DEVONnote 1.8 — text content-oriented personal information manager
reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad and edited by Julie M. Willingham
DEVONtechnologies, LLC support@devon-technologies.com http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonnote/devonnote.php Shareware: $20 USD Free Download - Expires after 150 hours of runtime. File Size: ca. 10 MB Released: 24 Nov 2005 Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later including Tiger Audience: All user levels. Clear and complete manual and FAQ available at the website, as well as active user forums. Strengths: “DEVONnote helps you take notes and keep them organized. It keeps all your ideas, documents, important information, and even your bookmarks in one single, accessible place, and supports you with professional but easy-to-use features for making structure out of chaos.” Weaknesses: The software’s AI engine cannot yet harness Spotlight’s search capabilities, supplemented by a user-selected phrase or two (e.g., Boolean phrases), to search my hard disk in order to hyperlink all related notes together. But being a non-linear thinker, I’m not sure that I could live with the AI results, so it’s not a big weakness. Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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Introduction
I am attracted to and like to test notepad software and, when feeling particularly adventurous, brainstorming and data organizing software. As an information junkie whose interests are eclectic, I am torn between using the tools that I have and know (e.g., FileMaker Pro [FMP], and iNotePad) and exploring for more flexible and perhaps capable tools. Though my existing tools for collecting the bits and bats of important trivia I may sometimes use are somewhat limited in their abilities, I also wonder whether the cost of changing to a new tool would be worth the effort. In the past I have reviewed
NovaMind (a graphically oriented tool for organizing ideas and data-macC 12/2004)
StickyBrain (a universal Note manager - macC 12/2003)
Tinderbox(a personal content management assistant that stores notes, ideas, and plans. (09/2003) and
a myriad of shareware notepad and ToDo List applications.
All had valuable features but none struck me deeply enough to make my note conversion costs acceptable.
But enough said… I was hooked when I read that DEVONnote is an “easy-to-use, intelligent note pad capable of storing and organizing plain or rich texts and file aliases”. I didn’t even have to read that “DEVONnote helps you take notes, collect and keep them organized.” More convincing was that it claimed to “keep all your ideas, documents, important information, and even your bookmarks in one single, accessible place, and supports you with professional but easy-to-use features for making structure out of .”
Publisher’s Highlights
DEVONnote is a notepad you can use to organize various data as linked, easy-to-retrieve notes sets (notebooks). It uses the same database technology as its big brother, DEVONthink, but has a less complex interface.”[DEVONthink was reviewed by Giles Turnbull in the August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8, macCompanion.]
“It stores and organizes plain or rich text files, as well as file aliases. It can be used to store bookmarks, and from outside the DEVONnote application, capture notes using the Macintosh OS X Services menu. Application-based information that can be handled includes the previously mentioned text and RTF files, scanned documents, notes, e-mails (text, of course), and bookmarks, as well as links to multimedia files, together in one simple to use database. The developer uses the term notebook as the metaphor to describe such note collections.”
I agree with Giles that “DEVONnote comes in a clean, easy-to-use interface that gives you all the tools you need in a familiar Mac-like environment. Even the most complex AI functions are just buttons, and a simple click makes DEVONnote dig through all your data to find a place for your latest note, or to show you all ideas and concepts that are similar to the one you've just selected.”
Using the Product
Installation is simple: just drag and drop the product into your applications folder and you’re ready to go.
I initially tested the product by converting, in less than 20 minutes, part of the contents of my iNotePad database. Creating nested folders to meet my organizational needs was easy, and the simple drag and drop of each entry into the appropriate folder finished the job.
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A Part of my New DEVONnote Database File---Just 20 minutes of play |
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My Initial DEVONnote Categories |
My iNotePad Data and Category Source |
I then worked with the product, playing with some of the “possible uses” listed in the product manual. The following items, organized by project or theme, were immediately useful to me:
Write down my ideas before they vanish;
Document information during phone messages including contacts, message foci, and To-Dos;
Easily grab text data from websites and store them;
Keep together important information from any source with my various project-related documents (Some of this was cut and pasted from iNotePad and FileMaker Pro databases.);
Quickly create an info collection for a specific topic (e.g., the key focal points for my next major product review).
I also toyed with but did not seriously test these items:
Manage my bookmarks — I’ve already passed on this challenge for a number of shareware products, so wasn’t ready to step up to the plate for DEVONnote. Indeed, I recently tossed my FMP database of URLs since Google and DEVONagent were more up to date and faster than searching the FMP database.
Visit frequently used websites in a convenient interface — I have no pattern of repeated website use except for shareware sites, so this was not a tool I needed.
Organize your ideas or projects in outlines — Although years ago I was a serious user of outlines, I’ve not done much of that lately. I dislike the outlining feature in MS Word—my primary productivity tool—and have not yet tried the well-received Omni Outliner http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner.
Create a network of information for my projects or interests — This is something I’ll try when my next nuclear waste management consulting job comes along. It looks like a very useful feature, but will take some thought to get it right.
Of course, to integrate and thus gain access to a collection of notes, you must take the time to organize them. My solution for this problem was not to look backward at my existing stuff, but rather to start a new data notebook as I needed to use the tidbits stored on my computer and add to it new information I was collecting. I could always, if I needed to, later add the older tidbits I’d stored. In this way, I could easily add new materials to my notebook as needed to organize other accumulated factoids.
All of this worked fine with text-based materials, but I still could not create any links to specified downloaded images I’d stored on my hard drive. (I’m still trying to work with the Wiki linking feature — not yet being successful with either text-based content of images.) Although the developer states that links between notes, or from a note to a file or folder, can be created simply by drag-and-drop action, I could not make this feature work for me. More about that later. (Creating Wiki links requires Mac OS X 10.4.)
(The practice of Wiki linking is apparently comparable to creating hyperlinks in MS Word. Unfortunately, the term is not defined, nor does it fit with the standard definition of a Wiki function. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/w/wiki.html [e.g., any collaborative website that users can easily modify via the web, typically without restriction.])
A side thought about organizing existing material: If I never use a piece of information buried on my hard disk, so what? I simply ignore its existence. And no, I can’t hear one hand clapping.
Software Features
While DEVONnote is an intelligent note pad capable of storing, editing and organizing plain or rich texts and file aliases, I found I could also use it to store (text) clippings and insert and organize my bookmarks. And, as promised by the publisher, DEVONnote can also serve as a search tool and as a tidbits archiving tool. Using its built-in find feature I searched its database, which keeps track of my notes, rapidly, with little noticeable pause in all the searches I ran.
DEVONnote includes a full-feature rich text editor with advanced editing capabilities including the ability to capture tables in rich text documents, rulers, styles, real-time statistics, and the ability to display invisible characters. It is possible to mark text sections of important passages in one of seven colors with the highlighter tool, but this is a feature I don’t need.
In addition to just dropping or pasting existing information into a note, I could use the powerful view/edit features (pane) to edit any plain or rich text document right away. I could also, using the built-in browser, view web pages on the fly and capture their “text” content.
DEVONnote also comes with enhanced web browsing capabilities. When surfing the Web, you can use the DEVONnote integrated Safari-based browser (based on Apple's WebKit) to visit your favorite sites without switching applications and to capture notes in real time via the Finder’s Services menu. (Of course as an Apple Service, you can import materials directly from Safari into DEVONnote.) New notes can be immediately removed from web content and added to a predefined DEVONnote folder without manually moving them. I continue used the web text capture features joyously, especially when doing a technical search, cutting steps from my factoid collection processes.
This product also has solid but flexible bookmark managing capabilities that I am starting to use. I like this feature better than standard bookmark organizing tools because I can add bookmark information (lists) to the folder containing other notes on a project.
Other Features of Note
An option allows you to float DEVONnote main windows above all other windows, making dragging contents from other applications much easier.
Supports bidirectional drag-and-drop (e.g., to and from a note).
Group or un-groups contents to create note collections (notebooks), and organizes them in Finder-like hierarchies.
Helps you sort in new stuff with the Classify, and See Also function buttons.
Clones note contents to multiple groups with the Replicate function.
Creates cross-links by Command-Option dragging documents/groups or files/folders into a rich text document.
Imports MS Word documents using either Panther or DEVON Technologies AntiWordService freeware product, http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/applications.php
Allows a live word, paragraph, and character count above every text document, always in sight (invaluable to any writer).
Limitations
No Serious Limitations Found — Everything I tested worked well, and the product’s learning curve is much gentler than those of NovaMind, StickyBrain, or Tinderbox. DEVONnote is software I could easily learn to integrate into my daily computing.
Dealing with Downloaded Images — Most of my reports and study results are illustrated, usually in MS Word format. As a result, I have a number of graphics collections on CDs, DVDs, and on an external hard drive. I would welcome a way to create an alias pathway to a specific image and store that link in DEVONnote. This way I could retrieve all the images I might plan to use on a project. It would also save disk space, since I now put a duplicate copy of the image into my project folder. I know I could use aliases, but why not wish for more? (If this feature exists, I was unable to find it in the manual. Perhaps a simple tutorial on Wiki linking would solve my problem. If not, linking to images is a feature I would welcome.)
Cross-linking Notes — According to the developer, DEVONnote helps you sort in newly captured tidbits and cross link them with Wiki-style links (hyperlinks). I must be getting old, because I could not get this feature to work for me.
Another Point of View — I much prefer List View when looking at folder contents, and having that alternative would be welcome.
Wishes, Perhaps — As I continue to work with DEVONnote, I wonder whether it is possible to create several notebooks, each with a different name. That would allow me to set up different notebook for my professional work and for household and hobby related material. Right now, I am putting all the tidbits into one large, and growing, database. Its easy to search but…
Conclusions
As noted at the beginning of this review, “DEVONnote helps you take notes, collect existing notes (editable text and, in principle, links to images), and keep them organized. It keeps all your outlined ideas, information-containing documents, important images, and even your bookmarks in one single, accessible place.”
The product supports your retrieval of information with extensive and well designed but easy-to-use features for creating a rational structure of your related notes. Its flexible trial period gives you more than enough time to realize it is worth the purchase price.
I find myself starting to use it once or twice a day, but haven’t tried it in a new multiple task project. However, its familiar Finder-like folder-oriented structure makes it simple to start to categorize my notes, and the quick search makes it easy to find things I’ve linked within it. But I’ve not yet fully explored how well it can find and integrate materials on my hard disk, the factoids I’ve scattered helter-skelter within its 56 GB maw.
Buy it! T=The time you save searching your haystack of notes for information you’ve lost appears well worth the cost. I rate this product 4.5 macC's.
PS:
For more kudos about this product, from a professional writer’s point of view, check out Discovery of the Week: DEVONnote by Giles Turnbull Monday February 21, 2005 at
http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2005/02/discovery_of_the_week_devonnot.html
