I don't want to stop your enthousiasm about that site, but as usual, I allow myself second thoughts. Have a look into their first page there only:
- Documents also using this tag : 1 vote, whereas it'd be a (simply to implement but) tremendous feature, tremendously useful for any power user
- Clone by right-clicking a tree item : 3 votes, seems to indicate that most users are like me, don't use this (= too crippled and thus not too useful) cloning function (since if they did, they would ALL want this feature, the cloning command at this time being implemented in an awful way; again, compare with UR... or then don't do, since, if you understand cloning there and know how to do it, you risk to LEAVE MI to buy UR...)
- Add format painter like in Word : 9 votes.
Well, this is ridiculous, people there ask MI to ape Word, and Word's text formatting features - so what about Word's auto-correction for abbreviations, etc.? - whereas they don't seem to be interested in enhancing MI's core functions which do that people like us prefer MI to Word and other "word processors".
- And then, "you have 10 votes left", "use your Facebook account", and other weird things there I don't understand...
Thus, I prefer to EXPLAIN, here, why power users NEED the functionality I prone here, and to explain in detail, not doing, there, 180 characters per new "wanted" function.
Elsewhere in this forum, I said, make power using easy, and you make your users power users. - and I'm positive about this.
But I could have put it more bluntly: Try to please users who'll never be power users even if you make it easy for them to become those, and you'll lose to Word, from start on.
Reduce time it takes to save file
The larger the MyInfo data file gets, the longer it takes to save when using the 'automatic save' feature, or hitting CTRL-S.
I would like to see MyInfo adopt a more fail-safe file structure. That is, when using MyInfor, just the entry that I am creating or modifying is written to the file when... more
The larger the MyInfo data file gets, the longer it takes to save when using the 'automatic save' feature, or hitting CTRL-S.
I would like to see MyInfo adopt a more fail-safe file structure. That is, when using MyInfor, just the entry that I am creating or modifying is written to the file when I leave it. In the even of a crash while editing an item, the only work lost is the entry being worked on. Periodic saves of the entire file would not be needed.
Well, very well, but that's why I'm with MI, not with UR: Whereas in MI, I can shuffle around my multiple pieces like I want to, UR - and PB, by the way!!! - force me to wait for exactly this completely unnecessary saving large parts of the file every time I leave one item to go to another one, if I had touched the slightest comma there. (And going from there to another item in the same tree or in another, doesn't matter, I have to wait, to wait... to wait for hours, in a work day.)
I have worked with ActionOutline for some time, before coming to MI. I just saved my bunch of files every some hours or so, and I NEVER lost ANY piece of work. It's right I don't live in countries where electricity interruptions are frequent, but then, if you do, there's alway the possibility to have a device for that... e.g., very simple, a notebook with a battery in it: most notebooks are designed in a way that whenever the battery is in, and when you are connected to the electricity, the battery acts as a buffer (= not all, but most, so try).
With MI, the same thing, I'm working in it for some 4 months now, and NEVER any data loss, and then, I only save my 30 or so loaded files 3 or 4 times in 12 hours' work. Then, I have to wait for 1 or 2 minutes, but when EDITING my things, my work is smooth - whereas in UR and PB, it would not be.
So this site there, people are asking for things WITHOUT too much thinking about the implications of their requests, whereas here the argumentation level is a bit superior...
and then, your own request there,
add tag description in status bar
Petko:
I really like how MI 5.01 has revamped the status bar.
Could you also include the tag information on the right side of the status bar?
You were perfectly right, but you got ZERO "votes". As I said, that site is worth nothing. And no pun intended in YOUR direction.
I had 3 votes (mine) for that idea to put tag description next to the status bar.
But when nobody responded, I withdraw and put it some place else.
I am glad you agree.
Have you had a chance to read my other thread? (support for new features)
I do some serious work with MI, and would not mind donating/paying more for some features.
As you said - I also know a lot of management consultants/professionals who would pay several
hundreds+ for a slightly more enhanced MI. Currently, they use inferior tools and pay several hundred
dollars...
When you delete an item in the tree, you get a warning, "Do you really delete this item?" (= or something like that). - Right so, sometimes it's "unwanted", but it's always a protection against having selected the wrong item (= a neighboring one to the intended one), or to your cat doing strolls on your keyboard.
But then, when you want to abort, pressing "Escape" doesn't have any effect, like it should for EVERY such message box: "NO" should be "Escape", of course.
III
That's nothing important, it's just one of those little things users DON'T like to discover, i.e., WITHIN the Win world, or WITHIN the Mac world (= respectively), from program to program, there are some "general understandings", and users very well allow for not following them in the things a program does MORE than any other, but they don't allow for not following them in STANDARD functions, i.e. in functions that are shared by the overwhelming majority of Win / Mac programs.
Am am absolutely POSITIVE about this. I do computer work since about 1985 / 1986, I've had a lot of computers, mostly laptops / notebooks, and a multitude of software since then, and please believe me, I've seen a LOT of "not-standardized" (= in those core functions, that is) programs vanish: It's simply that users WANT programs to apply to these standardizations; if they do not, the programs ain't taken "serious", they "don't count".
I say it again, those programs are considered "amateurish" even if they're not.
IV
That's another reason I kindly ask you, Petko, to give us... NOT a toggle, but an OPTION WITHIN the concerned file / topic (= technically, a simple code in the file triggering the program's toggle, so it's easy!), to the incremental hitting you superbly encoded (and conceived, in the first place!!!!!) in the tree items, AND the "normal", conventional hitting of tree items, like they are in every other program we encounter.
In fact, I would only use this non-incremental "targeting of items" in the tree for the very first tree I use, the zero tree, and I would be happy to use your incremental targeting in any other tree, but first-time (= trial) users - who count SOOOO much for a developer's success would have it THEIR way (first), and then we'll do, in the "presentation project" (= explained elsewhere here, several projects for several prof. user groups, and in those "placeholder items", the CORE USP's of MI!!!, I'll contribute to this, I've promised this, and I'll do it!), we naturally explain that MI OFFERS (= i.e. not: mandatorily enforces!) a real better, "enriched" version of such "item targeting", an incremental one!
V
As I said elsewhere, I consider myself an expert in information management ( I'm a little bit abusing this, Petko's, site as my personal blog site on these matters, but then...: )... but then, "I know them all"... and I'm here, with Petko!
Last edited by Fred on Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't want to appear harsh on that site, but my basic critique remains, it's easy to vote on this and on that, without having in mind the multiple implications things are connected to... and it's easy to overlook real good enhancements if their implications are not rightfully explained - what I'm trying to do here, is to make Petko developing trust in me that I'm on his side against losing the market; at least I TRY ty be the least egoistic as I can manage.
III
Of course, people say, non-collaborative things are doomed; even I concede that they're right. But then, I see the little progress in collaborative USEFULNESS of other programs, and I tell myself, so what, MI has every chance to win it's share of this (future) market when it follows my "instructions".
That must appear megalomania of mine, and then, even 12 years ago, I did, in a program that wasn't stable, thus not marketable, things I do not see in any of the actual programs developed by real professionals (to which group I do not belong) - AND they worked, AND they did sooo smoothen out my work... I never encountered in ANY program since...
Thus, the "Scrivener for Windows beta" released yesterday doesn't impress me in any overwhelming way; I respect the realization of (lesser) ideas (than mine were), but I have in mind my ideas - realized, again - not just dreamed of -, but not in a stable programming environment, i.e. ToolBook 6.1) of 12 years ago, and so...
I'm very glad that you, Crystal, being another professional user, KNOW AND UNDERLINE MI's need for applying to a "semi-professional" market in order to "survive", as I have "discovered" when trying out all those "outliners" there in the marketplace.
I see that you, Crystal, have read my posts, in this thread and elsewhere, since you make allusions to things I said some weeks ago; I am very grateful for this.
I know Petko has a rather difficult year before him if he is to follow our suggestions... but I SWEAR his sales will triple, or more than that; of course I'll tout the new qualities brought into MI wherever he'll intend to make sales; getting rid of all those little things in the 5.xxx range would be a good thing, by installments, then 6.0 should offer some macro third dimension - the one on file groups -, and then we'll see for any marketing goodies that might apply to different professionals' groups...
It goes without saying that indeed, collaborative use will be NECESSARY for MI in the future...
But then, please, folks, Crystal, Petko, be aware, that such collaborative potentialities, technically, are to be solved in the same way as, technically, any inter-topic referencing (= which, as I said, NONE of the competitors has at this time to my - not that superficial - knowledge)): And the TWO must be present in some time from this, and the TWO will be so similar in their technical implementation, that it will really not be that difficult:
In fact, any program that wants to make it into the 1020s, will have to have some META-STRUCTURE = a simple database always loaded, with some tables in it, where EVERY action - of the single user first, of ANY member of the user GROUP second - will be synched, and in which tables every necessary synching of the actual data will be triggered; no "artificial intelligence" is needed for this one, just plain programming, let's say 2,000 lines of code all in all.
UR could do this, PB could do this, MI could do this; in fact, it's the very simple concept of NOT storing any more any relevant data IN the different topics, but to hold in memory a META STRUCTURE doing the links BETWEEN topics, and SYNCHING ALL YOUR WORK, even WITHIN topics; in fact, it's sort of an AI routine asking, at any time you're not in the editor field, "what the h*** are you (= the single user or any member of any user group) doing, and what I'm (= the system) going to do about it?!" - a never-ending script intercepting all your (non-editing) actions, and blocking any other (non-editing) actions (= by anyone) for that fraction of a second it needs to synch.
IV
Petko WILL read your post... and then...
I agree with you, half-heartedly; in fact, I've had the idea to offer 100 euro for this, 100 euro for that... knowing that 100 in Bulgaria is real money, and that for 2 hours' work here and there...
And then I got very ashamed. Bulgaria is member of the EU, and perhaps - I continue to be ashamed for this - if India is far away, even psychologically, Bulgaria is not (any more) - Petko is NOT "third world" - let's be honest: we wouldn't have had this idea to offer money to implement those little things we need, to the UR developers, right? And that thought was the trigger to be ashamed of my very first idea - I thus had had independently of you -, and my second idea was, well, all alone, Petko, as a (tremendous) programmer, will NOT have the necessary insight into what's needed on a professional level - those 3 to 10 staff enterprises, or even 0-staff enterprises but where the owner works 14 hours a day, 7 days a week -... why not rightly INFORM him what to do, and then be happy for him when he'll get really rich?!
In other words, I assume, from this community's "responsiveness", that Petko / Milenix has about 100 paying users - I hope I'm wrong, but what do I know? And this triggers our fear that MI might be doomed... and this triggers our condescension to offer Petko 100 euro for this and 100 dollars for that... or even much more, in your case... - again, I've had this idea before reading you, so I'm not blaming you, Crystal, but for an awful idea I've had before: shame on me, in the very first place!
But fact is, either Petko hears our voices, or MI will be doomed - I'm positive about this, without any condescension, it's a fact I'm just happen to remind us of.
And that's why I don't only ask for this or for that, but feed it up, and invite Petko - or any other fellow user - to ask for some more detail for whatever it is. I'm willing to go into creating pseudo-code for the things MI needs, to do flowcharts or more than that -
I want MI to survive - for MY benefit, and for the benefit of all people who need something really good.
Thus, I kindly ask you, Crystal, to SPECIFY what's being needed in your opinion... or then, let me first read your posts on that site there to have an idea for it...
But let's face it, UR doesn't have real tags, or tag management today... but it's number one of their list. Thus, the USP of MI will soon be lost - I'm not a complete fool -, and of course, ALL of which we write here, could be implemented in UR, and then, MI will be dead.
But then, I'm here: why? Because I think that Petko will listen to me / us, whereas UR developers won't / would have not. They do their thing, they don't need anybody... whereas Petko needs us... not as a third world thing, do this and that and that for us, and here's some green dollars, thank you, but because we form a real team.
That being said, indeed, Petko OWES us certain things, for free. When I want to have something I need, I EXPECT Petko to do it for me... not because it's valued this and that, but because of returning the friendship I'm offering here. E.g., I want this minor thing, encoding time 2 hours, I want that minor thing, encoding time 2 hours and a half...
I'd be really disappointed, if, when I'll ask for them, Petko said "no" or didn't say anything. So it's not in ANY detail that I'd pretend, it's good for MI, thus do it; here and there, I could have a minor thing just for me = doing it as a toggle, so it will bother nobody else.
But as everybody can see, doing MY work here is predominant, THEN I'll ask for (very tiny) favors to my idiosyncrasies of mine.
In the PB forums, people ask, in 2009, for Google Wave integration. As we all (perhaps) know, Google buried Wave. Would PB been well advised to follow those demands, then? You bet not. Thus, any demands on Petko, as a single developer of a single product, that will not really enhance his product, will harm Petko, will harm his product, will harm as all. As I said, MI files, without the slightest fault, will export to UR - but I'm not going to leave. And I count on you, Crystal, to help Petko, not in doing pseudo-code as I am willing to do, but by specifying those professional users' recommandations MI needs... not to survive... but to blossom.
As said before, the absence of a command "Home" in the tree, in order to go to the first item in the tree, is as unusual, as it is unpractical and awkward. (And mandatorily having a first item there beginning with a very special character is not a real solution in the end.)
I understand that "Home" and "End" are used, within ONE line of the tree columns, to go to the first and last elements there, i.d. normally to "Title" and to "Tags", respectively, and I think this is absolutely okay.
BUT WE NEED "Home" to go to the first item, and so I have a solution to present, finally; it's easy. For each pressing of "Home", when in the tree, just a very basic IF structure should check if focus is already at the first element of the line (= "title"), and if so, it should set focus to the first line in the tree; if not, it should set focus, as it does now, to the first element in the current line.
Thus, whenever focus is, quite normally, at a "title", "Home" goes to the first item; whenever not, TWO pressings of "Home" key would have this same effect: Easy and elegant.
This way, "End" could NOT be assigned in such a way, but then, most people do not (?) want to go continuously to the last element of their tree? Or perhaps indeed, they would, in order to add NEW items to it! (Whereas I need so much going to the first item in the tree, and than I jump manually around everywhere, many people could perhaps need to add, in rather flat lists / trees, a lot of items, again and again, at the end of those lists.)
Thus, all navigation between within the current item's column elements should be done by Control-Home/End or Control-Arrow or something, but certainly NOT by "Home" and "End" where people expect going to the first / last item in the tree.
When you do a rename of an item (by F2), you do NOT get any long field in which to see the old and / new item name in its full length, but for any file name longer than the physical screen width for its column, you only see a fraction. Bad.
Even worse, when you do a Home or an End (= within this F2 editing function), you only get to the beginning / end of this displayed fraction of the name, and even a second pressing of Home or End will not put you at the real beginning / end. Thus you have to fuss around with arrow keys, and then only, when you are, by those arrows, got into the first or final displayed part of the name, pressing Home / End will get you at the beginning or end of the name.
Would be nice to have this better since renaming topics is everyday stuff for many users (like myself). I was unhappy with this behavior from day 1, but I never found the occasion to mention it; so that's done now.
EDITED... = ADD-ON:
Having had another look, I understand now that those two very ugly arrow fields in this way too restrained field represent the up and down arrows, i.e. when you press up arrow, you get to the real beginning of the item name, and accordingly to the end with the down arrow.
It's another occurence of "MI doing things like nobody else does" - in fact, pressing up / down arrow is handier than pressing home or end... but then, since you're forced to press home and end in any other program, those keys not working in MI isn't that handy even when in fact, it's the more intelligent solution.
Finally, it's rather simple, design-wise: Whenever you do something on TOP of the functionality of other programs, you have the "right" to do it your way... and whenever to implement a function encountered in all those other programs, either you implement it the way the others do, or you get it really difficult for your customers - it's the same with Lenovo's interchanging of Fn and Ctrl keys...
Thus, please, Petko, having understood you want to do something better here, as on most occasions, would it be, nethertheless, be possible to do the "normal" way - Home and End functioning normally within the F2 / renaming function, instead of doing nothing there -, on TOP of your way, be it the better one but not shared by others?
(This is my second post in this thread today.) (Another little thing I never had actually posted when indeed thinking I had:)
"Confirm Delete" and others:
When you want to delete an item, you get a dialog "Are you sure?" first. This ist standard and very good. But when you want to answer NO, it is standard that you can press Escape, instead of navigating to the NO button and press the button. In MI, this dialog, and others, do NOT react to your Esc, but they should!
