after that date get a free upgrade.

Go to www.zootsoftware.com

BTW - The web site is updated as well.

Happy Zooting!

Steve Z.

Thanks, Steve,

Coincidentally, I was alerted to the new website by the disappearance of the beta one. Although I just squeeze under the bar for a free update, I recall having finally registered Zoot after a very generous (i.e., essentially unlimited) evaluation period. Most of that, however, was spent installing, uninstalling and re-installing Zoot as I dealt with the frustrations of coming to grips with its mysteries. Luckily the Help File has improved enormously since then, and the Zoot forum members are a powerful community of experts.

This, then, is version 5 (final) I assume, and the move to a 32-bit version is now complete. It really is good news, and confounds the doubters who thought it would never happen.

The RTF editor and the loosening of constraints on number of folders, length of items, and so on, will come in the next few months, I imagine. I'm not sure whether these will be beta tested in the same way. I haven't upgraded beyond v5 RC1 yet myself, having been rather put off by the new icons. But when there are some material changes to the program's features I'm sure I'll come to terms with the interface modifications:-).

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

...The RTF editor and the loosening of constraints on number of folders, length of items, and so
on, will come in the next few months, I imagine. ...

-------------------------

"...months"? It took AT LEAST 7.5 YEARS between the introduction of version 4 and ver. 5. The wait from ver. 3 to ver. 4 also took forever. During this time I went from middle age (or younger) to a retired "senior." I could have REALLY used a Zoot with RTF and fewer other limitations while I was working on multiple technical projects. Now, I'm writing a book using Word 2000 (NoteMap proved to be crap) and no longer need Zoot's capabilities. Perhaps Zoot 5.x with RTF will appear before my future headstone crumbles.

For comparison GrandView appeared in about 1988 and had most (all?) of Zoot's features, an extremely capable outliner, excellent formatting capabilities, etc. It's limitations were essentially those imposed by DOS.

-c

Cassius wrote:

For comparison GrandView
appeared in about 1988 and had most (all?) of Zoot's features, an extremely capable
outliner, excellent formatting capabilities, etc. It's limitations were
essentially those imposed by DOS.

Yes, but we've been waiting for 17 years for a Windows version of GrandView!

Tom Davis has implied that the conversion to RTF won't take too long... You can interpret that any way you like. I choose to be optimistic. But then, I have found Zoot useful from the start.

Steve Z.

Well, that's all true...but -

Zoot is a complex program and it's developer has constantly tweaked the original design - so much so that the main version numbers provide a very poor indication of his level of activity.

Like SteveZ I am rather optimistic that, faced with more interesting challenges than the grind of moving from 16-bit to full 32-bit, Tom will pick up speed when it comes to providing rtf.

Word (I use 2003 for drafting) has a terribly clunky outliner IMHO, not much use for anything except document navigation and formatting. For my last book I used Grandview and Zoot for planning and organising, and can't imagine how I could have coped without the latter - though of course I agree that if one wants to draft in Zoot, or highlight text in it, the lack of rtf is a drawback. I'd put a "within-editing-pane" outliner higher up the priority list for Zoot32 improvements than rtf, though. But I know that's not going to happen any time soon; in fact the adoption of rtf will probably rule it out for the foreseeable future.

Although I'm a great fan, and current user, of GV - which works fine for me on XP - I don't see it as comparable with Zoot in terms of capacity to organize information. Complementary - yes.

It's hardly surprising that people seem to be switching over to the Mac in droves. The lack of decent writing tools in Windows after all these years is pretty disappointing. I had as good a set when I used DOS: Lotus Agenda, Lotus Magellan, Lotus Manuscript, PC-Write, Grandview, Harvard Graphics, dtSearch and DesQview/X.

Meanwhile, Mac users have - well, we know what they have :-(. I won't be upgrading to Vista when my Thinkpad bites the dirt. In fact, it will be a good time to switch platforms.

Derek

Cassius wrote:

Derek Cornish wrote:
> ...The RTF editor and the loosening of constraints on number
of folders, length of items, and so
>on, will come in the next few months, I imagine.
...
-------------------------

"...months"? It took AT LEAST 7.5 YEARS between
the introduction of version 4 and ver. 5. The wait from ver. 3 to ver. 4 also took
forever. During this time I went from middle age (or younger) to a retired "senior." I
could have REALLY used a Zoot with RTF and fewer other limitations while I was working
on multiple technical projects. Now, I'm writing a book using Word 2000 (NoteMap
proved to be crap) and no longer need Zoot's capabilities. Perhaps Zoot 5.x with RTF
will appear before my future headstone crumbles.

For comparison GrandView
appeared in about 1988 and had most (all?) of Zoot's features, an extremely capable
outliner, excellent formatting capabilities, etc. It's limitations were
essentially those imposed by DOS.

-c

Derek Cornish wrote: Although I'm a great fan, and current user, of GV - which works fine for me on XP - I don't see it as comparable with Zoot in terms of capacity to organize information. Complementary - yes.

It's hardly surprising that people seem to be switching over to the Mac in droves. The lack of decent writing tools in Windows after all these years is pretty disappointing. I had as good a set when I used DOS: Lotus Agenda, Lotus Magellan, Lotus Manuscript, PC-Write, Grandview,

Harvard Graphics, dtSearch and DesQview/X.

Meanwhile, Mac users have - well, we know what they have :-(. I won't be upgrading to Vista when my Thinkpad bites the dirt. In fact, it will be a good time to switch platforms.

-----------------------------------------
1) I, too, still use GV for some things on Win XP. Derek, what settings (PIF, etc.) or supplementary software do you use to make GV as friendly as possible on XP? -- Maybe I should start another topic on this as a number of us still use GV.

2) I have the same feeling about the Mac, but my current laptop is only 15 months old. Another incentive: From what I've read, Vista is an abomination. The main drawback to switching is moving all info/documents from Win software to Mac Software. Anyone have a "magic" solution?

3) Derek, all that great DOS software? Either you must be almost as old as I or you were a boy prodigy.

4) I do/did a lot of math/stat work, so rtf is/was important. (In GV, I used HP printer codes to create math equations.)

-c

Stephen Zeoli wrote: Yes, but we've been waiting for 17 years for a Windows version of GrandView!
-----------
True, but remember that Symantec owns the rights to GV and its unique file format, and 1) decided not to update it and 2) apparently has not been willing to share any of it. This is very typical of Symantec. My guess is that Symantec would not support the updating of GV by its author and so he went on to other things.

-c

James Fallows covers the new release in his blog:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/new_version_of_zoot_goes_up.php

Cassius wrote:

2) I have the same feeling about the Mac, but my
current laptop is only 15 months old. Another incentive: From what I've read, Vista is
an abomination. The main drawback to switching is moving all info/documents from Win
software to Mac Software. Anyone have a "magic" solution?

FWIW I got a new laptop 6 months ago and I haven't had a single problem with Vista. Of course, I must admit I spend 95% of my time in MS programs. If it didn't work with Outlook, the MS would indeed have a problem. :)

Bottom line, I wouldn't get too excited about what I read about it. As you probably know, the presentation of the facts often gets colored by the point of view. It's unavoidable in even the most neutral of newspaper reports. And my experience is that views about OSs are more like religion. Opinions are never really neutral.

Tom S.

Tom S. wrote: FWIW I got a new laptop 6 months ago and I haven't had a single problem with Vista. Of course, I must admit I spend 95% of my time in MS programs. If it didn't work with Outlook, the MS would indeed have a problem. :)

Bottom line, I wouldn't get too excited about what I read about it. As you probably know, the presentation of the facts often gets colored by the point of view. It's unavoidable in even the most neutral of newspaper reports. And my experience is that views about OSs are more like religion. Opinions are never really neutral.

====================

Unfortunately, I only use one MS program-Word 2000-for the book I'm writing. Everything else is non-MS. Of course, a switch to the MAC means either abandoning all my info in Windows programs, manually transferring it, or running Windows on a Mac. It probably isn't rational to make the switch. But I do HATE the registry and many programs apparently will not be rewritten for Vista. In particular, GoBack. GoBack has saved my behind many times, but Symantec now owns it and has decided not to update it for Vista, just as happened with GV.

-c

Cassius wrote:

1) I, too, still use GV
for some things on Win XP. Derek, what settings (PIF, etc.) or supplementary software
do you use to make GV as friendly as possible on XP? -- Maybe I should start another topic
on this as a number of us still use GV.

2) I have the same feeling about the Mac, but my
current laptop is only 15 months old. Another incentive: From what I've read, Vista is
an abomination. The main drawback to switching is moving all info/documents from Win
software to Mac Software. Anyone have a "magic" solution?

3) Derek, all that great
DOS software? Either you must be almost as old as I or you were a boy prodigy.

4) I
do/did a lot of math/stat work, so rtf is/was important. (In GV, I used HP printer codes
to create math equations.)

1. I've put my pif settings on the new thread.

2. I'd be interested in that. The great thing these days is that one can run favourite Windows programs on the MAC. Zoot, in my case. Not sure how DOS programs would fare, though...

3. Probably the former :-). But I was cursed - Buggins's turn - with being Department representative on I.T. matters for many years at my university, so got hooked relatively early via BBC Acorn computers, Zenith luggables, etc. But it wasn't until the mid-90s that I had a really decent toolbox of DOS programs. By that time the real whizkids had migrated to OS/2 and Windows.

4. I was never as adept at getting the most out of GV as you were. I still have your key customizations.

Derek

Thanks for mentioning this. I'd forgotten that he had a blog. Information overload I guess. I think he is running Zoot via VIMWare on his new MACs, too.

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

Thanks for mentioning this. I'd forgotten that he had a blog. Information overload I
guess. I think he is running Zoot via VIMWare on his new MACs, too.

Derek

Whoops! Forgot to mention that this was in response to:

>Posted by MsJulie
>Mar 8, 2008 at 12:16 AM

>James Fallows covers the new release in his blog:

>http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/new_version_of_zoot_goes_up.php

Cassius wrote:

Tom S. wrote: FWIW I got a new laptop 6 months ago and I haven't had a single problem
with Vista. Of course, I must admit I spend 95% of my time in MS programs. If it didn't
work with Outlook, the MS would indeed have a problem. :)
>
>Bottom line, I wouldn't
get too excited about what I read about it. As you probably know, the presentation of
the facts often gets colored by the point of view. It's unavoidable in even the most
neutral of newspaper reports. And my experience is that views about OSs are more like
religion. Opinions are never really
neutral.
====================

Unfortunately, I only use one MS program-Word
2000-for the book I'm writing. Everything else is non-MS. Of course, a switch to the
MAC means either abandoning all my info in Windows programs, manually transferring
it, or running Windows on a Mac. It probably isn't rational to make the switch. But I do
HATE the registry and many programs apparently will not be rewritten for Vista. In
particular, GoBack. GoBack has saved my behind many times, but Symantec now owns it
and has decided not to update it for Vista, just as happened with GV.

-c

Of course the REAL reason for switching to the MAC is the allure of a further major of round of CRIMPING...

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

Of course the REAL reason for switching to the MAC is the
allure of a further major of round of CRIMPING...

Music to my ears :-)

BTW, Opal will read Dyno Notepad for Windows outlines. (Not that many people bought the Windows version of Dyno Notepad.) I have no plans to create a Windows version of Opal.

Derek Cornish wrote: I was never as adept at getting the most out of GV as you were. I still have your key customizations.

1. The key customizations were to try and match WordPerfect to the extent possible, as that was what my office was using.

2. For many years, I spent more time with GV than with my wife. Still married, though--39+ yrs. When people first saw her picture, they thought she was my daughter...I ain't complain'n.

2. I guess the above means you know who I really am. DON'T TELL!

-c

Cassius wrote:

2. I guess the above means you know who I really am. DON'T TELL!

The secret is safe with me/us :-)

Derek