... or at least, it feels like it.

I see one post of mine from 16 years ago & just wanted to see what's new, here. Nice to see some familiar names & that, as always, there are interesting recommendations and considerations for all kinds of software.

OK, on to the CRIMP confession...
Last year I bought InfoSelect 10 & never used it.
• it wasn't working right
• it had been so long, I'd forgotten how to use it
• after buying a year subscription, I read that inserting hard drive files was no longer supported (which was really the point of buying it, to begin with - an outliner, email & my files).

Nobody but this group would understand such a purchase, so I feel at home here.

I saw a thread here about just using Windows files with the correct metadata with a file manager. I'll look through that and other posts before asking for other ideas or programs, just wanted to say hello. ߙ‚ I've used a lot of these apps discussed here & look forward to reading what others think of them.

Sarah

Welcome back, Sarah. I recently reengaged here after a year or so off.

I still have a soft spot in my heart for InfoSelect. It had lightning fast searches, and it managed to incorporate all sorts of data. In some ways it was Notion before Notion.

I would love to hear what other solutions you've found for managing your information on Windows, and am sure others would too.

Steve

I also have a soft spot for Info Select but have moved on. The last fully functional version was 2007 but I purchased 11 in case it offered better features and updated functions. 11 has not been updated for years and IS has lost significant abilities because of OS and browser evolution.

Jon

Thanks Stephen,

I don't have a Windows Outliner. I used (and loved) TreeDBNotes, but that's gone.

I've been on an iPhone until recently. I tried Carbon Fin Outliner, Work Flowy, Outlinely, Omni & others & ended up with Cloud Outliner Pro. No images or linking, but it was easy, fast & very nice to look at. It felt very natural to use.

I moved to Android & have used Dynalist & TransNote, but dropped everything into Evernote & use it like I used Bear - indent/outdent within notes - but it's more distracting to me than an outliner, and I need expanding and collapsing sections.

I have Notion for lists but haven't yet discovered its features. I'm interested to know how you and others are using it.

Jon,

I began using InfoSelect att v. 7 or 8, when it started to get complicated.

I don't remember the browser. I just liked the outlining, linking, images, integration with my files and having full control over my email, with no need for rules or filters, inserting notes with the originals.Anything could be made into an outline in a matter of seconds. It felt sturdy and straightforward to me.

What do you use, now? Have your outlining needs changed? I recall you, Stephen Z. and a few others all had a very keen understanding of InfoSelect & I imagine the same is true for whatever you're using, now.

InfoSelect was unique, I think, in that it combined a nimble outlining pane, in which you could also embed meta data of varioud kinds, with a content panel that also could organize and display various data (spreadsheets and databases, to name two). Granted, it didn't always go smoothly. If memory serves me correctly, the outlining pane was much more refined than the content pane, with which I often had to fidget to get things the way I wanted them. Good outliners for Windows are rare (InfoQube is perhaps an exception; I say "perhaps" only because I have not used it). I only wish the developer had spent more time refining its features instead of cramming more in, thus making it ever more esoteric and beyond the ken of most users.

Sarah, Info Select had some unique abilities and infuriating quirks. I do miss it though, but not for email. It was largely replaced by Ultra Recall and InfoQube. My email has always been handled by The Bat. I sometimes need to lay out my thoughts/research/work in a more graphic form and for me, Freeplane works well. From time to time I use NoteCase (also with some unique and infuriating features) and MyInfo (version 6. Version 7 is appealing but still lacks many of the features I use in 6). Writing is with WhizFolders and increasingly Scrivener.

Jon

Jon, I haven't looked at the new version of MyInfo yet. What is it missing that used to be in version 6? I am debating whether to fire up my Windows laptop, and try version 7. Thanks.

Daly

Jon Polish wrote:

Sarah, Info Select had some unique abilities and infuriating quirks. I
do miss it though, but not for email. It was largely replaced by Ultra
Recall and InfoQube. My email has always been handled by The Bat. I
sometimes need to lay out my thoughts/research/work in a more graphic
form and for me, Freeplane works well. From time to time I use NoteCase
(also with some unique and infuriating features) and MyInfo (version 6.
Version 7 is appealing but still lacks many of the features I use in 6).
Writing is with WhizFolders and increasingly Scrivener.

Jon

The big one is filtering. You cannot filter on words contained in the notes yet. This will be restored eventually. I wish template, while improved, would be more robust (like in Ultra Recall). On a positive note, attachments can now be included in the note and the limit is now 100 MB. The interface is nicer and I recall some mention of themes. There are some sporadic bugs which crop up from time which I cannot repeat, but nothing fatal. It is a nice upgrade but still very much a work in progress.

Jon

Jon, so glad I asked. Thank you.

I just downloaded a trial of Note Case Pro to my phone & will do the same on Windows later today. It looks great.

The linking feature is so important sometimes when doing an outline or a mindmap. I find xmind the easiest to use (on ipad, for a better view than the phone) but got stuck yesterday when I couldn't link 2 related but separate nodes.(A mind map that only links to websites but not other nodes doesn't seem right, so perhaps I missed something).

Anyway, thanks again.
Sarah

In XMind, select the node you want to link. CTRL + H. Then in the left side of the dialog, click topic and choose the topic to link to.

Jon

Thanks, Jon.

I'm using it on an ipad, though. I'm lazy like that.

There is no equivalent?

Jon

Sarah wrote:

Thanks, Jon.

I'm using it on an ipad, though. I'm lazy like that.

Apologies, Jon..

I dug up my Apple keyboard to try your tip and realized it was Mind Vector, not X-Mind, that wasn't linking. I wrote in & am hoping it can be deleted.

Looking at my maps in X-Mind, linking is & has been working fine.


Jon Polish wrote:

There is no equivalent?

Jon

Sarah wrote:
Thanks, Jon.
>
>I'm using it on an ipad, though. I'm lazy like that.

From IS 7/8 to iPad, that's quite a downgrade I'd say, but then, I always said iPads were for women, so that fits after all, and the little girl of my neighbors got hers at the age of 6... 6 months I mean, her pops had bought it for her, allegedly and in the expectation that then it would be primarily himself who could it when he was, rarely, at home.

But then, oh how wrong he was, the two girls, i.e. the little one and her mum, had commonly decided otherwise, but totally so, but then, he was a very heavy drinker anyway, which, for a Muslim, isn't that common in the end, Heaven forbid(ing), and so this gave him another pretext to spend his evenings at some local bar, drinking with his friends - not that he really needed that for pretext though, going there 3 evenings a week anyway - now the 2 girls and the iPad have moved in one direction and pops in another one alone...

That being said, I certainly don't endorse iPads for toddlers, let alone sucklings, in fact I don't recommend'em for anyone, but I'm the opposition here, and frankly, the fact alone that if you have quite big data, they FORCE you to use some "cloud" (internal overpriced storage limited to 1TB, I think?), appalls me*, not speaking of streamlining (even personal) workflow, and iOS isn't THAT compatible after all, even in pear, pardon apple, world, or then, for most of your work, you're downgraded to the very strict minimum. (*=Well, there some quite amusing moments re those very deep matters, e.g. when you extensively read about the various backgrounds and backspaces of the OVH desaster, incl. the fact that even in Western civilisations, just selling phones where "they" cannot hear what you say's a crime now.)

As for IS, I think it's quite ironic that the developer came up with his subscription model VERY early, but then, it's almost a fixed rule that being first doesn't do any good, and, remember, even Adobe FIRST smashed the competition, THEN enforced their now (in the industries they serve) inescapable law. And yes, trying to integrate "everything" has, for a single developer like the brilliant IS's one (?), become impossible, so they more and more lack behind, e.g. UR's web integration - is that some MS core browser of 2000 of which I don't even remember the name? And with Firefox's main financier being google-Chrome... Not speaking of the multi-billions-heavy corporations which "after-covid" will overtake all those currently-closed little family or almost family shop businesses...

Remember that some years ago I asked, here, what do they do, those 155 (at the time) alleged EN developers? And we really never knew... So, if iPad "apps" just do some this, some that, who'd expect more?

As for Jarte, another blatant example of bad, really bad psychology beheading your business in the end, since, free and (then) paid versions alike, the default UI certainly has its all-time non-disputed place in the top 5 ugliest and most non-intuitive PC UIs, DOS and Win 3 included, whilst some minutes of tweaking and of trial-n-error will make appear some utterly standard up-n-run software.

Btw, I had used Jarte, with multiple 1-char tabs all open at the same time, for years and as my personal help file (shortkeys and other info for multiple applications), with F1 in any (relevant) application automatically opening the respective Jarte tab, whilst the reason for not buying the full version (was 30 bucks at the time if I remember well) being my disappointment with the alleged Autohotkey integration which, after trialling, appeared to me as a scam: I'd to do it all "from the outside" anyway as before.

That being said: Even the free Jarte version is the best basic rtf editor, and there's clearly a use for those, since from my experience, MS Word, Atlantis, TextMaker and so on, beyond their "weight", all bother you with page formatting when you just want an rtf-capable editor; in XP, there also were WordPad Plus, WordTabs and more which today don't work anymore, another reason to endorse Jarte Plus wholeheartedly... for what it brilliantly is, not for what it unsuccessfully tried to become: https://www.jarte.com/jarte_plus.html - and btw, just lately I read some guy whining about "outlining" with, again, the misconception that outlining was that infamous Harvard outlining, i.e. the one they abused you with in school, the 1-point-a-line, without even a hint of "meat" in-between, and which makes you MISS the details, and Jarte Plus ("AutoOutline") and others try to help out a little better than just that, but they simply ain't sexy... and not powerful enough when compared to the heavyweights...

And that's more or less the essence of the iPad problem, too, with the difference that over there, "apps" at least look pretty, then and again...

Oh, and speaking of real work, the Germans always have got their 16,000 bags with Eastern secret police paper shreds which rot in their moist basements... and for the heck of'em, even 33 years after the facts, they don't find a working scanner, world-wide, so when I think of that billion of iPads, some even in the hands of real men, and of technically (only) possible "community efforts"... - they pretend they have got the necessary software already, thanks to AI, and really, believe them:

It's just the necessary hardware they lack! Promised! Hahahahahahaha!

Uhhhhh. How many groups of people can you denigrate in one post? This is really inappropriate anywhere, and especially offensive and unwanted here.

Jon

Agreed 100%!

Jon Polish wrote:

Uhhhhh. How many groups of people can you denigrate in one post? This is
really inappropriate anywhere, and especially offensive and unwanted
here.

Jon

Don't know. I stopped reading after "Posted by 22111"

Like a rash, he just keeps coming back to bloviate into the void. I'm honestly curious about whether he thinks anyone reads or values his posts.

If the forum software has a "block" option, I really wish the moderator would enable it.

Sorry everyone - still working on the redesign and was planning on having the ability to block as one of the new features. I don't think it will be that hard to add, so I'll go ahead and add that to the current version of the site.

Thanks Chris, that'll be helpful. Everyone has the ability to self block but maybe the curiosity overrides it.


Chris Murtland wrote:

Sorry everyone - still working on the redesign and was planning on
having the ability to block as one of the new features. I don't think it
will be that hard to add, so I'll go ahead and add that to the current
version of the site.

Alas, so did I (after scanning the first couple of paragraphs, too). I thought a bit of leaf-turning had been going on, but no, apparently not.

Shame.

LB wrote:

Don't know. I stopped reading after "Posted by 22111"

Ok, I admit it, I read a few lines also thinking the same as you and coming to the same conclusion.


MadaboutDana wrote:

Alas, so did I (after scanning the first couple of paragraphs, too). I
thought a bit of leaf-turning had been going on, but no, apparently not.

Shame.

I am still a user of the excellent InfoSelect v8, having initially bought version 7 and then upgraded to v8 later, years ago.
I also still occasionally use the amazing Lotus Agenda.
I use other PIMs too, but my "21st-century Zettelkasten" is Microsoft OneNote.

Just for the record, I didn't find the comment "Posted by 22111" offensive, just rather silly and wildly off-topic, though it had one or two interesting aspects. I wondered if it wasn't trolling and being deliberately sarcastic in several places.
If it was a troll, then the rule should probably be: "Never.Feed.The.Troll." - just delete it.

As the owner of several Internet blogs and discussion channels, I tend to go by the rules.

If a post breaks the rules for posting, which rules might be clearly stated as including (say) "use English only, stay on-topic, no trolling, no advertising spam, no obscene or offensive language, etc.", then delete the post by all means, but do clearly identify the rules and the criteria for rule-breaking - especially what is defined as being "offensive".

For example, what is offensive if a museum displays in its art gallery:
- the picture of the "Piss Christ" - a "modern art" photo of the RC crucifix upside-down in a bucket of the "artist's" urine.
- the picture of the "Madonna in a condom" - again, a "modern art" photo.
- a reproduction of the 600-year-old Renaissance fresco in San Petronio cathedral, Bologna, which was inspired by Canto 28 of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, representing a scene depicting Muhammad in Hell being devoured by demons (such imagery apparently "having been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages").

I am an agnostic and a skeptic, with "beliefs" in nothing much (considering "belief" to be irrational by definition), but personally I would prefer not to set foot in any museum or art gallery that displayed the first two "modern art" images - because I would have thought that we had "moved on" culturally speaking - from mocking the RC religion, at least, since since the Reformation, and mocking Christ is offensive to not only the Christian churches, but also the Islamic faith (Christ being considered to be a true prophet of Allah and who died a martyr at the hands of the Jewish Pharisees, which was a gross sin/blasphemy in Allah's eyes).

However, if all the art gallery had displayed was just the fresco, then I wouldn't object, since It represents a window into our 600 year old cultural history, and we forget/expunge our cultural history at our own risk.

But there was one thing about the post by 22111 - the reference to Jarte.
I don't think I ever looked at it before, but I did take a look last night and was rather impressed. My CRIMPing habit has been triggered and I am trialling it. The latest version of Jarte Plus is $FREE and seems worth a look as a PIM.
Maybe the post was an advert for Jarte?

I just wish InfoSelect v10 wasn't such a sorry mess.