Zoot???

Posted by Gorski
Jan 24, 2013 at 03:17 AM

I’ve been an on and off Zoot user for more than a decade who’s been using the latest version intensively for about a month. I love Zoot for the ease you can dump info into it and slosh it around. No other information tool is as flexible, in my experience.

Here’s my take on a few issues raised by Steve:

> Zoot now handles formatted text, although I find how this works somewhat awkward, whether due to the design or just my mis-understanding of how it works, I’m unsure.

If your’re editing an html or a web archive page you have to switch to an edit mode, which is awkward but not surprising. Editing rich text, at least for simple things like bold or highlighting, is no different than any other editor. You don’t have to switch to edit mode if it’s just rtf.

> Zoot now interacts with the “cloud.” I haven’t used this feature, so can’t comment.

You can send info from Zoot to Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, Google Docs, Readability, Instapaper, etc. I don’t use this a lot but it generally works fine though in a few instances paragraph formatting is lost or there are other bugs (which Tom always fixes immediately if brought to his attention). I’m also using it as an RSS reader and it’s working well so far.

> Zoot now has an optional data pane similar to Ultra Recall—again, haven’t really used this feature.

I like that you can now attach a comment to an item rather than your notes having to be part of the item itself.

> Easy info capture (although I think Zoot has fallen behind apps like Evernote in this area).

You can dump info into Zoot with a single keystroke or mouse click. I don’t know how it could be any easier. Or you can choose to edit, tag or categorize the info first. I don’t generally like to capture whole Web pages, though it does that with good fidelity. I don’t know how it compares with similar programs.

You can now link directly to a Zoot item with a URL or shortcut, which makes it handier to use it with other programs like OneNote.

- Stability. I don’t believe I’ve ever lost data in Zoot in a dozen years of use.

Nor have I, though there are little annoying bugs that crop up frequently still. Tom has fixed the ones that bothered me so it’s working well for my needs now. It’s much more solid than it was a few years ago and I think he’s improved the look and feel (I don’t like the default dark theme but you can choose your own theme and customize it further; I prefer “Frost”)