Re: Zoot's Secret

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 3879

Posted by graham.smith
2005-08-24 17:38:19

Stephen

I think I was expecting Brainstorm to be an Outliner, and just playing with the program had me lost. The web site video, however, really helped with that.

As for Zoot, yes a central theme is virtual folders, and similar resuls could be acheived in other prgrams that allow you to save preset filters.

However, the real thing with Zoot for me is the ease of getting data into it, either typing it in, using the zooter, dragging files to the zoot icon, importing files or linking files.

I can throw pretty well anything into Zoot, knowing that the existing rules will ensure it appears where I can later find it. Or I can set up a folder with rules that will quickly gather that information together in one place if I need to in the future.

Or if I want a more formal approach, I can set a Zoot database using key words, and call the entry form up with the Zooter to add the correct keywords to the data when I clip it. Or I can type data into the Zoot form directly, or if I want an even more formal approach I can set up view using delimited fields.

Zoot allows me to tailor each database to suit the data I think I am going to use it for.

I also like the way you can link files to a Zoot database. You can link a windows directory to a Zoot database and have Zoot add each file in the directory as a Zoot record. Zoot copies the first 32k of each file into Zoot and allows you to browse the contents from inside Zoot (it does however search the entire linked file, not just the 32k).

Any new files added to the windows directory will automatically be added by Zoot to the Zoot database. Zoot will happily work with Word, Wordperfect and Nota Bene files (indeed Zoot seems able to work with anything that has any text content - it has problems with PDFs, but that is another story and a problem partially shared by every other database program).

After setting up some linked folders with appropriate rules, I can instantly search and browse any particular subset of files that I am interested in, knowing it is up to date.

So once the link is set up, I have nothing to do, Zoot looks after my filing for me.

Even graphics, which zoot cannot store internally, can be clipped with the Zooter, when you are given an option to add keywords or a description, thus allowing a link to the graphic to be automatcally filed in the relevant folder(s).

Zoot just seems an extremely versatile and fast tool for bring all your data into one single place, and filing it in sensible places, with the minimum amount of work.

It is a bit clunky, and I wish it had a proper indexing (though to be fair this has never been an issue) and I would like it to have a better internal tool for viewing whole files rather than the first 32k of text. I am constantly trying altrnatives, but I keep on coming back to Zoot for its ease of use and versatility.

Graham

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