On the Aquaminds blog, the hope for a March release is apparently gone. The latest version from several years ago is not stable on my computer (particularly with importing). I’m thoroughly discouraged with the closure of Circus Ponies and the repeated delays of Aquaminds. I cannot move to a web-based solution because of the unreliability of the Internet at work.

I’m thinking I need to return to considering Windows computing. I haven’t used Windows since 2007. In the meantime, I hope that I kept a Circus Ponies DMG file somewhere on my hard drive or dropbox.

Seems like a somewhat drastic reason for returning to Windows computing! There are other options: Outline (mentioned in another thread recently) imports Circus Pony notebooks, for example. Apparently they even offer discounts for Circus Ponies refugees. And once you've got your notes in Outline, you can transfer them to OneNote (if you so wish), or any other platform (using PDF export, for example). I would suggest the excellent Notebooks as a possible substitute (by Alfons Schmid).

More on Outline and Circus Ponies: http://outline.ws/blog/how-to-import-circus-ponies-to-outline/#more-839

I heartily suggest you check Zengobi "Curio" as a replacement. Fantastic app that has become indispensable to me.

Be aware that Circus Ponies doesn't run on High Sierra

The import into Outline works very well - retains all the attachments and so on.

I also recommend Curio as a replacement - it's really very good, has a great user forum and a very responsive developer

It is difficult to have patience with developers promising release dates, but Aquaminds did just publish an update on their progress two days ago:

"We are now testing Version 26 and we've fixed more bugs in the process; several of which have taken more time to nail down in part because we're testing against three different Apple OS versions including macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan. Translation, it takes time to test, fix a bug and then do a regression test against the bug fix on multiple platform versions. The good news is that the showstopper bug count is finally going down not up. In the coming weeks, we plan to announce our updated schedules and when we plan to begin limited beta testing. We know how anxious is everyone is about getting their hands on the new version of NoteTaker and NoteShare but we need to make sure we're on the right path to a stable release. Thank you for your continued support and interest."

Just FYI in case you didn't see it.

Steve Z.

Thanks much for the feedback, friends. I have an unusual situation in that our college uses Windows, but there is a policy that nothing can be installed on them other than what the college uses (Microsoft Office). Thus, I carted an older Mac into my office for most of my work. Eventually, I stopped using Windows altogether as my workflow doesn't fit into any of those apps.

My teaching workflow doesn't really require any apps. But the non-teaching part (student issues and situations) requires a that I keep a record of what is going on with about 150 students, and what is going on with the Faculty Senate (I am VP). These involved a lot of random notes that Notetaker was good at keeping orderly. Each time I review some of Steve Zeoli's Tinderbox tutorials, I think Tinderbox could be a final solution for these random notes. I also have DevonThink Office, but I'm always flummoxed by the file system on this program. No matter how I try to save files and then work later on them on another computer, I get the message that the file is open on another computer (and it isn't).

Tinderbox is very good for this kind of things, with (my experience) 2 caveats:

- There's a significant learning curve. It's very easy to get notes into TB, but using TB's excellent facilities for organising and retrieving needs effort. There's a great user forum, another responsive developer and something very attractive about TB. It's so seductive that it can turn into a major time-stealer. The other drawback might be that TB doesn't work well for holding attached documents. It's possible to have it link to Devonthink (another potential time-sink, as you've said) and other document repositories, but that might not work for you

- Back to Curio: it essentially does the same things as Aquaminds/CPN but with a different look and feel. Of the software currently available, it seems like the closest to what you want.

I have owned a copy of Tinderbox since about version 3, and its learning curve is primarily what keeps me from using it. I find setting up templates and attributes to be the most vexing part of it...just getting it set up so that I have some defined fields and a typeface that I can read at age 67. I will run Curio and Tinderbox side by side for a few weeks and see which one catches on. I don't mind having two parallel systems if it will help me with an overall choice soon.

I'm a regular user of Tinderbox, DEVONthink and Curio and get great enjoyment out of working with each of them. And I used CP until its death.

I agree with NickG's endorsement of Curio -- it's very good for anything that needs graphical organization, notes, etc. But I would be hesitant to suggest Curio for the use case Jeffrey outlined. There's no way (other than manual) to relate one note to another in Curio. There's not metadata, as in Tinderbox, or natural hierarchical organization such as in DEVONthink. If Jeffrey needs to relate notes for 150 students, or multiple Senate meetings, to each other, then Curio might not work.

The good thing here is that Curio, DEVONthink and Tinderbox all offer very generous trial periods (including generous extensions), very gregarious and deep forums, and excellent developers who will go above and beyond to help new adopters sort through their startup phase.

Have you taken a look at EagleFiler?

I used Eaglefiler years ago as my default place to put PDF files, and had I not started using Evernote I might still be doing so. During the time I was using it, it didn't seem to be adding any new features that I might have liked

marlowe wrote:

Have you taken a look at EagleFiler?

FYI I migrated to EagleFiler nearly 18 months ago from DEVONthink Pro (due to some UI annoyances and clunkiness [and a terrible iOS app which they ultimately remedied] among other things). I like it a lot. Great option for archiving emails, for storing and searching files, etc. Dev is very responsive too.

But Apple Notes is a pretty good (lightweight) Evernote replacement as well, and it's easy to migrate Evernote files to it.

https://www.imore.com/how-switch-evernote-apple-notes

Some people like Bear more than Apple Notes, and even use it as an Evernote Replacement.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14785264/evernote-replacement-bear-app

(I'm already using Ulysses, so between it and Apple Notes and EagleFiler I'm set - so I have no need for Bear.)