[clue-tech] Note Software?

[Nate Duehr]

This sounds a lot like "mind mapping" software or "idea mapping"
software, for the one-to-many relationships with the added ability to
connect external content or store binary blobs/files with each "node"?

(Of course, a real DB can easily do the relationships and the storage
under-the-hood, but it's all in how it's presented to you, the user...
to make it useful for you.)

Perhaps searching on those keywords will yield something you like? 
There's a number of free and pay ones out there.  

They're especially popular on Mac, which I attribute to the high number
of visually-oriented workers that use Macs for "creative" activities.  

I've personally never felt a need to buy or use one, so I can't comment
on good/bad ones, sorry Jed.

I keep hearing people rave about Bento also, which sounds like it can do
what you want and a number of other odd things, but I'll readily admit,
"I don't get it."

--
  Nate Duehr
  nate at natetech.com

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:51 -0600, "Jed S. Baer"
<cluemail at jbaer.cotse.net> wrote:
> Hi Folks.
> 
> I've been looking around for some software to use to get various
> fragments of info somewhat organized, and it seemed, at first blush, that
> one of the various "notes" programs ought to do the trick. But I'm not
> liking what I'm seeing after a bunch of searching.
> 
> I've looked at the websites for the well-known programs, such at Tomboy,
> Gnotes, Kjots, Zim, Kbasket, and a few others. They all want to use some
> sort of heierarchical organizing system. I don't care for that, because a
> lot of things could easily go into multiple buckets / baskets / folders /
> books / whatevers. Some of them, such as Xournal, have some limited
> graphics capabilities -- sketching, or something. Don't need that
> either, but it doesn't bother too much that it's there.
> 
> So here's my wishlist:
> 
> I'd rather be able to assign one or more tags to each "note", and then
> have virtual folders based on tags. Even that wouldn't be necessary, as
> long as it was easy to search by tag, and call up a list of all tags for
> browsing.
> 
> Being able to link various notes together, preferably in a wiki-like
> fashion, would be great.
> 
> Good handling of links to other content -- local files, URLs, etc. Maybe
> ability to embed content, though I doubt I'd use that much, except for
> small image files. I won't mind simply pasting in URLs and file paths.
> 
> Auto timestamp for creation date and last modified date for each note.
> Even better, a history of modification dates. When I'm searching for
> something, I might remember when I first noted it, or when I last changed
> it. Or I might remember changing it 3 months ago, but not a trivial
> change I did last week.
> 
> Easy editing: Either a wiki markup, or some WYSIWYG providing basic
> functions. But not a replacement for a word processor. Wiki markup is
> probably better, because ...
> 
> Storage in some format that's recoverable using other tools. Doesn't need
> to be trivially recoverable, but not completely obscure.
> 
> Or: I haven't yet figured out what the tradeoff is (if there is one at
> all) between fast access and recoverability. One idea I have is to simply
> run MoinMoin, or Dokuwiki, or something. But I don't really want to have
> to worry about database backup and recovery. Well, Doku appears to be a
> flat-file wiki, but I haven't looked at its storage files -- could be
> that'd be very easy to recover. I've lately been intrigued reading about
> key/value pair datastores, which are known for fast access. I don't know
> if that includes searching.
> 
> Really, what I'm looking for isn't so much a note-taking / organizing
> program, as an information mapping tool. Certainly, I'd write notes to
> myself, but I'd like to keep track of things that I currently have spread
> among disparate methods. For example, in the case of books, I have 3
> places where I have lists of books which have been recommended. What'd be
> great would be to have a tag of "Books", with possible sub-tags of
> "read", "unread", "owned", "borrowed", "to-buy", and "at library". I'd
> also keep track of references and articles on English Enlightenment
> philosophy. I have a large pile of docs on my HDs, quasi-arranged using
> directory heierarchies, and that's proven to be impossible to keep track
> of. (Of course, the process of entering info on all that stuff is
> somewhat daunting as well.)
> 
> At this point, I'm not hopeful of finding some free software that'll do
> what I want. But maybe someone knows of something I haven't been able to
> find.
> 
> Failing that, I'm wondering how difficult it'd be to write something. My
> programming chops are feeling pretty stale, and it'd be good exercise.
> 
> Later,
> jed
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