TexNotes Pro

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2412

Posted by zeoli
2005-01-02 10:59:59

Because of Stephen’s comments about TexNotes Pro, I downloaded the trial version last night and took a look. It is indeed vastly improved from TexNotes 3.x. Surely one of the nicest looking PIMs, and chalk full of features. As a tool for creating great-looking e-books, it seems simple and elegant. I am not convinced, however, that it is powerful enough to serve as the primary information manager for any serious user (granted, this conclusion is based on about an hour’s worth of dabbling).

For Stephen, cloning (or lack thereof) is a big issue. For me, what TNPro is missing is a quick way to clip information into it. Any PIM worth its salt needs to make it easy (i.e. quick, convenient) to hoover up information from almost any digital source. Programs that do this well are: Zoot, BrainStorm, MyInfo, MyNotes, MyBase, InfoSelect, Black Hole Organizer… and I’m sure many others that are not coming to mind. The best of these, through my experience, is Zoot. The Zooter allows you to clip text from almost any source. And it lets you simply stow it for later classification, or classify the hell out of it at the time of clipping… it is completely your decision.

My other issue TNPro is that it has sacrificed extended selection in the editor for all these other layout features. This is an acceptable trade off for a program that sees itself more as a presentation tool than a full-fledged information processor. But, as we all know, much of the information we want to store is self-generated text. When I am limited in my ability to compose text with a minimum of interference from the editor, then I will choose to write it elsewhere.

Of course, these two complaints on my part can be remedied by using a clipping tool and by writing in a genuine word processor and clipping it into TNPro… acceptable compromise, but compromise nonetheless.

So, that’s my two cents worth on this program. What do others think? Am I full of hot air?

Steve Z.

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