The latest update to Windows 11 seems to have broken my favourite notekeeping program (Blackwell Idealist). I have managed to extract its contents in the form of Idealist Natural files (which are simply large text files with tags to indicate the start and finish of each note and the fields within them.

So I’m looking for an alternative. Ideally something that uses a card index metaphor (I’m old fashioned; notes on index cards was how I did my PhD) and can swallow a heck of a lot of notes (26,000+ in my main notes file; 11,000+ in my references file) without slowing down to a snail’s pace whenever I do a search.

Yours
Lawrence

This recommendation is based on a hunch that it might work. Not on experience. But have you looked at Zoot?

https://www.zootsoftware.com/

It has been around for 25 years. I'm not sure that it has advanced much in the past decade, but it is still supported. I tend to recall that it was sometimes compared with Idealist.

I'm sure others in this forum will have other suggestions.

Steve

Did you see these two posts that are now almost one year old?
"And the good news: Idealist v3 in Windows 11".
Link:
https://groups.google.com/g/IdealistDB/c/-z4g-ugPts0

Anthony wrote:

"And the good news: Idealist v3 in Windows 11".

the message shows a namesake of yours if it's not really you!

Hello Lawrence,

I have two computers with the latest version of Windows 11 both happily running Idealist (1995 version 3) without any problems, Have you tried re-installing from the original files?

Regards,
Geoffrey

PS I don't know how many times I have tried Zoot over the years - but it just does not seem to "gel" with me

Geoffrey,
That's interesting. For the avoidance of confusion, my machine is now running 64-bit W11pro version 22H2. As far as I know, the original executable won't work in 64-bit systems. Instead of a proper installation, I have simply used a copy of the Idealist folder saved from my last 32-bit setup. If you know of a way of persuading 64-bit systems to accept the executable I'd love to hear about it.

Anthony,
Yes, that post was one of mine.

Stephen,
Thanks for suggesting Zoot. I've tried it in the past without being sufficiently excited by it to change, but I may well take another look at it.

Yours
Lawrence

Lawrence,

Have you considered either of these apps:

https://cintanotes.com

https://standardnotes.com

These work well with plain text. Probably not all the organizational features of Idealist.

Steve

Have you tried running Idealist in a virtual machine (Hyper-V, Parallels, VirtualBox, VMWare) running whatever OS worked before? If it worked then it should work in a VM with that OS, now.

Lawrence, it is thanks to you that I have a copy of Idealist on my computer. While the "IDEAL3.EXE" installation file, which I downloaded from your blog some years ago, won't run on my up-to-date Windows 11 system, "l32.exe" runs just fine as a portable executable the opens the Bekon version of the program. I do not remember the details of how I got "l32.exe", but I know you're the resident expert on the subject, so perhaps this is helpful information.

Perhaps the Windows 11 Program Compatibility Troubleshooter (find and fix problems with running older programs on this version of Windows) would do it.
Found in System/Troubleshoot/Other troubleshooters.

-Bill

Good idea, Bill. For what it's worth, before others spend their time, I will mention my experience: For running the installation file, I tried the troubleshooter and playing around with compatibility settings to no avail. I'm not sure what prevents the installer from running. And I am now seeing over on the dedicated forum that Lawrence has already tried this as well:

https://groups.google.com/g/idealistdb/c/j2-qRoMo1bk/m/aYhQXKSxAgAJ

Anyway, the unpacked, apparently portable version (3.0) seems to work fine. It looks like someone has already shared it here:

https://groups.google.com/g/idealistdb/c/LE1cbgzdgJE/m/Mz8WMPg3BQAJ

$Bill wrote:

Perhaps the Windows 11 Program Compatibility Troubleshooter (find and
fix problems with running older programs on this version of Windows)
would do it.
Found in System/Troubleshoot/Other troubleshooters.

-Bill

Oh well, never mind. I just re-read Lawrence's post over on the dedicated forum, where he specifies that he is able to launch the program, but has problems when loading a database. So my comments may be irrelevant to that particular issue.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am tempted by the virtual machine idea (particularly as I keep wondering about migrating to Linux and I know Idealist can be made to run in LInux with a little help from Crossover). In the meantime, I have simply reverted to the previous build of W11 (i.e. 21H2) and Idealist is working again.

Yours
Lawrence