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-   [UR] General Discussion (https://www.kinook.com/Forum/forumdisplay.php?f=23)
-   -   How is Ongoing Development? (https://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=2237)

danson 01-16-2007 11:21 AM

How is Ongoing Development?
 
Hi Kinook,

Just wondering how development is going on UR? Nothing released since October. Is the next step in the roadmap a 2.5 or 3.0 release?

Still using UR all the time and keen to know the product is still being actively developed. There's been a whole bunch of wonderful feature suggestions I'd love to have access to in the next version!

Daniel

danson 01-16-2007 11:25 AM

do answer the 'what next' question i found:
http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...=&threadid=993

however it would be cool if we had some sort of timeframe. I know it's useless to quote deadlines but what about a 'not before'? Eg not before June 2007 or whatever, so i don't have to keep checking back every day =)

kinook 01-16-2007 07:34 PM

We hope to release a beta for the next version by the end of January 2007 (final release within a month or so of that if all goes well).

igoldsmid 01-16-2007 07:48 PM

wonderful - sooner than i expected. Pls count me in to receive a beta download,

Thanks

igoldsmid 01-18-2007 04:01 PM

To Kinook
 
The V3 proposed new features look great. However, I don't see any changes to the search functionality? There was talk earlier of making Google Desktop Search able to index & search within UR - has this been dropped?

The thing is - many desktop search tools enable more advanced complex searching than is possible in UR (and for me and some others I think, are intuitively easier to use to construct complex search logic than with UR where I just can't get comfortable with the UR indenting logic and how it affects the search results) - AND provide highlighted search results, even in PDF's, Powerpoint's, Spreadsheets and so forth... So if one stores all those doc types in UR, as in many respects that is very convenient, one loses the ability to perform such advanced searches, AND in UR there is no result highlighting across all document types...

kinook 01-18-2007 04:47 PM

We investigated both Google Desktop Search and Windows Desktop Search integration, but neither appears to support it in a way that would be useful for files with hierarchical documents/data [1-4].

To also make your documents accessible to desktop search engines, link it in UR (rather than storing) or periodically export the entire database to documents (the next release will support command-line export to automate this).

[1] http://tinyurl.com/3yl4jx
[2] http://desktop.google.com/dev/indexapi.html
[3] http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/Sho...24234&SiteID=1
[4] http://addins.msn.com/devguide.aspx

dasymington 01-20-2007 06:09 PM

To reiterate the questions posed by igoldsmid:

What about "changes to the search functionality" in UR? Are there any planned soon? Will we be able to "intuitively ... construct complex search logic"? Or will we still have to "get comfortable with the UR indenting logic" (which seems to be totally unique and, to me, not at all intuitive)?

"To also make your documents accessible to desktop search engines, link it in UR (rather than storing) or periodically export the entire database to documents" ... sorry, if we've taken the time and trouble to import documents to UR, shouldn't we be able to search them efficiently without resorting to this?

quant 01-21-2007 05:53 AM

whats so difficult about UR search???

I like it very much, especially that I can combine "AND,OR" logical statements and create what I call "complex search". So far, this was the first soft that allows OR statement in the search I have seen. And this is maybe what causes problems, because no other soft has this feature and you never seen it before. If you dont use OR, everything is the same as in any other usual soft, you dont need to do any indenting! Everything is just AND statement added one after another. However, if you use OR/AND, it matters where you put the parenthesis (in UR soft represented by indenting), and it is good if you know some basic rules of Boolean algebra:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra

Does "Google or Windows Desktop" have OR? Could you for example find an item that was created OR modified yesterday?

Thanks

dasymington 01-21-2007 05:59 AM

Quant, I do know about Boolean algebra, but I prefer to write queries using AND, OR and parenthesis: it's much quicker and I find it easier to understand and to edit than UR's indenting.

Google does have OR, but not parenthesis.

Other software does allow OR, e.g., AskSam.

quant 01-21-2007 06:30 AM

Perfect then!

I agree that UR indenting feature takes a little time to get used to, and it could be documented with more than just one example in help file ... but once you grasp the concept of it, it's just fine, and powerful!

igoldsmid 01-21-2007 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by quant
Perfect then!

I agree that UR indenting feature takes a little time to get used to, and it could be documented with more than just one example in help file ... but once you grasp the concept of it, it's just fine, and powerful!

X1 (yahoo desktop search) has comprehensive boolean and even much more than merely boolean - so does Exalead desktop search.

Apart from the difficult to work with query formulation in UR, the other major shortcoming is that the search results only point to documents containing the query terms - not the terms themselves - there is no indication of where the terms appear in those result documents - nor highlighting such terms. Therefore, as I said before, if you are searching for multiple terms - as in an "or" query, and UR returns for example, 30 documents as results - and lets say ten of those are 50-100 pages long - then you have to search potentially each of the 30 documents individually for multiple terms - try doing that with 'cntrl F' or handyfind without going crazy ! :-).

Therefore to me its plain obvious, that for searching - UltraRecall, is not ultra recall - its painfully slow recall.

Having said all that, UR is most certainly one of a handful of top personal information managers of the hundreds that exist. And I would like to praise the developers for their diligent and professionally managed evolution of the product - even though for me, and however many others, vital search functionality is not yet satisfactory.

quant 01-21-2007 02:06 PM

igoldsmid,

I was referring only to the (problematic) indenting logic feature of UR ... and completely agree with the need of highlighting inside items/files!!!

kinook 01-24-2007 03:15 PM

Enhanced phrase searching as suggested in http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...=&threadid=897 will be implemented in the upcoming beta.

Regarding hilighting of search results, we haven't gotten any feedback to our questions from http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...&threadid=2152, but we do have come ideas on it, and this will be a high priority for the next release (not the one going into beta shortly, but the one after that).

As for rewriting advanced search, it's difficult to justify giving this a high priority since it is already functional (if not highly intuitive), would not be trivial, and there are still other feature requests on the list.

dasymington 01-24-2007 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kinook
Regarding hilighting of search results, we haven't gotten any feedback to our questions from http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...&threadid=2152,
It looks as if both Eno and igoldsmid have replied in that thread giving feedback after your last reply. I didn't contribute any feedback because I thought they had already expressed the need for the feature.

What were the questions you were looking for feedback on? Other applications that seem to manage highlighting of found text are AskSam and ContentSaver. UR is superior to those in its organisational abilities, but since switching to UR I have missed being able to easily enter Boolean text searches and seeing search terms highlighted.

dasymington 01-24-2007 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kinook
Enhanced phrase searching as suggested in http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...=&threadid=897 will be implemented in the upcoming beta.
I hope this will be a feature that's easy to switch on and off. I don't always want phrase searching; often when I enter two words I want to find documents that contain them both anywhere not just as a phrase.

Couldn't you implement this for the search dialogue:

1. If you enter a series of words separated by spaces, find documents that contain ALL the words - as at present.

2. If you enter a phrase enclosed in double quotes, find documents that contain that PHRASE.

3. If you enter several phrases (each enclosed in double quotes) or combinations of phrases and words separated by spaces, find documents that contain ALL these terms.

4. If you enter words separated by OR (or phrases and words separated by OR), find documents that contain one or more of any of the words or phrases.

5. If possible allow AND and OR statements (which could be single words or phrases) to be prioritised with the use of parenthesis. I don't know how difficult that is, but given that you can prioritise in this way with UR's indenting method, it might be relatively easy to translate such search queries into UR's indented method and then run that; however, I know, I'm not the progammer!

igoldsmid 01-24-2007 05:27 PM

I guess if Kinook insist on not implementing 'proper' boolean search with result highlighting - then here is a possible workaround:

Since local pc hard disk space is so abundant & low cost - it would potentially be practical to mirror the entire contents of UR on a file system folder. However there may be two issues:

So far, in existing releases it has not been possible to export every piece of content from UR to the local file system. If my memory serves me correctly - although html, pdf's M. Office docs etc could be readily exported - other items like imported/linked outlook emails, tasks, contacts etc could not. But in order for search to be useful, often it is necessary to be able to search everything. Therefore UR would have to be able to flawlessly export every single item.

Secondly, it would not be able to be an export - it would need to be a synchronization - and following the initial mirroring of UR content onto a file system folder - subsequent "exports" would need to be incremental - including being able to not only recognize new documents/items since the previous "export" - but also to recognize changed documents and "export" those.

I use X1 - or Yahoo desktop search which I find by far the most powerful of the bunch. For example, I could create a saved search that as its starting point always filtered in only the file system folder for my "exported" UR Content.

Having found a result using X1, one would still have to go back to UR and, by using the name of the found document, find it again in UR, using UR's search. Still too many steps really and not at all ideal - but I guess a possible workaround. Unless by some 'magic' UR was able to export item URL's as well, whose file names were identical to the items except they are click-able local url links that navigate back to the appropriate item in UR. (These UR uri's would thus appear next to the exported 'version' as you could sort the file system folder by file name).

I suspect that whatever way it is looked at - either Kinook provide 'proper' boolean & highlighting functionality once (although quite onerous for them no doubt) - or every time every one of their users wants to do an (now standard in every desktop search tool) advanced/boolean search with highlighting, they will have to perform a frustrating too many steps every time...

Ian

dasymington 01-24-2007 05:51 PM

That sounds far too complicated, igoldsmid. I hope Kinook do implement proper boolean searching. I find that, rather than try to get my head round the convoluted indenting method (I have to refer to the Help file every time I try to use it), I end up carrying out several simple searches instead.

ksrhee 01-25-2007 03:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by kinook
Enhanced phrase searching as suggested in http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...=&threadid=897 will be implemented in the upcoming beta.

Regarding hilighting of search results, we haven't gotten any feedback to our questions from http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...&threadid=2152, but we do have come ideas on it, and this will be a high priority for the next release (not the one going into beta shortly, but the one after that).

Highlighting is something that would be highly desirable. As far as full-text search, I would have to agree that interface could be improved but functionality is still there.

Are we still on schedule for next week for the release of the beta?

kinook 01-26-2007 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dasymington
Quant, I do know about Boolean algebra, but I prefer to write queries using AND, OR and parenthesis: it's much quicker and I find it easier to understand and to edit than UR's indenting.

Google does have OR, but not parenthesis.

Other software does allow OR, e.g., AskSam.

To get the equivalent of a search without parentheses, you don't need to use any indenting in UR advanced search.

Also, UR quick search already supports AND (implicitly or explicitly), and we're investigating the possibility of supporting OR for the next release.

kinook 01-26-2007 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dasymington
What were the questions you were looking for feedback on?
Those in the 2nd paragraph of the 2nd post in http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...?threadid=2152

kinook 01-26-2007 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dasymington
I hope this will be a feature that's easy to switch on and off. I don't always want phrase searching; often when I enter two words I want to find documents that contain them both anywhere not just as a phrase.

Couldn't you implement this for the search dialogue:

1. If you enter a series of words separated by spaces, find documents that contain ALL the words - as at present.

2. If you enter a phrase enclosed in double quotes, find documents that contain that PHRASE.

3. If you enter several phrases (each enclosed in double quotes) or combinations of phrases and words separated by spaces, find documents that contain ALL these terms.

4. If you enter words separated by OR (or phrases and words separated by OR), find documents that contain one or more of any of the words or phrases.

5. If possible allow AND and OR statements (which could be single words or phrases) to be prioritised with the use of parenthesis. I don't know how difficult that is, but given that you can prioritise in this way with UR's indenting method, it might be relatively easy to translate such search queries into UR's indented method and then run that; however, I know, I'm not the progammer!

That is almost exactly how it will work. The current behavior of matching all words entered (anywhere in the document or attributes) will remain. Double quotes will mark a phrase to be searched for after filtering on all words in the phrase. And we're looking into the possibility of supporting OR in a quick search.

kinook 01-26-2007 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ksrhee
Are we still on schedule for next week for the release of the beta?
Hopefully (time will tell). Send a request to support@kinook.com if you would like to be included in the notification of its availability.

Leoram 01-26-2007 08:25 AM

Kinook and all:

I like the current state of Advance Search in UR. It is useful as it allows building complex searches and then save them with a name for further easy inquiries. In my opinion it should stay like it is now maybe with the addition of some slight changes to turn its awkward operation into an easier one. But I'd also like to direct your attention to a remarkable document search software that can be found free at:

http://www.searchinform.com/

SearchInform is wonderful at searching. It even has fuzzy search, proximities, search through current results, look for synonyms, similar search, morphology and stem searches, number of found words, highlighting, etc. It has three interesting viewing styles for found documents: Show text only, show in native format viewer and show search summary. Try them each and I'm sure you'll feel comfortable.

I think SearchInform is the answer to the question of Kinook posted at:

http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...&threadid=2152


I hope UR will embark in implementing some, if not all of these search features someday. I'm sure UR developers can do that and even possibly more ;).

Leoram 01-26-2007 11:01 AM

1 Attachment(s)
You may consider having a look at SearchInform screenshot in action below:

igoldsmid 01-26-2007 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kinook
Those in the 2nd paragraph of the 2nd post in http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...?threadid=2152
Kinook - why don't you just download, install and review X1 / free Yahoo Desktop Search?

zulubeached 01-26-2007 04:00 PM

V2e to next version upgrade fee
 
What are the plans concerning an upgrade from v2.0e to the next version?
I have been testing v2e for a while now, and would like to commit to the professional version of UltraRecall, since it would make be tremendously useful for my work. However I see little sense in purchasing a license now and another one again in a couple of weeks.

For existing users of the professional version, will the update be free or will you charge an upgrade fee?

quant 01-26-2007 07:09 PM

no need to worry :)
who said that the next release (maybe in a month) is going to be V3? I suppose it's going to be either 2.0f or 2.1 ... my guessing based on http://www.kinook.com/Forum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=27

It is my understanding that they do the major release on average in every two years, the first V2.0 version was 2005/may, so you can expect the next big release in more than a year for sure ...

For small releases, their policy is this:

"Upgrades
All minor releases (i.e., 2.0 -> 2.1) are free for licensed users. To upgrade from an earlier version, download the latest version and install over your existing copy. There may be an upgrade fee for major product releases (i.e., 2.x -> 3.x). Any purchase made within 60 days of a major product release will be eligible for a free upgrade to the next major version."

I bought UR 2 weeks ago and love it :)
There are many features that I would like to see in UR, nevertheless even what it offers now is far better that what I could get from other tested softwares ...

ksrhee 01-28-2007 06:08 AM

Re: V2e to next version upgrade fee
 
Quote:

Originally posted by zulubeached
What are the plans concerning an upgrade from v2.0e to the next version?
I have been testing v2e for a while now, and would like to commit to the professional version of UltraRecall, since it would make be tremendously useful for my work. However I see little sense in purchasing a license now and another one again in a couple of weeks.

For existing users of the professional version, will the update be free or will you charge an upgrade fee?

As far as I know it's version 3 that's coming. Kinook has 60 day free upgrade policy from purchase, and they plan to release version 3 before then. They have been very supportive of users; so, even if they miss the deadline, I assume they will be flexible with the upgrading policy.

kinook 01-29-2007 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by igoldsmid
Kinook - why don't you just download, install and review X1 / free Yahoo Desktop Search?
We were hoping to avoid having to download, install, and evaluate several desktop search products. Oh well. Also, UR provides more than just desktop search (attributes as well as document text can be searched, the ability to internally edit many document types, etc.), so some of the issues raised would likely be unique to UR.

kinook 01-29-2007 07:58 AM

Regarding questions about the nature of this update, the version number notwithstanding, v2 technically was not a major release (it was a fairly significant release functionality-wise, but it was a free update).

The next release (v3) will be a major release and the first non-free upgrade of UR since it first was released over 26 months ago.

As was mentioned, all purchases within 60 days of a major release are freely updated to the next version (see http://www.kinook.com/order_policy.html), and in all likelihood the final release will be within 60 days. In fact, any purchase on or after today will be eligible for a free upgrade to v3 when released, even if that occurs more than 60 days from now.

danson 01-29-2007 08:44 AM

Hi K,

It's nice to see a company with a policy of reasonablness that doesn't hide behind strick cut-offs etc.

Would could be nice as well is some kind of loyalty bonus to those of us who have been with you for some time already. Perhaps a %-off offer for previous licence holders.

It's always nice to receive some appreciation for supporting a product throughout its development.

Best wishes and good luck with the release,
Daniel

dasymington 01-29-2007 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by danson
Would could be nice as well is some kind of loyalty bonus to those of us who have been with you for some time already. Perhaps a %-off offer for previous licence holders.
I think the upgrade policy referred to implies that there is:

"There may be an upgrade fee for major product releases (i.e., 2.x -> 3.x)."

Presumably the upgrade fee is less than the new purchase price.

danson 01-29-2007 09:11 AM

ah well spotted. hopefully your interpretation will prove accurate!

Daniel

kinook 01-29-2007 09:16 AM

http://www.kinook.com/support.html

danson 01-29-2007 09:34 AM

to save other readers a click:

"We only charge for major updates, usually at around a 50% discount, and of course, once you upgrade you get free support and updates again."

gosh i love this company. :)

quant 01-29-2007 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kinook
As was mentioned, all purchases within 60 days of a major release are freely updated to the next version (see http://www.kinook.com/order_policy.html), and in all likelihood the final release will be within 60 days. In fact, any purchase on or after today will be eligible for a free upgrade to v3 when released, even if that occurs more than 60 days from now.
whoops ...

I hope that you manage to release it in 60days-2weeks ... or am I just plain unlucky?

igoldsmid 01-29-2007 05:02 PM

knowing Kinook it'll be remarkably close to when they said it would be - which is some kind of magic for software development!!

Leoram 01-29-2007 07:42 PM

I don't want to be too persuasive but... who knows, maybe in 30 days our baby will be here, and possibly with new additions to the roadmap, as there are some important features the users are still eagerly awaiting. I'm saying this because when 2.0 was released things were better than expected ;).

michaelkenward 03-18-2007 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by igoldsmid
Kinook - why don't you just download, install and review X1 / free Yahoo Desktop Search?
I came here eagerly hoping to find something that I could use to replace Onfolio, a fine piece of software killed off by Microsoft.

Sadly, I find that Ultra Recall is stuck in the old model, insisting that folks use its own built in search engine.

It is as if Google and the whole move to desktop search (DTS) does not exist.

Today, no software has a hope in hell of success unless it works with the X1 or Google and Microsoft DTS and many more. There is even a technology to make it happen, the iFilter.

One alternative to Onfolio, Websearch, has recognised this need. Sadly, they believe that the only one that matters is Microsoft's DTS. (In reality, even though I am an X1 fan, if you want to support just one option, it should probably be Google DTS.)

Ultra Recall, AskSam's overly complex product and others will doubtless have their fan base. But they will never break out into the big time, certainly not into the corporate market

Information is what matters. Not how it is stored. I want to search everything from one place.

So, off to continue my search for a 21st century product.

quant 03-18-2007 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by michaelkenward
I came here eagerly hoping to find something that I could use to replace Onfolio, a fine piece of software killed off by Microsoft.

Sadly, I find that Ultra Recall is stuck in the old model, insisting that folks use its own built in search engine.

It is as if Google and the whole move to desktop search (DTS) does not exist.

Today, no software has a hope in hell of success unless it works with the X1 or Google and Microsoft DTS and many more. There is even a technology to make it happen, the iFilter.

One alternative to Onfolio, Websearch, has recognised this need. Sadly, they believe that the only one that matters is Microsoft's DTS. (In reality, even though I am an X1 fan, if you want to support just one option, it should probably be Google DTS.)

Ultra Recall, AskSam's overly complex product and others will doubtless have their fan base. But they will never break out into the big time, certainly not into the corporate market

Information is what matters. Not how it is stored. I want to search everything from one place.

So, off to continue my search for a 21st century product.

???

Everything in UR is indexed, providing lightning fast search of everything you put inside. Can you please elaborate what kind of search you need? Maybe, for you UR might seem complex, but the fact that you can use attributes, links, templates, forms, saved searches, ... provides possibilities you probably cant see/imagine/dream of before you try ...

You are right, information is what matters. But the information is not flat, it is very complex. With all the search software you mentioned, you can find the information, but you are missing the next step. It's like you live in two dimensional world, and cannot see the third one. The another dimension here is the relationship between the information:
- labels/attributes
- inside wiki links
- linked items ...

So, off to continue improving my information database using UR :)


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