MyInfo Community Forums

For quite a few years I used an application, TreeDBnotes before I switched to MyInfo. Although MyInfo is superior in many many ways, there is a lot to be gleaned from TreeDB. The TreeDB forum has been very active for years and users left the developer with a lot of feedback and ideas that he implemented

I was using MyInfo today and found it is missing a few tools that I came to rely on:

• - ability to change rulers to metric. Why only inches? I tthink USA is the only country worldwide still using Imperial measures
  - Table of Contents. Very nice for long documents with many sections
  - Formatting toolbar that offers superscripts etc and the toolbar is located within the editor, very close to the text (less mouse travel)
  - A word/character count. Select the text, click on the word-count display near the status bar at the bottom, and total words/characters are displayed. This is more convenient than going through the menu (not crucial feature but I like it). And this is a great feature for writers- we can easily select a block of text and check how many words it is.
  - Tools that offer very useful things like converting doc to unicode, removing blank spaces

I like MyInfo's uncluttered style and the fact it does not try to do everything. For example, I don't want it to store my contacts or use it as a calendar(thunderbird is for that), or as a password manager (keepass is for that). I'm interested in a powerful tool for doing research and organizing large amounts of data.

But the tools I mentioned- I used them a lot before and now miss them.

I agree with all your points, Coolrat. And, I would also add that other programs manage (and index) PDF and Office documents much better than MyInfo, and would be a welcomed improvement. Lastly, when copying text or an abstract from a PDF, there are always hard line breaks #13 #10 inserted. I would love the option to clean paragraph breaks and multiple spaces within a pasted paragraph.
-- Glen

Hi
I've been using MyInfo a lot these days for keeping track of several writing projects that I'm doing.

Its great, but the word count feature is not very convenient and I find myself going back to TreeDBnotes because of its amazing word-count feature. In TreeDB, you can select a block of text, and click on a small "Words-Characters" tool button at the bottom of the text editor. It will then tell you how many words/characters are in the block of text you selected.

This is amazing. When I have to edit papers, or reduce the length of paragraphs etc, I use this feature to compare the length of various sentences as I write them.

But in MyInfo, Word, LibreOffice etc, they can't do this. I have to cut the paragraph out to a new document, navigate to the menu and select "word count " or "statistics". This is slow and inefficient.

Please consider implementing a word-character count tool like the one in TreeDB.

In my previous post, I thought this was not a crucial feature. Now I have changed my mind completely. Its crucial.

I wonder if word count on text selection would be possible to be done as an add-on? I can clearly see its value, but then, maybe too few people would need it. Maybe you could hire a developer to create an add-on for it?

The word count feature should be quite simple to add. If TreeDBnotes had it, then MyInfo could probably easily add it as Petko seems to be a master of good code, very much unlike TreeDB which crashed often and lost plenty of my data.

A word counter would be a very useful addition for writers, editors and researchers. Thanks for considering this feature!

The word count feature should be quite simple to add.

- maybe, I am not competent in that, but then, I guess, there are a lot of quite simple features waiting on the roadmap to be added? (Which reminds me how unfortunate it is that there is no special roadmap page ).

Anyway, my point was, if that feature is critical to you, why not have a plug-in coded as soon as possible?

uzzer wrote:

Anyway, my point was, if that feature is critical to you, why not have a plug-in coded as soon as possible?

Very good point Uzzer- I could hire out the production of such a word-count feature. Any suggestions on where I could hire a compentent coder to produce it? Funds are pretty limited now- I just completed an exhaustingly difficult PhD-- but I might convince myself to hire out the coding if I get more paid work in.

Regardless, we are all looking forward to MyInfo adding various bits of new functionality and improving overall. It is an invaluable part of my daily workflow.

Well, it all depends if you want to have the coder physically near you or if you are ready to work remotely. For the latter any freelancing portal should do.

alieen wrote:In TreeDB, you can select a block of text, and click on a small "Words-Characters" tool button at the bottom of the text editor. It will then tell you how many words/characters are in the block of text you selected.

You have a corresponding feature in MyInfo too:

- Select for example a paragraph of your text
- Then click on Tools ---> Word Count

---> A window will open that shows you the number of words and characters (and paragraphs and lines) in the selected part of the text.

(If useful for you, you can even move the command to your toolbar so that you can activate it with a single mouse click.)

Thanks very much Tester!

You've certainly done a lot of testing on MyInfo and contributed much to the forms. Thanks!