Okay, is it just my misperception or is the field of PIM/Outliners gradually shrinking?

It seems that many of the programs that we used to talk about with great enthusiasm -- UltraRecall, InfoHandler -- are going the way of ADM and Ariadne. Basically shrivelling on the vine. There seems little new and exciting in the field during the past year. Of course, I am awaiting the delivery -- promised for this month -- of Zoot with text formatting. That would be EXCITING. Brainstorm development seems to have stalled, and David is working on selling it.

Software development has always been volatile, and developers fickle, as those of us who loved GrandView and Ecco can attest. So it isn't surprising to see software come and go. But I guess I don't see so much new stuff coming along.

In the Mac world, things are a little brighter, but there are fewer choices to begin with. Applications like Curio and Notebook are exciting and remain fresh. But even here you get a program like Journler -- which built up an enthusiastic following and now seems destined for the scrap heap.

I suppose the world wide economic downturn isn't helping matters. But all the more reason for an out-of-work programming wizard to devote more time to the ultimate PIM. Is it out there?

Steve Z.

Before I catch hell from Pierre, let me qualify my previous posting -- Where are all the exciting developments besides IQ?

Steve Z.

Brainstorm development seems to have stalled, and David is working on selling it.

Sold

http://twitter.com/tebbo/status/1038561982

The Mac environment is still going strong. OmniFocus 2.0 is in development, OmniOutliner 4.0 is (finally) in development. The Hit List was just released. Circus Ponies Notebook 3.0 was just released three months ago (seriously, that's become one impressive application!). Curio gets frequent revisions.

Journler was always more shareware than a commercial product, and it had too many good competitors for the developer to keep going with it.

If you use a broader definition of PIMs, DevonThink 2.0 is (finally) in beta, Together is getting an update every month (and is already competitive with DevonThink), Things is selling well, etc.

In terms of open source stuff, "org-mode" is undergoing extremely rapid development (about one release every two weeks). This will reward anyone who takes the time to learn it.

I think there are a lot of reasons the Windows software market for small developers has been stagnating. Maybe Windows 7 will turn that around a little. InfoQube deserves a lot of credit for persevering.

-- Chris

One in the world of Windows to watch is ConnectedText, I think - stable application, ambitious, dedicated developer, hardcore of tech savy users pushing him on to greater heights, a forum which is starting to take off. Pretty exciting.

Ike

No one's mentioned EverNote, which is innovative and interesting.

But to the extent that there is a more general diminution of development, at least on Windows, OneNote must bear some responsibility. It must take some courage and, ideally, quite a lot of cash for a small developer to enter the same arena as ON. As I recall, EverNote's developers felt it necessary to raise $6m or so before they took their application to the next stage. Mac developers have several advantages derived from the platform, but also don't labour under the same shadow.

Yes, Connected Text is a fine program, but development on it hasn't exactly progressed at a rapid pace in the past two years. The new Evernote is interesting, but in some ways a step back from what it was when just a desktop application.

The nature of my question wasn't to imply that there are no good programs out there, just that there are few new ones -- or to be more specific, programs that allow our information to be handled in new ways.

Those applications that seemed to bring some fresh thinking to the field -- ADM, Ariadne, Chandler, Infohandler, UltraRecall -- have all ground to a halt -- if not disappeared entirely.

I guess what I'm really asking is, Where is the innovation?

Steve Z.

Chris Thompson wrote:

In terms of open source
stuff, "org-mode" is undergoing extremely rapid development (about one release
every two weeks). This will reward anyone who takes the time to learn it.

Chris,

I looked at the org-mode web site and I have to say I didn't really get it. First of all, I don't know what emacs is. If you have a few moments, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a little more information about org-mode. Thank you!

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote: [snip]

Those applications that seemed to bring some fresh thinking
to the field -- ADM, Ariadne, Chandler, Infohandler, UltraRecall -- have all ground
to a halt -- if not disappeared entirely.

I guess what I'm really asking is, Where is
the innovation? [/snip]

Stephen, How do you think InfoQube aka SQLnotes measures up in the innovation department?

--
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield CT USA

Jan Rifkinson wrote:

Stephen, How do you think
InfoQube aka SQLnotes measures up in the innovation department?

It's been a few months since I last tried it. I admire the ambitious list of functions, but keep finding it difficult to figure out how to use them all. That IQ's inspiration is Ecco, it might be more accurate to characterize it as being the refinement of an older application rather than an innovation. However, as I said, I haven't used it to a great extent and would certainly welcome being corrected.

Steve Z.

Chris Thompson wrote:

The Mac environment is still going strong. OmniFocus 2.0 is in development,
OmniOutliner 4.0 is (finally) in development. The Hit List was just released. Circus
Ponies Notebook 3.0 was just released three months ago (seriously, that's become one
impressive application!). Curio gets frequent revisions.

Journler was always
more shareware than a commercial product, and it had too many good competitors for the
developer to keep going with it.

An interesting aspect of this list of software is the issue of synchronization. OmniFocus functions well with MobileMe. The files for OmniOutliner, The Hit List, Circus Ponies Notebook, and Curio can all be placed in iDisk or Drop Box, and thereby be synced between different computers. (So far, for me, Drop Box [free] seems considerably faster.)

Journler seems difficult to synch in this way. A few people have apparently made it work with Drop Box, but others found it wasn't reliable. You can synch the files using a program like ChronoSync, but it means remembering to do it, and carrying a USB drive. Together synches via Mobile Me, but it seems to still have some issues with that. (I've had problems, and I've read about others with this issue. It too can be reliably synched with something like ChronoSync, as long as the program is closed.)

OmniFocus seems to have the synch issue worked out well with its database. Together seems to still be working this out. I can understand how hard this would be to do when your database has multiple files, as compared to programs where you only have to sync a single file. For me, being able to sync over the Internet is a wonderful convenience, and this seems particularly true when you are talking about software that you use to manage projects and keep daily notes about projects. (Long-term storage items are not so likely to need onging synching.)

Randall

Emacs is a text editing program with a very long history (26+ years of development I think). It's most popular on Unix computers but is available for virtually any platform. The distinctive thing about Emacs is that it's built on top of a programming language, and over the years people have built all sorts of customizations for it (web browser modes, email client modes, diary modes, various outlining modes, etc.). A good analogy would be the way that President's Planner and other applications were built on top of Lotus Agenda.

org-mode is one of those modes. It seems to have started as just an outliner with some task/date/calendaring support, but it's grown into a kind of Swiss army knife of outliners/PIMs.

In terms of outlining features, it's got:
- hoisting, multiple views
- footnote support
- sections of the outline can have columns (different parts of the outline can have different columns)
- calculations can be done in column cells
- tagging of individual outline items
- exporting as documents to HTML (and a few others, e.g. LaTeX).

In terms of task management, it has:
- categories and priorities (of course you can use tags too)
- the ability to create multiple task states (e.g. TODO/DONE, READ/SUMMARIZE/DONE, TODO/WAITING/DONE) and use them as appropriate in the same outline
- strong date and calendaring support for tasks
- concept of deadlines and another concept of scheduled items
- repeating tasks
- filtering views by effort required
- aggregation of tasks from multiple files into an agenda
- time tracking, automatic generation of reports as tables in the outline.

There's a bunch more. More than just the list of features though, a lot of the features have impressive depth. For instance, for repeating tasks, there's an ability to create a task of the type "Call Dad" which is scheduled for every two weeks on a Sunday, and if missed, will carry forward until you do it, but after you do it, will push it forward not just two weeks from the day you mark it done, but to the Sunday after that (because you might always want to make that type of personal call on a Sunday). This last little bit is a form of recurrence I haven't seen in any other program. Of course it supports standard recurrences to (repeat every two weeks after scheduled, repeat every two weeks after marked done). And virtually everything is customizable. It's basically a toolbox to build the kind of PIM you want. Like Ecco, but more customizable. The underlying file format is plain text.

The downside to org-mode is that it's built within Emacs, which is crusty and bizarre (e.g. windows are called "frames", subareas in windows are called "splits"). Without the Org menu it would be impenetrable for amateurs. I think it's worth learning though for PIM fanatics. I remember feeling the same way about DOS Agenda.

The manual is here... it discusses some of the features:
http://orgmode.org/org.pdf

-- Chris

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I looked at the org-mode web site and I
have to say I didn't really get it. First of all, I don't know what emacs is. If you have a
few moments, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a little more information about
org-mode. Thank you!

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Yes, Connected Text is a fine program, but development on it hasn?t exactly progressed at a rapid pace in the past two years.

Well, I would beg to differ. Since January of 2007 ConnectedText has gone from Version 2.0.0.9 to Version 3.1. While many of these versions seem like incremental increases, many companies would have made them major versions, and they would now be at 5.8 ()or something like that.

Some of the (for me) most important developments:
* a USB version and topic redirection (March 2007)
* a new highlight plugin (June 2007)
* template manager (July 2007)
* Filter manage (August 2008)
* Footnotes (October 2007)
* Autolinking and a new Table of contents View, which allows intinsic outlining of documents (October 2007)
* Outlines (extrinsic outliner for topics) (October 2007)
* Autobackup to Text files (April 2008)
* semantic functions of properties and attribute (April 2008)
* new functions for properties (later in April 2008)
* Outline export to HTML (June 2008)
* Outline export to Freemind (and printing of outlines) (August 2008)
* Summaries of properties and attributes (September 2008)
* Outlines can be printed with linked text included (December 2008)
* Outlines can be exported to text (December 2008)
* Support of folding in editor (December 2008)
* Macros and Buttons (December 2008)
* 12 new macros (later in December 2008)
* URLs that can be used by other applications (December 2008)
This does not include some of the many improvements and changes that were not as important to me.

In any case, the last two years have changed the application to such an extent that it is a completely different "animal" now, with sophisticated outlining and semantic extensions that works well with other applications.

I continue to bet on it just BECAUSE of its RAPID development.

Manfred

Manfred wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Yes, Connected Text is a fine program, but development on it
hasn?t exactly progressed at a rapid pace in the past two years.

I stand corrected... and happily so. Thanks, Manfred.

Steve

Chris Thompson wrote:

Emacs is a text editing program with a very long history (26+ years of development I
think). It's most popular on Unix computers but is available for virtually any
platform.

Chris,

Thank you for the detailed answer to my request for more information about org-mode... now I even understand the unusual name. You've definitely made it sound worth investigating further.

Steve Z.

Steve,
thanks for acknowledging, and letting me taking it in the way it was intended.
Best,
Manfred

Manfred wrote:

Steve,
thanks for acknowledging, and letting me taking it in the way it was
intended.
Best,
Manfred

My pleasure, Manfred. I don't want to have given the impression that I don't like ConnectedText. I think it is a really fabulous program in many ways, so I am glad that the pace of development is greater than I thought. And, this is the kind of thing I wanted to learn about when I started this thread... what applications get others on this forum excited for the future of this software niche? I really greatly value the ideas and opinions expressed here.

Steve Z.

Not sure about excitement, but for innovation Flying Logic (http://flyinglogic.com/ and to a lesser extent the similar but slightly more orthodox Rationale (http://rationale.austhink.com/tour ought to rate quite highly. Not exactly PIMs but certainly graphical outliners.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I suppose
the world wide economic downturn isn't helping matters. But all the more reason for an
out-of-work programming wizard to devote more time to the ultimate PIM.

Well, the fact that many programmers may be out of work doesn't mean that their time is free. They still have to eat! Dedicating a couple of years at least to come up with something original enough for users to be willing to pay for it, is an investment too few people are likely to make, regardless of their genius.

The alternative is what we see around us: information managers built on default controls that as a result all look alike. Things get even worse when .NET drops in. Then they all look alike and are snail-fast. But the reduction in development effort that such tools provide is huge.

Thus it becomes non-competitive to build things from scratch --the end-product could be very expensive. Look at how few PIMs have their own tree control: UltraRecall, Surfulater, InfoQube (I think) are the only ones I am aware of.

New business models are required. Evernote's service based model is one; others, like Mind Manager, are still charging for their application and offering a service model for sharing as an option. Pierre has linked InfoQube to his consultancy and I think that's brilliant.

Unfortunately not all 'programming wizards' are marketing-wise enough. And at this time and place, they need to be.

Alexander

P.S. Re excitement. Apart for InfoQube and Evernote, I am excited at what is going on in the mobile world. The iPhone has already sparked a wave of development, probably because of the tools it provides and the huge market it brings programmers to. Take a look at this for exanple:
http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/8-mind-mapping-apps-for-the-iphone/

I had written elsewhere that applications, in order to be successful, will need to become web-aware and cross-platform; I would note that 'cross-platform' includes not only Windows / Mac / Linux, but also mobile ones.

P.S.2 Add NoteCase Pro, a more traditional but rapidly developing cross-platform PIM, to my excitement :-)

I have a licence for Rationale and I've used it quite a bit. A graphical outliner which helps you focus on the evalutation of ideas (rather than offering to do many things, everything eg Mind Manager) is innovative, I suppose. The version I have, 1.5.4, is slow to open on my laptop, however, and so I tend to outline arguments in Notezilla stickies: a simple notation for evaluating the reasoning + or - a claim >.

What I do like about Rationale is the navigation. Mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Left click and drag to pan. Click to go from one map to another. And the text box can be copied and pasted elewhere without having to export to a file first as in some other programs in this class.

No great innovations. It's just that these add up to something quite good, a fun environment, at least for this user. Of course, the data starts adding up as a result; and then it does get pretty exciting...

Ike

Hugh wrote:

Not sure about excitement, but for innovation Flying Logic
(http://flyinglogic.com/ and to a lesser extent the similar but slightly more
orthodox Rationale (http://rationale.austhink.com/tour ought to rate quite
highly. Not exactly PIMs but certainly graphical outliners.

Just to get back to Steve's original question: whither the ultimate PIM? My 2 cents. As well as the economic downturn and the effect that's having on developers' margins, isn't it also the case that the PIM market has matured?

Okay, so this is probably just my experience which I'm extrapolating into an instant theory... but my impression from talking to non-tech types who found themselves having to use computers is that increasingly they're fairly happy with their information management set up.

People who were forced around a decade ago into the search for the perfect PIM as, suddenly, overnight, they went online and became overloaded with information, have kludged together solutions. Pretty good PIM software is out there. It does the job.

See the latest version of EverNote. The innovation there is at the level of technology. Sure, it's great to access data from anywhere. But as far as information management goes, it does less than earlier versions.

A good business move by EverNote and its VC investors. For many people, the excitement is now in using software to be more creative, to get a real handle on work and so on. Switching from one PIM application isn't easy. Innovation just confuses. And so they stick with what works. Which will be relatively simple, not innovative in the ways in which many hardcore info splicers & dicers might want.

Ike

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Okay, is it just my misperception or is the field of PIM/Outliners gradually
shrinking?

It seems that many of the programs that we used to talk about with great
enthusiasm -- UltraRecall, InfoHandler -- are going the way of ADM and Ariadne.
Basically shrivelling on the vine. There seems little new and exciting in the field
during the past year. Of course, I am awaiting the delivery -- promised for this month
-- of Zoot with text formatting. That would be EXCITING. Brainstorm development
seems to have stalled, and David is working on selling it.

Software development has
always been volatile, and developers fickle, as those of us who loved GrandView and
Ecco can attest. So it isn't surprising to see software come and go. But I guess I don't
see so much new stuff coming along.

In the Mac world, things are a little brighter,
but there are fewer choices to begin with. Applications like Curio and Notebook are
exciting and remain fresh. But even here you get a program like Journler -- which built
up an enthusiastic following and now seems destined for the scrap heap.

I suppose
the world wide economic downturn isn't helping matters. But all the more reason for an
out-of-work programming wizard to devote more time to the ultimate PIM. Is it out
there?

Steve Z.