Why I Upgraded to UR 5.0

[schferk]

17. The inbox thing. As said, you have a simple inbox, no subdivision. Then - and I totally missed this in the above description, any dot item within my about 10 main files, i.e. that "second level", but "second level" not as files, but as special entries within those about 10 first-level groups, also act, not only as triggers for the respective AO files / UR sub-structures, and for the respective sub-folders for external files, but also as TARGETS for my distribution of any item from the inbox, which means, I press one key, then I get 1500 msec in order to enter the target (in our above example: pp for pet), then my system puts the current item (together with any sub-items it might have), from my inbox or from any other place within my system, as a sub-item of such a dot item (and re-collapses the according dot item, of course), and goes back to where focus where before this move - the whole process doesn't even take one sec.

This way, I have one general inbox, my file "0.ao", and about 150 specific inboxes, those dot entries within my about 10 first-level "group" files / your respective dot entries being sub-entries of your about 10 or so first-level main / grouping items; it goes without saying that whenever I get many similar new things / web clippings / whatever, to be set up as new items in similar places of my AO system, I directly put them under such a dot item, instead of putting them into the general inbox. And, in order to not only have the general inbox, and the rather specific dot items like ".pp.ao", I not only have got, within my "p.ao" file, all these ".pa.ao", ".pb.ao", ".pp.ao" entries as described, but I also have there a ".p.ao" entry, which obviously does NOT serve to trigger the display of the "p.ao" file since it is the p.ao. file itself (but which serves to trigger the corresponding "p" sub-folder, of course), but which serves as a perfect TARGET for any item I want to file away not yet under the specific sub-group (= into "pp.ao", in our example), but just under the more general "private" group, in this example. The purpose of this intermediate "default" target is, of course, to put many similar things into the right "super group" group at least, when I don't have the time to reflect upon the according specific group into which it belongs. As an example, I've got a super group "c" for "computing" (incl. programming, net, and many things, and of course, ci = information management, cf = file management, etc.), and whenever I don't have time to decide if some items goes into cf or into ci, I put it into just c. Afterwards, when there are too many sub-items within c, that are awaiting finer sorting, I then remember which details go into cf, which one go into ci, and I sort these items beneath ".c.ao" within my file "c.ao", into those more specific file groups ".cf.ao" and "ci.ao", with the same sort command which I use from my "0.ao" file to sort items from there, be it in a specific or in a more "default" way, depending on my time "to do it right" or just in an approximative way: In ANY case, this system allows for emptying the general inbox in speed time, and since I WORK within these about 10 intermediate structures, most of the time, and not within the specific "pp.ao" files, any new items being sorted into these ".p.ao" or more specific ".pp.ao" grouping items, are at my fingertips when working, which entitles me to effectively work, with an empty general empty inbox anytime, but with having any new material at my immediate disposal whenever I do real work, even when I didn't have had the time to really sort out my new material, into the various really specific files ("pp.ao" / UR substructures (= the real UR "pp" substructure, instead of the ".pp" context within your UR "p" substructure)).

Remember, just one F-key brings me from this ".pp" context right to the "pp" file / tab, and vice versa, and you'd do the same within UR. Also, this way of working - working not only / not predominantly within the specific "pp" context, but within the broader "p" context, does greatly improve your work results, since the utmost specific are at your fingertips, and at the same time, any OTHER material you'd be well advised to use for your writing / drawing up, is at your fingertips, too.

Unfortunately, with the current state of affairs with UR, it is NOT possible to have these advantages to their fullest, because the ever-waving expanding and re-collapsing of your intermediate sub-tree, whenever diving into details of your specific details sub-tree, will create chaos in your intermediate part ( in my examples, the "c" or the "p" part) of your UR system. Hence the necessity, for me, to flee the UR system in its current state of development, into a system where the division of these different levels of specificity - the "c" vs. the "ci" or "cf" level - into different files AVOIDS chaos in the "c" tree when you work upon your "ci" or your "cf" tree.

Hence, the absolute necessity for UR to amend this problem of "waves" created by display movements on deeper levels, in order for UR to become a professional IM system.

[schferk]

II c)

And yes, there is another feature that's ABSOLUTELY needed, and which over-over-overdue: For any use in your business, you need an IMS that allows for a certain kind of form / item to be INVARIABLE after your saying so, which means, for tax purposes, you need a kind of item where your "document" remains unchanged, and unchangeable, after being printed out, being sent by mail, being declared by a special button, or whatever, and in fact, for most little enterprises, this kind of item would be predominate over your usual UR items in number, where you freely change and edit and revise ad libitum for years, or after years.

Thus, for most little enterprises, a sw like UR in its current state is NOT taken into consideration, since it doesn't fulfill the legal requirements you must obey to, and sw like ELO is an absolutely terrible thing, but takes virtually 100 p.c. of the market. If sw like UR just put this required functionality on top of its current and traditional functionality of being an "information manager", this combination would be an absolute killer, if rightly marketed, since here in 2012, 2013, any little enterprise (be it one man, one man with a secretary, or a little group of staff) dearly needs a max of IM, on top of its tax-imposed "document archiving duties", in order to succeed.

And I don't need to develop that most "tax docs" may become "info docs" or even are both at the same time, right from the beginning - not speaking of invoices here, but of amounts of project data, so interaction between two systems, or, much much better, just ONE such system but being tax-compliant, beyond its information value it generates, is highly desirable - and could easily be provided by a better version of UltraRecall.

EDIT : On a technical level, this "archiving function" should perhaps be realized by copying an invariable copy from an otherwise editable item into a special folder structure in which every folder would be invariable in that way that any deletion would be impossible, any move out of it would be impossible, too, but any move within this special structure would be allowed (but perhaps registered), idem for renames of folders in this structure, etc. - and the original item would bear a code "this or previous version archived into xyz on date", and even better, several such codes would be added to such items, and whenever the item is edited the very first time, after archiving, the message would switch from "this version..." to "a previous version...".

It goes without saying that such a feature could be combined with a "versioning feature" for programmers, etc., whilst the real, big market for such a system would indeed be the tax-compliance for tiny enterprises. Such a market is many times more viable than this, our, very specific "outlining folly".

EDIT 2 : The next natural step being, of course, individual access regulation for the individual members of the work team. But again, remember, UR offers that network access / locking down to the individual item, which is way beyond the competition - all the more a pity the fact that for real, for business use, UR cannot be taken into consideration up to now, so that'd be due for a change!

[schferk]

18. Re "dot entries": I not only have such entries for the more specific files "pp" in "p", but also for any external files that I need again and again, in such a context, i.e. a .pdf with reference data, an Excel table with important data, etc.

I.e., I not only have all those external files within my p/pp sub-folders, but external files to which I need regular access, are referenced in these first / "p" level .ao files, my macro checking for the leading dot, then for the very first possible space, as said, and all the rest is the file name and the suffix, so the same macro will process every possible file I put into my "p" level .ao files.

I also could do "real" links, since AO offers those, as does almost any outliner, but I don't see any sense in doing so since my "preceding dot" encoding is exportable and re-importable from and to any such IMS, whilst those "links" any such outliner offers, would not be that easily exportable / importable into any other such system of my possible ulterior choice. Thus, individual coding of things is transferrable to competing sw in case, whilst in-built functionality is possibly not. And on top of this, as detailed above, my system allows for (permanent or just temporary, "To-Do"-) comments, whilst almost any inbuilt reference system only allows for the strict filename in question.

19. There is another aspect of my putting particular files (only) into my main system (= the AO system): I only put such "links" into that very first level, the "working / overview" level, of my system, i.e. NOT into the detailed files: in the "c" file yes, into the "ci" or the "cf" file, no! As said before, my about 10 such first-level files are always open, always readily available, whilst most particular .ao files are only loaded when needed. So, in order to prevent chaos or problems or just too much fuss, I simply refrain from referencing external files from particular, "detail" files, and whenever I rename such an external file, or even move it, I simply check within the according "c" file (which is open anyway and can be checked immediately, and this could even be automatted), instead of running my external search tools in order to know if perhaps I had referenced this external file in some of my remote detail files I don't remember of.

I know that for your global UR system, these considerations don't apply in theory, because of your internal, global, indexed UR search, but in practice, when using UR last year, I often had "words" and such that weren't indexed by UR, so I doubt that an expression as ".pp123.xml" would correctly be indexed within UR - but perhaps that's possible with some tweaking. If this is the case, you don't need to refrain from referencing external files even from the depths of your system, of course, but again, an IMS where you wouldn't have perfect order - as described above - within your file system, too, but in which you'd rely solely on your external file entries within your big UR file, doesn't seem easily manageable to me, so the above-mentioned system of synchronicity down to level 2 (but not beneath) between UR and your file system seems preferable to me, even when in theory, you could entirely rely upon your entries within UR - but are you really, really sure you immediately update these entries in UR EVERY time you add any new external file to your folder structure, and that you update them EVERY time you move or rename (let alone delete, sometimes) any such external file?

Thus, my system of synching the file structure down to a level, but then relying ON that file structure, for external files, instead of relying on entries in UR (that may be present or not, up-to-date or not), seems much more reliable - and for any external file you need again and again, just reference it into your UR structure, on top of that (and perhaps encode the file name, what about "filename,.suffix" or such, for such entries, in order to know you must update them whenever you "touch" these files within your folder structure). Remember, it's all about the ONE-KEY access, by macro, from any UR ".c" or ".ci" entry, to the corresponding folder: As soon as you get such one-key access, you'll HAVE those at your fingertips, so there is no need, for access considerations, for doubling any such individual external files within UR - except, perhaps, for searching, which is another aspect here and in which UR excels.

Of course, this is a "philosophical" question, as is, "do you really want another web browser, WITHIN your main system?" Again, as soon as you use two screens, you answer would tend to be NO, I presume... And as for searching, do you really want hits from external files like .pdf's interwoven with your internal hits, from UR? My system MUST rely on external search tools, so my judgment is biased, but I suppose that if I ever come back to UR, I would continue to search external files by external tools altogether... supposing is not taking the oath, though.

[tfjern]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

[schferk]

tfjern, I've been detailing the utmost details for the power user of any IMS who's in need of not getting lost within his stuff comprising a 6-digit number of "items" / nodes - I didn't try to give unwanted advice to people who dream of a slick, light Apple thing in their sleep. On the other hand, if any power user has got advice for fellow power users, i.e. how to better manager giga of data, it'd be very welcomed by many readers, I presume, to have a detailed description of a viable alternative to what I discovered as a viable work space. But that would ask for some thinking about your approach, and for some redactional effort from yours, it's not done by a single line multiplying a single char.

Any sw product with a forum has its lapdogs pretending the sw is good enough as it currently is, but here we've got a high-standard product that obviously doesn't meet the sales expectations of its developer(s), hence its lack of serious development complained about many loyal and devoted users, so CONSTRUCTIVE criticism seems to be needed, especially including some marketing ideas, i.e. thoughts about new features able to multiply the market (and not only the market SHARE in the tiny traditional market) of the product in question, and that's what I did here.

Thus, people like you, tjfern, who are happy with the product as it is, should be deeply thankful for the efforts of others who try to assure that your beloved-as-it-is product will be there "tomorrow", by their ideas how to make it a) really oustand from the competition and b) a viable offering in a much bigger market that will create big revenue.

Sorry for being blunt, but your comment is destructive for this product, whilst my developments, even while dull reading, are highly constructive, and you should be smart enough to have seen this without me clarifying this for you.

[schferk]

(Editing timeframe closed.)

In order to clarify:

tjfern is certainly not one of those who pretend to be happy with the product as it is; on the contrary, in that other thread, "Just purchased 5.0"

http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...?t=5027&page=2

he complained about UR not being in real development since 2008. But have a look at that thread's end: Last post:

09-04-2012, 04:38 PM dasymington Registered User Join Date: 06-16-2005 Posts: 280
Disappointed too - Yes, I too am regretting paying for the upgrade as a gesture of loyalty to the product and to support future development.

And then, the button

"Closed"

- People regretting their positive gesture, and then nothing, and that's all. The psychology of closing a thread on such a bottom line is devastating.

The irony is blatant here. I openly described which way I LEFT UR - and hadn't got censored, though, which gave me the chance to see more and more clearly the strengths of UR, and so, it's me, the NON-UR user, who's relentlessly advocating two things here:

- kinook, get back to work, do your homework, and such

- kinook, you've got such a fine product that further investment in man time into your product would be well worth it, AND here's what you can do on top of that, in order to become decently paid for your efforts

Whilst paying users of today - speaking of "updaters to v. 5" here - are angry, but do NOT make these efforts (anymore) to MOTIVATE kinook to resume real programming on UR, other than, in part, paying 50 bucks.

At the same time, I try to CONVINCE kinook that there's a SENSE in developing the applic further, and I try to convey the possible advantages of doing so, for kinook AS for its user base.

Thus, it's not constructive at all to try to denigrate lengthy posts of mine that try to be detailed instructions of how to do things the best I'm able to imagine, by single lines that pretend what I write was rubbish, since even silence at my descriptions couldn't possibly highly motivate kinook to trust my assertions that it'd be beneficial for them to trust what I'm advocating, and then just negative reactions could only fortify their possible impression that at the end of the day, they better stand upon their current minimization of investment in time and efforts re UR.

I mean, never ever would I expect fellow posters to just follow what I suggest and recommend, but then, bring arguments, bring your own experience diverging from mine, get some LIFE into this forum, in order to bring some life into the product itself. Some posters here will remember the askSam forum: In the early years, there was development of the product, AND rather elaborate discussion of features, possible features, uses and possible uses (among more basic ones), mostly due to one single person that held the level as high-brow as it got; then these discussions faded out, together with slowing of development (to not say, it getting to a halt), and one day, the forum was gone.

Compare with UR. If you search for high-brow postings, and discussions with several such postings of such quality, there are all here - but they are many years old. So you might say, that's in synch with lack of development, but there's a major difference between UR and AS in this respect: AS' development came to a halt because the original developer got in high age, and the man who had his saying there - and who ended up buying the business - was / is a marketing guy, not a programmer if I'm not totally mistaken.

Here, it's the other way round: kinook are programmers, they're not in their old age, they're just fed up with the very limited commercial possibilities of outliner sw. So, when for AS any try to instigate a good discussion about improved value and bigger possibilities was devoid of sense, at least from the point in time the marketing guy had dismissed any developer left there, here, with kinook, any discussion would be heard by the developers themselves, and my wish (= illusion?) is that driven by good arguments, they would resume their duty.

Hence my quest to approve my ideas, or to oppose them, but with arguments. If your ideas are better than mine, I'd be glad to support them, but as far as somebody doesn't produce any better idea than are presented by others, it'd be constructive to not simply declare they are of no value.

Since what'd be left, then - and I'm describing the state of the forum as it has been for some years now - would be a synchronicity between sw that is dormant, and a forum that is dying, in that sense that it has been almost exclusively comprised of complaints, with nothing new. Remember, with AS, the next step was the disappearance of the forum. You all ask for commitment from kinook - what irony that instead of approval and encouragement, the one poster who shows engagement these times, from the user side of the "table", gets silence or "zzz" of "pfff" and such gestures meaning "of no interest" - that's the stance kinook displays vàv their product for the time being, and which makes you so angry.

The MI forum is a very dormant thing and always has been, except for the months I participated in it; AS' had its prime, long ago; UR had its prime, long ago - the indifference (for not saying, apathy) of today's UR forum contributors vàv possible enhancements not via "function", but via functionality (which is something completely different), not speaking of business developments, risks to make UR dormant forever, and sheer complaining will not change anything.

And, off-topic here, you see, hoisting, asked for by so many users at the time, and rightly so, is about "focus ON detail": bravo, absolutely necessary. What I have been asking for, and have been explaining, from an organizational level, is FOCUS ON CONTEXT. It seems I'm the only one to have become aware of the absolute necessity of such a "counterbalance" to hoisting, but then, that would be the "fault" of people not being willing to delve into my details (another blatant irony, yeah), it's not because what I'm speaking of was not of utmost importance.

And then, I speak of little enterprise features (ok, I buried these a little bit), which would indeed put UR into a new, and a hundredfold bigger, market. That's for you, folks, that I'm thinking about such things, so don't let me alone asking for them. A commercially viable UR would make your day, but your current complains-only position will not get you there.

This post is not intended as a charge but as an encouragement. Don't go the AS way, folks.

[wordmuse]

I purchased 5 and have no regrets other than that Kinook has not commented on the negativity with a real explanation.

Kinook has no obligation to comment; and we have our choices to make.

There are a few performance enhancements that came with 5 and they solved some of my 4x difficulties. Among them, I can finally view and edit Office docs directly within the 5 interface. That enables me to share Office docs with URP and TheBrain. They get created in TheBrain, I open the thought folder and drag it into URP.

The docs are searchable from both programs and I use the same docs in different ways depending on the app context.

I couldn't do this in 4x.

I am not happy that the road map has been ignored. There was lots of promise there. But I tend to be a take what you can get and consider if the dissatisfaction is a "first world problem" kind of guy.

On a scale of 1 - 10, I am at a 6 in terms of my pleasure with 5. Mileage obviously varies.