Idealist 5 installation files

[Phil Stanworth]

Hi Folks,

I'm trying to help my aunt who runs Idealist on her Win XP machine.  She wants to upgrade to a newer PC running Win 7 or 8 and I she hasn't got the Idealist disks any longer (or at least she can't find them).  I gather that Idealist 5 runs ok under Win 7 64-bit, so I tried the sendspace download link for it that I found in theosblog, but unfortunately the file doesn't seem to be there any more. Does anyone know if there's somewhere else I can download it from please?

Thanks in anticipation of your help.

Cheers
Phil

[Moonpub]

I can't install Idealist 5 on windows 8 somehow, just copying the folder Idealist 3 however runs okay so I run Idealist 3 with just the folder copied (no installation at all) but can't say if that is the same for Idealist 5, I stayed with running Idealist 3 for some old projects and never installed the 5 version.

I got install files of Idealist 5 though but have to make it a zip file to send and - I tried just now again - unfortunately doesnt install on Windows 8 /64bit, Could be it doesnt run under 64bit perhaps, but dont know that for sure. But let me know if you need the installation files anyway and I do a zip and upload.

- Johnny

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[Lawrence]

Phil

I no longer have installation files for v5, but if you want to try v3, you can download the files from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62208205/IDEAL3.EXE. And, for the sake of completeness, a pdf of the Idealist 3 manual is available here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62208205/Idealist%20Manual.pdf.

Yours

Lawrence

[Phil Stanworth]

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for your help, but when I try to run your ideal3.exe on my Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-bit laptop I just get an error message saying that the program is not compatible with my version of windows.

Regards

Phil

[Phil Stanworth]

Hi Johnny,

Thanks for the offer: I would be very grateful if you would send me a zip of the Idealist 5 installation files please.  I'd like to give it a try on my Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-bit laptop so I can advise my aunt.

Regards

Phil

[Moonpub]

Phil,

I uploaded zip files - both version 5 and 3. But I cannot install on my Windows 64bit. That is why I just copied the files to Windows 8 (and 7 and most other windows version through the years). Version 3 runs fine on my pc just copying the whole folder, no installs. Who knows that works on your aunt's pc also, so my suggestion would be to try that also if installs dont work. Hope these files will help, it's a pity this software was never continued and properly updated.

best regards

- Johnny

DOWNLOADS

Idealist 5
http://www.moonpub.net/Idealist5.rar

Idealist 3

http://www.moonpub.net/Idealist3.rar

[Phil Stanworth]

Hi Johnny,

Thanks for your help, but when I try to run either your Idealist 3 or 5 on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit laptop I get the same error message as with Lawrence's upload, saying that the program is not compatible with my version of windows.

I think I'll give up with this approach and tell my aunt that she will need Windows 7 Professional so she can run Idealist under virtual XP.  I would suggest running it under Ubuntu with Crossover, but I think that would be too techie for her.  I'll probably have a look at Evernote too.

Regards

Phil

[Nikos Kavalis]

Phill,

If your aunt is running idealist on her XP PC, you can just copy the folder with the files and paste them somewhere in the new Win 7 PC. If for some reason you are set on a fresh install (e.g. she is using an old version and wants to switch to version 5), then the way to do it is install it under virtual XP and then copy the files across to the Win7 folder system. It should work fine, although if memory serves there could be some issues with the multi-user variant...

Good luck and happy new year.

Nikos 

[Moonpub]

Exactly Nikos, try just copying of the folder also if still available, Phil, that's how I'm runnin it with hardly any problems at all - well version 3. Was also because installs on later windows failed. Btw, It might be hard to find a replacement software, tried several already, also Evernote 

- Johnny

[Chris Hurrey]

Hi All,

 

I have been running Idealist 3 on my PCs for many years, including Windows 7 64 bit and Windows 8. I have just copied the files from machine to machine and the key to successful operation is to ensure that the ‘compatibility’ setting in the shortcut properties is set to Windows 7 or XP or similar. Try it on successively earlier version settings until it works. I have had no trouble with Idealist 3 in the last few years but have now migrated to FileMaker Pro 12, which though not as brilliantly flexible as Idealist, is at least stable and allows the use of relational techniques.

 

Good luck.

 

Chris

[Nikos Kavalis]

Thanks for the FileMaker tip Chris, seems a decent enough platform. Sorry to hijack the thread but was porting the existing entries across relative painless?

[Chris Hurrey]

Niko,

 

Yes, just copy the files across to a single folder and run the i32.exe file. It has always worked for me, providing all the necessary files are there (.ini, .dll etc) and you set the compatibility correctly.

 

I wish Idealist had been updated and supported (someone tried to interest the copyright holder recently) but it never happened, so I had to move to FileMaker.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Chris

[Nikos Kavalis]

I did not mean porting from one idealist to the next - rather from idealist to FileMaker. Did you find it easy to export and import the entries?

[Chris Hurrey]

Niko

 

Oh, sorry. No, not easy at all. I have tried several times to export Idealist records to text files, XML files etc and import into FM, but have not really had the time to investigate it thoroughly. I’m sure it can be done (and I’ve too much Idealist stuff to transfer by copy and paste) and will get round to it in time. I think the trick is to export the data from Idealist first, then design the FileMaker tables to import it (ah... I think I have just solved my own problem!)

[Nikos Kavalis]

Cool, thanks for the feedback!

[Bill Maslen]

Hi Nikos,

If you try doing what Chris suggested, you'll have a horrible time! That's because Idealist records are so variable. We migrated from Idealist some years ago (when it stopped being developed), and we took the following approach:

1) Identify your different record types

2) If records are very variable (i.e. you've got multiple records with unique fields), try and standardise them as much as possible

3) Export each set of records separately

- let me explain that one. We had, for example, client records, supplier records, job records, invoice records etc. So for the sake of this example, four different types of records, based on four templates. Not all records within a given set were identical, because we would add extra fields to individual records with e.g. notes, updates etc. So before we exported all our e.g. supplier records, we carefully went through them merging all the note fields into a single field until all the supplier records contained the same number of fields. Then we exported the supplier records, and the resulting CSV files were all completely consistent

4) Create supplier record templates in FileMaker Pro, with fields corresponding to the fields in the export files that you want to import

5) If all your supplier records are identical, you should be able to import them into the relevant FileMaker table without any problems

6) Repeat above process for each separate set of records (clients, jobs, invoices etc.)

FileMaker is a very acceptable substitute for Idealist. It's not as vastly flexible, but it makes up for it in other ways (able to handle much more data; rich text formatting in fields etc.). The most recent versions also support cross-field searches, which was one of Idealist's strengths.

Good luck!

[Chris Hurrey]

Bill

 

You’re probably right. The problem I have had is with importing text from ‘wrapped text’ Idealist fields which contain tabs and carriage returns and other stuff. If I try to do it via XML I have to keep debugging the resultant text because of all the characters that XML does not like. In the end, I took to cutting and pasting text that was a priority while I think about what to do with the rest.

 

Chris

 

From: Ideal...@googlegroups.com [mailto:Ideal...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bill Maslen
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 11:06 AM
To: Ideal...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Idealist 5 installation files

 

Hi Nikos,

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