first impression and two bits of feedback

[paulw]

I've had Automoton in my apps folder for awhile, planning on getting
around to exploring it sometime, and now that I finally am, I'm very
excited and impressed. I've needed something that can a) organize
notes in simple, universally-available format like RTFD and b) work
with my growing interest in OpenMeta tags. Voila, Automator does it.
Hallelujah.

I'm still just exploring it for the first time, but while I'm still
aware of them, I wanted to offer to short bits of feedback:
-folder structure in importing: I'd be interested in preserving that
at least as an option. But not yet being too familiar with the
interface, perhaps it doesn't make sense to have folders in the Notes
sidebar? Perhaps on the other hand it could be cool to have them, even
with the Finder-style column layout or list view...

-Importing a list of RTFD files (from iNotepad, which I've been using)
with different names but each containing a file called TXT.rtf
produced duplicate file warning.

thanks, i'm looking forward to getting more familiar with Automaton.

Paul

P.S. I tried to send this to the email address on the website
(auto...@mac.com) and got it returned to me.

[Chris]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking that sometime I would probably
have to sensibly deal with files in subfolders, but its a matter of
how to deal with it, and whether to allow creating them too, or just
viewing them. And do I just pretend to the user all the files are
flat, or do I somehow represent that to the user? Apart from the
notes list, there is the issue of links, and how they would be dealt
with. If a document refers to ABC, should it only be the ABC in the
current folder, or all documents named ABC?

Re the importing, I'll check it out and get back to you with a fix.

With the email address, I note below you mention auto...@mac.com,
when it is in fact auto...@mac.com.

> (automo...@mac.com) and got it returned to me.

[paulw]

Chris, thank you for the quick reply. btw, the email address I sent to
was correct—I just typo'd it when I mentioned it here. Maybe just some
server glitch.

If you were to include folders, I would either a) import all and
flatten them, or b) import all and preserve, display and allow the
creation of folders. It seems like b) may add the ability to keep a
long notes list tidy.

I'm not familiar enough yet with Automatons links function to have an
opinion on the linking issue and folders. I'd imagine though that
anything in the same repository, folders or no, ought to be
interlinked. Because if you want them separate, you can just have them
in a different repository. Just a guess.

Thanks for checking on the importing question--- I got around it by
choosing "opening" rather than "importing".

From what I see on here and comments on Macupdate, you sound very open
to suggestions etc. So I hope it's not an inconvenience if I share a
few more thoughts that I've kept notes on as I explored Automaton this
afternoon. Here they are, if you're interested.

possible bugs:
-append note and create new note from selection don't work (uses
clipboard contents instead)
-undo append/create doesn't work

possible feature/interface suggestions:
-make Autonotes' hotkey work both to invoke and hide it-- hit once,
invoke, hit again, get back to whatever else I was doing.
-allow adding/removing tags from multiple notes
-allow ordering of notes other than by date or alphabetically
-help automaton realize if tags to notes have changed (e.g., via other
tagging app) without reloading repository
-allow arrowing up or down in notes list to change note displayed
-make tags and notes lists available as bezels or detachable windows
(possibly hide/show with hotkeys) for small screen users?

awesome app. I just love that it ties in with OpenMeta and keeps its
files accessible to the OS X filesystem as a whole.

Paul

On Jan 20, 2:32 pm, Chris <automa...@me.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking that sometime I would probably
> have to sensibly deal with files in subfolders, but its a matter of
> how to deal with it, and whether to allow creating them too, or just
> viewing them. And do I just pretend to the user all the files are
> flat, or do I somehow represent that to the user?  Apart from the
> notes list, there is the issue of links, and how they would be dealt
> with. If a document refers to ABC, should it only be the ABC in the
> current folder, or all documents named ABC?
>
> Re the importing, I'll check it out and get back to you with a fix.
>

> With the email address, I note below you mention automo...@mac.com,
> when it is in fact automa...@mac.com.

[Automaton Support]

Lot's of good suggestions here.

* Having the window hide when hitting the hot key had occured to me, and since you asked it prompted me to add it, so that will be in the next release. (i.e. a few days away probably).
* Append and create note from selection seems to work for me. If you could give me more information about why you think it doesn't work.
* Undo - you're right, this area needs work.
* Ordering of Notes - what criteria do have have in mind?
Adding removing tags from multiple notes - that's a good call.
* Arrowing in notes - yes that really should be made to work.
* Tags and notes as separate windows - I guess that's a good idea as well. A pity Apple's drawers don't automatically provide for that.

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>

[paulw]

Thanks for the reply, Chris, and I'm glad some of those thoughts may
be useful.

Append and create from selection works for me now. Don't know what
that was about.

In answer to your question about notes ordering, I was thinking of
allowing arbitrary order-- drag and drop. This could be done already
of course by numbering notes, and that's fine too. Or I guess maybe
arbitrary order could become a numerical attribute to the note that
could be its own (optional) column along with name and mod date. Not a
huge deal really, but if it's easy to implement I think people would
find it convenient.

Thanks!
Paul

[Automaton]

I've just added the ability to tag multiple notes, so that will be in
the next version.

--
Chris

[paulw]

Great!

On Jan 22, 2:49 pm, Automaton <automa...@me.com> wrote:
> I've just added the ability to tag multiple notes, so that will be in  
> the next version.
>
> --
> Chris
>