Re: AskSam - is this my best choice

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 4996

Posted by 100341.2151
2006-01-12 22:18:48

> I am surprised to find that AskSam doesn’t import the tables and figure: making it useless for this task :-(

I assumed they had sorted that out by now. Users have been complaining for ages. It seems to be much easier to design software to search a wide variety of files (e.g., using the popular stellant filters) than to design software to import a wide variety of file types. This is presumably why askSam has lagged behind so much. Not being able to import tables is really hard to defend, though.

On the other hand, what I like about the information-bucket approach is:

1. the ability to organise files easily and and display them (usually) in their native formats - or an approximation;

2. the ease with which one can write comments about imported files. All the recent software allows some way or other of annotating files - and some highlighting and editing, at least of htm ones.

The downside is usually limited importing and exporting features, poor searching (i.e. non-indexed searches, lack of proximity searching), and rudimentary organisational capabilities - e.g., as compared with Zoot.

I think you are right to be thinking about a project-specific approach to choosing software. What an opportunity for further CRIMPing, too :-). It’s given me a whole list of new reasons for looking at previously discarded software.

Derek

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