Blog: WhizFolders, Articles and tips

Alpha testing is now over. We are now in beta. Please follow the Beta Version News.

We apologize for any delays in releasing the beta for WhizFolders 6.0. We are working on some new features that we think MUST go into the beta 6.0.

Nested lists in the Editor: We discovered some new techniques in making numbered lists of different types working in the editor. The end result is that you will be able to make the nested numered lists easily by using Indent buttons along with the list button. However, the logic is too complex, and we need time for testing it.

We know, many of you are eagerly waiting for the beta that promises the table tool and a new spelling-checker (both already completed).

In case you are wondering what happened to the new alpha series of WhizFolders, it’s very much alive. It’s just that we don’t want to call it alpha any more. We are wrapping up all the new features and bug fixes for the next version which will be a WhizFolders 6.0 beta. A “beta” means we won’t be adding any more new features but just bug fixes after that. This is lot of work as it means looking at all the old email messages to see if we can push in some more nice little feature-requests in this beta release. We are also updating WhizFolder Viewer to use some new features and fixes that we have picked up during the alpha development.

One thing that we have avoided so far is change in the file format of wzfolder files. We want you to be able to still use them with the last official WhizFolders version 5.6.3. Many new features could not go in to this beta just for this reason. We have postponed all such features which would require a change in the file format. We will be looking at them only after the final release.

If you have been using the alpha version, you must have noticed that it is already quite good–no major bugs have been found. This is better than what many companies call a beta release. When we move on to WhizFolders 6.0 beta, we want to maintain an even better standard. That’s all for now. You will hear from me again in the next few days.

This is an old article. What you see mentioned as alpha version is now WhizFolders 6. So yes, this complete feature as described now exists in WhizFolders 6.

This is real interesting. The new WhizFolders (now in alpha testing) has a new feature called Copy Universal Link. You will find it on the right-click menu of the topic list. It allows you to copy a universal link to a topic or a text position. You can then paste this link in another application that supports hyperlinks, for example, Microsoft Word. When clicked in Word, this link will open that note in WhizFolders.

You can’t even imagine the power that this feature represents. This is true collaboration between different tools and once again proves that Microsoft Windows is indeed a very useful and powerful platform.

Let me explain. Suppose you have tried lots of note taking and outlining tools and finally settled on WhizFolders. You would like to keep all your notes in WhizFolders. But you continue using other applications for different purposes because each one has a unique advantage in its own area. For example, you use Outlook to keep reminders or use some kind of graphical flow chart or mind mapping software to keep other information. But you are not happy with the ordinary Note Management aspects of those applications. No problem. Now you can keep your notes in WhizFolders and link to them from those applications. This gives you unprecendened power because you are able to use any kind of front end for your notes which sit in the background in WhizFolders and can be managed easily there.

So what you get with Universal Links is the ability to have any kind of front end interface to your ideas and notes.

In the next alpha version, we are going to extend this power to give a universal link to a phrase of text (search text) so that the universal link positions precisely in a WhizFolders note and works at all times, even after you change the note very often. The Link to position feature would not work properly on a change of text before the link position. But the new link to Search Text will continue to work as long as that piece of text is present in your note.

How the idea of Universal Links started: I am grateful to Ian Goldsmid who pointed out that such a feature exists in Outlook 2007 and whether we can implement it in WhizFolders. Lot of research went into it before we could implement it. We decided to called this feature Universal Links because it looks very much like a web url (address). Who knows, WhizFolders may be the first non-Microsoft application that supports this kind of link copying. Thanks to Microsoft for doing the groundwork and making this possible in Windows.

Here is what Ian says in a recent note: “Just to say that these Universal Links work brilliantly - and not merely in Microsoft applications! I can now create an infinitely creative visual concept map in another application, and insert WhizFolder links - so that gives me a best of breed combination of Visual Navigation and Notes Creation and Management… So yes, the cream on the cake will be the ’search text positioning’ such that link navigation will be preserved in the Editor, even when the position of the link changes. Superb!”

I have now marked the important new features with a marker so that you can locate them easily in the long list of improvements in WhizFolders Alpha.

In this article, I maintain a list of the known alpha problems in the most recent order. So, if you have read this article before, just look at the top of the list for the newer found problems.

• We didn’t get any further clues on this problem so we are not sure if this problem is still there.

  Some of the Internet pages can not be copied in Rich Text and an error message says, “Unrecognized format.” This has something to do with RichEdit incompatible format on the clipboard. We will appreciate the sample web site locations along with clues on what text you tried to copy to get this problem.

• Sometimes when you insert a link, it is not formatted correctly. This happens when you insert the link at a position where already link format is continuing from the previous link. In such a case, paste a normal dummy text (not a link) from somewhere in that position before inserting the link. Later after the link is formatted correctly, remove your normal dummy text.

• When running under themes, if the topic list does not have focus, there is no selection color for the selected topics for a white background. Current workaround is to color the list to a non-white color using the File Options. The fix will appear in the next update.

• The convert to upper/lower case operation (on Edit menu of the advanced editor) is broken. The fix will appear in the next update.

• If you put Undo or Redo buttons on the toolbar, they do not work properly there. The fix will appear in the next update.

Tips:

• Whenever an Access Violation occurs, you get a special dialog that allows you to send a bug report to us. Please do so unless you see an error repeating very often on the same action. In most cases, you can continue using WhizFolders after pressing Continue. But we would recommend closing and restarting it as soon as you can after saving your changes.
• I hope you are using the Backup option in the alpha version. It is a very convenient means to store copies of your documents with flexibility to store multiple copies for each day.

I am happy to announce Alpha 5.8. As usual, you can get it from the automated user support area at http://support.whizfolders.com.

A major new feature in this version is Universal Links. Please see the alpha page for a complete list of new features and fixes. Originally, we had planned to put many more features in this but most of our time was taken by unexpected bug fixes and performance problems that we discovered and couldn’t afford to ignore. We always give priority to bug fixes and performance issues. Let’s keep our fingers crossed to see if we can enter the Beta testing in a week or so. Thanks to all of you who promptly reported the bugs and sent many feature suggestions. I am going to document the known problems later today.

We were scheduled to release a new version on July 10th. But we found a major performance issue quite by chance and definitely want to improve it before the release. This will speed up the browsing and popup menus. We have also completed the office links implementation in the next release along with a few nice improvements in pastes. We are sorry for the inconvenience and expect to release the new alpha version tomorrow, on July 12th.

Note: This article is now old. See the latest under the Alpha 5.8 heading.

We have an alpha version under testing for the next release. If you are a paid user, you can get it from the user support area. In this article, I maintain a list of the known alpha problems in most recent order. So, if you have read this article before, just look at the top of the list for the newer found problems.

• When you are editing in the right-editor pane, sometimes the Bold and other formatting buttons stop working or you get an error box as soon as the buttons are pressed. We have fixed in in the next version to be released on July 10, 06 (this is delayed as we found some performance bottlenecks that we want to improve before releasing). Meanwhile, here is a workaround. If you get such an error box, please click on “Continue.” In any case, stop the editor and again start editing. The problem goes away. Also, this problem doesn’t seem to appear in the separate editor window (started with the Pen button). So if you often get this problem, stop using the pane editor and use the separate editor for all your editing.
• Sometimes when pasting, an error “Can not open clipboard” appears. We have not been able to reproduce it. If you get it consistently, please give us steps on how to reproduce it.
• Some of the Internet pages can not be copied in Rich Text and an error message says, “Unrecognized format.” This has something to do with RichEdit incompatible format on the clipboard. Again, we will appreciate the sample web site locations along with clues on what text you tried to copy to get this problem.
• The default topic list background color is that like a “button.” But XP Themes are enabled by default on Windows XP and somehow the list background color is shown as white in this case. The only problem with this is that when the list is not in focus, the selections are not visible. We will fix this problem in the next version. Meanwhile, if you don’t like it, you can put theme support off on the Tools–General Options–Desktop or you can change the list background color on File Options of that document.

Tips:

• Whenever an Access Violation occurs, you get a special dialog that allows you to send a bug report to us. Please do so unless you see an error repeating very often on the same action. In most cases, you can continue using WhizFolders after pressing Continue. But we would recommend closing and restarting it as soon as you can after saving your changes.
• I hope you are using the Backup option in the alpha version. It is a very convenient means to store copies of your documents with flexibility to store multiple copies for each day.

As announced earlier, we have an alpha version under testing by our paid customers. The users are very happy with the new features. We have been able to integrate WhizFolders with the newer Microsoft RichEdit control so that the tables copied from MS Word look nice with all the proper word wraps. WhizFolders alpha now also supports XP themes. Please see new features of the alpha version.