Blog: WhizFolders, Articles and tips

We just discovered a way to set up a reminder so that WhizFolders will automatically start at a preset time, positioned on a particular note. I want to share that tip with you.

Let’s assume that you want a particular WhizFolders note to be opened automatically at 11 AM every day.

Step 1: We first need to get a Run command that starts WhizFolders on that note. We can do that in WhizFolders 6.1.2 in a roundabout way, by creating a desktop shortcut–not very straightforward, I admit, but it works. In the next version to be released, we have already made it better. But for now, let’s see how to get the Run command in WhizFolders 6.1.2.

1. Open your WhizFolder document, select the topic, and click on the menu “Tools – Create Shortcut for the Selected Topic on Windows Desktop.”
2. Once the shortcut is created, find it on your Desktop and right-click on the shortcut to see the “properties.” From the “Properties,” select and copy the full content of the “Target” box. This is the Run command that we want. Keep this copied in the clipboard as we are going to use it in the Task Scheduler.

Step 2, Make the reminder in the Windows Task Scheduler (Windows XP):

1. Click on “Settings–Control Panel –Scheduled Tasks–Add Scheduled Task.” A “Scheduled Task Wizard” comes up. Click on “Next.”
2. Click on “Browse” on the wizard window. Select the document from “Select a Program to Schedule” Dialog box.
3. After that the series of dialogs is quite easy to understand where we set up a Daily reminder time of 11 AM. I’m not going into details here as it’s easy to understand, and you can consult the help for the Task Scheduler. The last screen has a check box “Open advanced properties.” Select that so that the following properties dialog opens up after the task is set up. You can even get to it later by right-click on the task.



4. In the “Run” Text box paste the Run command that you copied from step 1. Click on “Apply.” You are done. The note will now be opened at that time.

Step 2, Make the reminder in the Windows Task Scheduler (Windows Vista):

1. On Vista, you will find Task Scheduler in Administrative Tools in Control Panel–System maintenance. But there is an easier way to quickly start it. Just click on Start menu and type “Task” in the Start Search at the bottom. This will quickly show the Task Scheduler icon by which you can start it.
2. Here, you need to click on the menu Action–Create a Basic Task. After that, the setting up of reminder time is easy to understand. Finally, select “Starting a Program.” You see a “Start a Program” screen with two boxes “Program” and “Add Arguments” as shown below.

   

   You need to split the Run Command that we copied above in two parts. Enter the first double-quoted value that gives the full path name of WhizFolders exe file in the Program box. Put the rest of the Run command in the “Add arguments” box and complete the wizard by clicking on the Next button till it finishes. That’s it. You’re all set.

Finally, you can delete the desktop shortcut created in Step 1 unless you want to keep it.

A direct web publishing is not possible. But you can combine multiple topics to create a single web page (html file) with working links between topics and to the other web sites. Then you can transfer this web page to a web site manually by using a publishing or ftp program. Exporting to multiple pages is not possible yet.

To see the details on how to export to HTML, please look up Help Index of WhizFolders on “Exporting to HTML.” Note that there are certain limitations of this export as mentioned later.

Steps to Export the Topics to a web page or HTML File:

1. Select one or more Topics from the Whizfolder document
2. Click on the menu “Tools–Export selected topics–To HTML File.”
3. A screen comes up asking for the Title of the web page.
4. Type a name for the web page and select “Also put jumped topics in the HTML file” check box.
5. Click on OK. A dialog comes up to save to an HTML file.
6. Select a file name and the web page is exported and WhizFolders also gives an option to bring up the browser to test the web page.
7. When you have tested the page, you can use a file transfer (FTP) program to copy it to your web site.

Limitations:

1. Pictures can not be exported to the HTML File. But you can insert html tags to do that. This is explained in the help file and in the article “Inserting custom HTML tags.”
2. Formatting of the text might change as all the RTF options are not possible in HTML.
3. If the check box “Also put jumped topics in the HTML file” is not selected, the links to unexported topics won’t work (i.e. they won’t show the target topic when clicked)
4. To get a hierarchial list of topic name links at the top of the web page, select that option and make sure that you have selected a complete hierarchy of topics in the topic list.

When editing a topic name you can always press F4 or F5 to insert date or date/time (the same keys as in topic editor).

It is also possible to automatically include date and time in a new topic name for a document by setting that up in the File Options. Here is a concrete example:

• You must have noticed that by default, when you create a new topic, the topic name generated is “New Topic”.
• Now click on the menu “Tools–File options.”
• Click on the “New Topics” Tab and look at the pull-down list “Start a New topic name with” that gives you various options.
• Choose the option “Date” to automatically prefix new topic names with date.
• Click OK.
• Now add a new topic to this document. You will notice that the date is automatically prefixed and the selection allows you to type a name beyond it. How convenient!

This feature allows you to set up a document as a journal or a time log. You can also look at other options available on the above pull down. For instance, you can also have custom characters put before or after the topic name.

This can be done by the feature called “Link to external file or document.” Here is an example of how to do it:

1. Suppose your WhizFolder document is at the location “d:\my stuff\mydoc.wzfolder”
2. Save your .mht file in the same folder (or make a subfolder within it to keep such files).
3. In your WhizFolder document, start editor on the topic in which you want to put the file link.
4. Leave the editor on and open the folder “d:\my stuff” in Windows Explorer. Keep both windows side by side.
5. Select the .mht file in Explorer, and drag and drop on to the editor to drop a link.
6. This will insert a link that can be used to open the attachment anytime. Moreover, the link will work even when you move the document along with such .mht files or the subfolders containing them. This way, you can keep links to attachments and your notes around them too.
7. Put your detailed notes on this link in the same note or make a list of notes after that note. It is upto you. For example, when I start to study a new book, I keep a link to its PDF file this way and can open it quickly anytime to continue making notes while studying it.

Other ways to do the same thing:

• Instead of steps 4 and 5 above, you can even use the Insert menu to insert links to files and folders, even the attachment folder itself can be opened with a link.
• You can insert links in the same manner (both methods) in the topic list itself. The advantage is that you can just double-click on that note name in the topic list to open the attachment. You can even use list outlines to organize such links. In this case the first line of the topic that is created is automatically reserved for the document path and your notes can follow in the rest of the topic.

A sample WhizFolder document to keep track of your events (or calendar) for 2007 is available at the bottom of the Calendar page. Thanks to Steve Jarjoura who made up this document.

The fact that Steve could generate the hyperlinks based on topic names shows that our design of the simple name-based hyperlinking in WhizFolders was right. Time and again, we have debated whether to change the hyperlinking to use internal hidden fields using some kind of object number. While this might simplify some of the user interface issues, it will break the capability of generating hyperlinks easily. Currently, you can simply make a link just by typing [~jump topic-name]. No hidden fields and no hidden numbers. That means a programmer can make a script to make the linked content of an entire WhizFolder document in a text file and then import it using Insert Topics from Text File. The above event file was created in this manner.

Have you explored the use of WhizFolders as a calendar? A sample WhizFolder document to keep track of your events (or calendar) for 2007 is available in the samples area. Steve Jarjoura has graciously contributed this file, and we can’t thank him enough. You can get more details and a download link at the bottom of the Calendar page in which Steve describes how you can use WhizFolders as an events or calendar application.

People wanting to learn a new subject or extend their knowledge often find that it helps to restructure information from books, articles, Internet, etc. into an organization that makes sense to them.

This process has three main benefits:

1. Promotes extra attention on the information.
2. Relates new information to the existing understanding.
3. Develops the skill of creating summaries.

All of these are known to help people remember more information than simply reading.

WhizFolders directly supports this enhanced learning by:

1. The transformation from an information source into WhizFolders forces you to focus more attention on the material to be studied. The mental process is one of trying to summarize or pick out the main points from the information source in order to translate it into Topics. As the reading and study continues, the Topic structure is often revised to conform to the latest understanding. WhizFolders is ideal to support this 2-way process of information summarizing and structuring. All this extra focus on the new information, although taxing at the time, is actually helping you remember it!

2. Developing the WhizFolders Topic List (and Jump hyperlinks) maps the new material into a structure which conforms to your existing way of thinking. Since you create the WhizFolders structure, it is your attempt at understanding the subject. As more material and Topics are created, new ways of structuring the Topic List (and linking it using the Jumps) occurs. Once again, as you struggle to organize and reorganize the material, it is actually increasing your understanding of the subject area.

3. Since it is tedious to simply copy complete sections from books and printed materials into large word processor documents, or just blindly save the web pages into different files; the WhizFolders Topics concept encourages you to summarize the key information into a short note form. The challenge of deciding if the key information should be a Topic in the List or a note in a Topic is also good discipline and a useful part of developing the skill of summarizing information. The notes you write should be as short, clear and information rich as possible. This is a skill which can be reused time and again in many other written forms, e.g. report writing, important e-mail, giving written instructions, meeting notes and summaries, etc.

Some may recognize this process as similar to an exam revision. To a large extent this is true. Although this may not evoke pleasant memories for some, it was probably a time when you felt that you learned a great deal.

Use WhizFolders as a Learning Tool for any subject that requires reference to more than one information source (or even a single source, if required). Create Topics for each important aspect using outlining techniques and your current understanding of the subject. Also create Topics for each of your information sources, using links to the web, files on disk, or short summary notes of the books and articles you read.

Encourage yourself to create many types of Topics if you are unsure how to structure the information (e.g. Subject Areas, Key Themes, References, Test Structures), but do not invest vast amounts of time linking them all with Jumps until you have a structure you feel comfortable with (but do put in the ‘obvious’ Jumps - i.e. the Jumps that you think are important, these usually stay in anyway).

Experiment with the Topic List structure whilst trying to focus on organizing the subject in your mind. What are the main subject areas, in your opinion? If the book/article/information you are looking at uses a different organization, reorganize it into your way by taking notes from the source and writing them as Topics into your structure.

If you create many Topics as short notes from books and articles, make sure you keep some text with the Topic of where it came from (e.g. a Jump to the reference Topic). If you rely only on the Topic List structure to show where it came from and then re-order the Topics, the source may easily be lost.

Encourage yourself to summarize the key points from your different sources, even though this is quite a demanding task. It will force you to really focus on the important points and ignore less relevant material. Write the reference page number or exact point where the information came from in your note text so that you can go back to it later during your reviews. If you read away from the computer, take some manual summary notes with paper and pencil and rewrite them into WhizFolders later (this 2-step process is excellent for concentrating on the content first - paper - and the structure second - into WhizFolders).

The WhizFolders development of your subject can be as short as 1 day or may take many years. Using WhizFolders allows you to naturally organize information in the way that makes sense to you. Sometimes we feel the need to be given a structure for a subject (because we may be new to it, for example), rather than create it ourselves, but generally if you look at some of the subject overview information sources, the contents pages will suggest some likely key areas. WhizFolders makes it easy to reorganize anyway.

To conclude, these are just some initial thoughts to using WhizFolders as a Learning Tool, albeit based on using WhizFolders for several years. This may be a subject that can be developed over time as more people think about how they use WhizFolders to aid their learning and structuring of information and then contribute to this weblog.

– Peter Dodge

Peter works in IT and Telecoms and has interests in psychology and in music (piano playing).

Question: I use Whizfolders and love it. My problem is that I can have it either at home or at work. My home computer is a desktop and the work computer is a laptop. At the moment my Whizfolders is on my home computer and I have an evaluation copy on my laptop. It is invaluable and as a teacher, I do most of the work at home but need to access all the ideas and plans at work. Is there a way to do this or do I have to purchase another copy? If I do this, how can I share the folders between both computers or copy them across?

As for your first question, no, you don’t need to purchase a second copy. You can use your license on the laptop too as long as you are the only user using it on both machines. Just download a paid version installer from the special web site support.whizfolders.com and use it on the laptop to install.

Your second question: You can copy your .wzfolder document files to the laptop to use them at work. But, you will have to remember to update a file from one computer to another when you make changes. There is no automated syncing available for that.

If you do not understand where the document files are and how to copy them, please see the sections, Document Locations and Managing Documents to understand them better.

Sharing the documents over LAN or through USB, Flash drives: You may also decide to keep the documents always on the laptop and use them over the LAN from your desktop. If you do that, remember that LAN writes are not very reliable in Windows and there might be a data loss at times if the data is not flushed out properly. Same thing is true when you use flash or USB drives. In both these cases, you must take regular backups of your documents.

Use the new Backup feature: In any case, it would be a good idea to use the backup feature in the new WhizFolders to keep a regular backup copy of your documents, both at work and at home. It allows you to even keep multiple copies of a document, separate for each day.

“I find that Whizfolders allows me to consolidate my receipts and serial codes. This makes accessing the different software information easy to locate.”

– Bill Raeder

“I’ve been using your product for nearly a year, now, and thought I’d drop you a line describing one particularly use I’ve found–that is for creating scenarios for Role Playing Games.”

– runester