InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by jan_rifkinson on 2009/01/31 20:02

InfoQube is a very interesting, capable program. Almost anything anyone might want to do w data is made available to the user however, IMO, in its current state 01/31/09 it is very time consumming to figure out how to do what one wants to do.. At least this is my experience. Added to that is that the help file is incomplete, shortcuts are added, changed, etc as development is active & ongoing -- thank you, Pierre.

For almost the entire month of January, I devoted myself to using IQ on a daily basis, i.e. doing what I do on a typical day. As a backup I also replicating everything in UltraRecall because it's my current PIM (or whatever you want to call it).

While it took me a while to get my head around IQ, I was eventually able to grasp enough to set up different grids w useful filters (with a lot of help from the very supportive forum members & Pierre). But even at this stage, I don't understand enough of the program so that things just seem to happen with my data for one reason or another.

Here I'm not blaming the program, rather myself. The program is doing what it is designed to do & is very stable but I screw up because there are so many details to remember. This makes it extremely time intensive for me & at this point, I can't spend as much time on it any more. I have too many questions (as you can see from the forum) and not enough answers. Many of those questions are only a reflecton of my ignorance, rather than bugs.

So bottom line, I'm putting IQ on my back burner, sadly going back to UltraRecall full time, until such time that I am ready for IQ & IQ is ready for me -- a non-techie guy who loves to fool around w different software, who prefers -- and does -- support independent developers like Pierre, who knows only enough to get into trouble & can add little to the community.

So thanks for all your help.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

Comments

I, for one, am sad to see you leave. IQ's not for everyone (yet!), and it takes awhile to get it, but you were soooo close, I could tell.

By the way, I thought you added a tremendous amount to the community by your prolific posts; it certainly gave me more ideas of things to make some more feeble attempts at documentation.

Take a break, then come on back!

Yes. It's too bad...

True, IQ can be a big investment in time at the moment.

But this investment will pay off in the near future, I believe.

All your comments were important, as they helped seeing what is still hard to grasp for many users... and especially the "non-techie guy who loves to fool around w different software", as you say.

Thanks for your participation.

Just chiming in here, as I agree with some of original comments. I started using it full-time quite a while back, but kept it to one project. It has more potential than anything else out there, but I've been sad to see progress seemingly slow to a dribble. I hope that's because Pierre has full-time work, and he's doing well.

I don't find the app too hard to use, but agree it is still a little 'special' in some areas, but I find I'm not a typical user (ex-Ecco 10 yrs).

This app has soooo gone in the right direction. Just needs more polish & continued progress.

[quote=lucky_phil]

I've been sad to see progress seemingly slow to a dribble. I hope that's because Pierre has full-time work, and he's doing well.

[/quote]

AFAIK it's because he is concentrating on getting the Calender fully functional

I think the GUI will need a lot of work to make it accessible to many different users coming from many different directions

I think something about the display of items in grid is still "funny" or maybe it's my understanding that's still the problem

Jan, I think you have contributed a lot to the community - I think it's important that people understand the programme so I think it very helpful that you express your non-understanding of it - I do the same often enough still - I think while I found programme difficult to learn I actually wanted it for something fairly specialised (have you looked at my first blog post with sample file?) and once I figured that out have used it in that limited way for a long time now without understanding lots that I dont use ...

Jan,

I think your feedback is wonderful because too often people leave a product without explaining why. I also think you hit the NAIL on the head with regard to the future success of IQ - it needs to be made much easier for a beginner to use. I know that it on the road map but frankly I think it should be a huge priority - usability should be looked upon as being as important as any feature. So I hope once Pierre wraps up the calendar he starts to work on usability. The problem is that sometimes engineers are not the best types when it comes to designing with usability in mind ;-), so he may want to consult someone with usability experience.

BTW, you may be interested to know that I first tried to move from OneNote to IQ perhaps a year ago. Like you I found it too time consuming to learn, and realized I did not at that time want to devote the resources to tackle it. So I put it on the back burner and a couple of months ago gave it another spin. This time around with the patient support of those here I developed enough of an understanding of the workings of IQ to be able to create the functionality I wanted and I am not looking back. So perhaps we'll also see you back here in the future.

BTW, I don't know if this is of interest to you, but perhaps if you offered to pay someone for an hour of lecturing someone here would be interested in doing a webex session with you (free webex trials are available to anyone) and helping you out with your issues. You could watch their screen and they could control yours and show you how to do things you are having issues with. I've often found an hour of tutoring from an expert to be worth 40 hours of experimentation.

Thanks David for sharing this. I'll definitely consider it.

Regarding tutoring, I offer a free phone call to all users, many have used this to kick-start the learning process. As an example, I spent 1 hour last saturday with jsolka and it was very productive. Everyone is welcomed.

Hi,

Jsolka here -- I'd like to wholeheartedly testify that that phone tutorial was truly worth my while. It was over 1 hour, Pierre! Pierre's dedication as well as his personality (as it transpired during our conversation) are tremendous assets, and they alone could keep me with IQ. But of course the product itself is even a bigger reason. That said, I agree with some of the aforementioned criticism, for me the biggest downside is the documentation. With my limited time, and some serious gaps in basic computer knowledge (which I think would be the case with the broader body of users) - I can't seem to ever learn anything thoroughly enough. Some of this is understandable, considering the fact that the software is still in its beta stage, and that the main effort (and probably rightly so) is directed towards developing the product itself. I am a big believer, and I will wait, meanwhile trying to figure things out to the extent that would at least enable me to use IQ beneficially. And please don't take this comment just as negative. Thanks Pierre.

Jay

Interesting comments Jan. I'm in a similar quandary to yourself being an UltraRecall user who is looking for more. Like many others, I have used a lot of software and IMHO, conceptually InfoQube has absolutely tremendous potential. UltraRecall is a powerful application not for the faint hearted that takes time to master. It doesn't worry me that InfoQube has a long steep learning curve. I feel this is inherent in complex data management applications, good, poor or great documentation aside. Generally, in the long run, reward favours the brave and hard working.

The title of this thread is "Please don't take this comment as a negative". I'm going to spoil things by being a little negative and hope for responses that ally my fears. My initial concerns focus on underlying infrastructure. For a while now I’ve had multi-platform as high priority criteria when evaluating software tools. From what I see, InfoQube is locked to being Windows only for a long time to come. It is written in VB6 and uses an Access backend. With support for SQLServer and MySQL "in the pipeline", I’d be worried that SQLServer will precede MySQL by a reasonable stretch.

I was prompted to write this post after a couple of interesting experiences that occurred whilst browsing "capture_forum.SNDB". I right clicked a hyperlink in the HTML Pane and chose [Open in New Window]. This opened the URL in IE rather than Firefox. (Firefox is my default browser.) From my experience, a sign that the architecture of an application is so heavily Microsoft Windows orientated that it ignores such a fundamental system setting.

As an aside, another thing that happened involved clicking the [Find] button from the toolbar. The find window presented, received focus, then lost focus back to the grid. When I started typing my search criteria, the input ended up in the grid rather than the edit box in the search window. Does this error happen to everyone? If so, I find it a little disconcerting that such a (basic) bug exists in a semi-mature program. (This error occurred with <Ctrl+F> as well BTW.)

I'll conclude by playing devils advocate. I suggest I'm reasonably typical of the sort of person you are looking to attract to InfoQube. I’m reasonably computer literate. I already use one or more relatively flexible information management tools. Those tools have various failings that keep me always on the lookout for something better. I've been around for long enough to be burnt by propriety and shifting file formats creating information black holes in my archives. (Documents can be saved in HTML format – yummy! MHT - Microsoft standard that is not standardized – yucky!) I don't like being tied to the one type of operating system. I accept and embrace the move towards mobile browser orientated applications. What does InfoQube bring to the table for a person like me? Either right now or in the current roadmap?

hi Zargron

in response to your bug-report:

I dont have that problem with find - do you still have it? Probably would have been more helpful to post that in the bug reports forum but I presume Pierre will see it here too.

I would consider that a "basic" bug too - generally here, if bugs like that are reported, they are fixed within a very short time (hours even) depending on complexity.

As to it being "disconcerting ... in a semi-mature program" yes and no - but mainly no - if a programme is in major development there are constantly bugs being introduced, that's the Beta aspect.

And as for the microsoft centric, again I wouldnt really agree - while I do have IE (and it isnt my default either) I dont use MS Office and I have being using IQ for work purposes for over a year now. Note that if an item has a url link that this link will open in your default browser.

That about IE is a request I'd subscribe to as well.

I cant really comment on your other points/queries (well, html + MHT - you have a choice - html doesnt currently save images locally but that is planned)

BTW, Is there a roadmap on the site ? (I dont know)

Thanks for your comment on my poor posting of a bug issue in this thread. I do apologise, I didn't mean to digress like that.

My primary concern was with the [Open in New Window] context menu event that started IE. From my experience, a seemingly innocuous issue like that can end up quite a future frustration when the component in question doesn't (easily) do what it's told. I really like what I've seen, but with choosing an information management tool being such an important long term decision, I want to know what I'm getting myself into. It sounds like one fundamental aspect that i would have to accept for the foreseeable future if i were to implement InfoQube, is Windows.

Thanks zargron for pointing me this issue. I'll try to resolve it, but there are 2 issues here:

In browse mode, it is IE running in the HTML window, so it is normal that it wants to open another instance of IE. I'll need to somehow trap the event
In editing mode, I have more control and Shift-click correctly opens the link in your default browser

This is now fixed. Open in new Window now opens the link in your default browser

New version should be out next week

[quote=Tom]

BTW, Is there a roadmap on the site ? (I dont know)
[/quote]

In Mantis there is (a bit outdated however): Roadmap