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Heptabase - Crimp cured?
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 12, 2023 at 09:30 AM
Thank you for the thorough overview of Heptabase and why it works for you. I’ve been impressed by the software for a while. The feature set is pretty remarkable. I haven’t gone all in with Heptabase, because more recently I’ve tried to go simpler. Thus I’m currently using Reflect. But Heptabase is incredibly enticing.
Steve
Posted by Rausch
Sep 12, 2023 at 04:12 PM
I don’t mean to be trite, but the distinction simply isn’t true if you believe that even advanced research is learning. I work in the history of medicine (ex-academic) and I can see great potential value in what Heptabase is offering for my research projects - all of which involve a large amount of material which needs to be sorted, connected in various ways and kept easily available. So far, HB looks good.
On the other hand, the downsides are accumulating: not being able to open file attachments in their native app is a real pain (because of the inter-linking I want to do with my previous Tinderbox projects) and, as you say, the export options are weak. At the moment I am signed up for the trial and will continue if impressed enough this week with a monthly sub. But I’m not going to commit until I know when these weaker points might be addressed.
Dormouse wrote:
Export options are weak, which is a killer for me.
>“we have positioned Heptabase 1.0 as the best tool for learning and
>researching complex topics”, so I suppose it depends on what your use
>would be. I’d say it’s aimed more at learners than researchers.
>
>I like many aspects, but every time I’ve tried it with a project I’ve
>ended up by moving it away. Either cumbersome or lacking an essential
>feature.
Posted by Dormouse
Sep 12, 2023 at 09:03 PM
Rausch wrote:
I don’t mean to be trite, but the distinction simply isn’t true if you
>believe that even advanced research is learning.
I agree. I was trying to be generous. Virtuously all researchers need to publish and therefore need good exports. There was a conspicuous lack of response when I made the point, and another user’s comment ” the developers have pretty clearly stated that Heptabase is intended for learning and not as a notetaking or productivity app” was backed up by the developer.
I’ve tested it extensively for nearly a year. Many nice features, but every time I tried to use for something useful it was always missing something necessary. I was comfortable waiting for the feature set to extend but, after comments referred to above, reached the conclusion that the developers’ vision wouldn’t take it in directions I needed.
Posted by Franz Grieser
Sep 12, 2023 at 09:21 PM
Dormouse wrote:
>I agree. I was trying to be generous. Virtuously all researchers need to
>publish and therefore need good exports. There was a conspicuous lack of
>response when I made the point, and another user’s comment ” the
>developers have pretty clearly stated that Heptabase is intended for
>learning and not as a notetaking or productivity app” was backed up by
>the developer.
Strangely, there is a tutorial on their “Beginner workflows” site that is called “A simple method to convert your thinking into writing”.
https://wiki.heptabase.com/a-simple-method-to-convert-your-thinking-into-writing
From time to time I am looking into Heptabase. But I am always off-put because of the basic export feature: It does export to MD but only the entire database not a single card or whiteboard. Too bad.
Posted by Dormouse
Sep 13, 2023 at 08:20 AM
Franz Grieser wrote:
>Strangely, there is a tutorial on their “Beginner workflows” site that
>is called “A simple method to convert your thinking into writing”.
>https://wiki.heptabase.com/a-simple-method-to-convert-your-thinking-into-writing
>
Yes. And discussions had often been about note-taking, using PDFs etc. The developer wrote a new article - the one about learning - just before the open launch and I concluded that this was about the market they have decided to target.
Export options are very limited, but the daily local backup includes separate markdown versions of each card. Includes internal database stuff too, so you’d have to strip that to use it. I thought about using those, but decided that it would be a) too much work and b) I didn’t want to be using an app that wasn’t moving in my direction.