Mac life after Ecco
For years I organized my life with the wonderful, now-orphaned and somewhat antiquated Windows outliner Ecco Pro. For me Ecco was versatile enough to function effectively as both a todo-list manager and a repository for random information, scattered ideas and research. It really could do it all.
I’ve always used both Macs and PCs but this year I’ve migrated my main workspace over to OS X. There were many compelling reasons to do this, but I’ve had to struggle with finding an Ecco replacement. (Yes, I could run it on my Mac in a Windows virtual machine, but it’s a bit kludgy, and it’s time for me to move away from this program that, despite the efforts of many devotees, doesn’t look like it will ever be fully modernized.)
So far, it’s looking to me like there is no one Mac application that can serve in both roles (todo list and information organizer). OmniOutliner is a pretty good all purpose outliner, and it has a companion, “Getting Things Done”-based todo list program called OmniFocus. Though I’ve made my peace with OmniOutliner, I have not fallen in love with OmniFocus. It follows the David Allen GTD approach a little too rigidly for me, it has various features I don’t need and it’s missing some that I do want (as far as I’ve been able to tell, for instance, it lacks the ability to make some item vanish until a certain date when it reappears–what I call the “out of my face” tool).
So I’ve begun exploring various combinations of other tools. Right now, it’s Evernote for research/information and Things for todo management. I’m also going to look into Tinderbox, Yojimbo and some other applications that look promising. I know the Mac ecosystem is full of great products that sometimes have only small followings, so if there’s one you’re especially enamored of, do let me know.
I’ve also been playing around with Thinklinkr, a new Web-based outliner. It has one huge plus: It’s got an absolutely top-notch browser interface (it’s the only browser-based outlining tool I’ve found that is as responsive and fast as Ecco on the desktop — bravo for that!). At the moment, though, it’s a somewhat rudimentary tool; it lacks various features one might want, and it looks like it’s being aimed at the (important but different) market for collaborative outlining rather than personal information management. But it’s definitely worth a look if you’re into outlining.
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November 9th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I’ve been using the unfortunately named Circus Ponies Notebook for about a year now. I have to say that I find it really useful for creating a repository of notes, clippings, links, etc. for each significantly researched article I write.
Partly, I like the interface, which despite the dopey logo is an analog of something I already know how to use, a paper notebook. It works as an outliner, too. Perhaps it’s not as deep in this respect (as opposed to OOP, which I also own but never could quite figure out how to use), but it’s perfectly adequate, and you can integrate the collected materials with the actual outline if you like.
But the secret weapon is the “Multidex,” which automatically generates indexes of your notes by a variety of qualities: specific words in the body of the text, assigned key words, highlighting, “stickers,” etc. My big obsession is being able to sort and filter each snippet of information in the maximum number of ways.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I use DEVONthink Pro Office for storing my research and reference material. It’s See Also feature can be useful in finding connections that aren’t obvious. The built-in scanning of the Office version is useful as is the web server since it provides a handy way to access the info on an iPod Touch/iPhone. My only real problem is that it doesn’t yet support tags.
Before I used DEVONthink, I used EagleFiler which works pretty well for storing material. It’s tag based and I keep most web articles categorized in it since that material is more oriented towards tagging.
For short-term storage, I’ve been somewhat happy with ShoveBox which I happened to get for free due to a promotion offer. A free alternative for 10.6 users is Quiet Read for storing bookmarks to read later. It also has an iPhone app. So, I use it as a place to keep things I want to read until I decide to delete or file. It’s basically a virtual GTD inbox for me.
I use MindNode Pro instead of outliners since I find the visual display better for putting things in context. Plus, it has a nice iPhone app.
I also use Things for my task management as well. Most of the bugs have been ironed out so I have far fewer problems than I used to have with it. I only wish it had better third-party support. OmniFocus has a lot of integration with other apps.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:03 am
I’ve been using Evernote extensively for some time, having checked out many of the above options. I check them out, but I keep coming back to Evernote. It’s simple, it works, and it’s available across both my Mac a& Windows platforms at different locations in my work life. Even has the Blackberry version.
DevonThink Pro is very nice, but I’ve gotten aggravated at Devon Technologies at having to pay for an upgrade to a long-term beta. I don’t quite see why a paying customer needs to discover & troubleshoot issues with beta versions that seem to go on longer than some Google products.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Thanks for all these great suggestions. I’m going to spend some time with as many of them as I can and will report back…
November 10th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I’ve been a fan of Mindjet MindManager for a few years, but have begun to gravitate toward a more classic outlining mode of brainstorming and structuring information.
Like you, I’ve tried OmniOutliner, but it fails to ‘click’ for me for some reason. But — I recently stumbled across an alternative that looks promising: Tree (http://www.topoftree.jp/en/tree/).
Slightly expensive for what it does (around 4000 JPY), but it of the various tools I’ve tried recently, this comes closest to that ‘yay!’-feeling.
(In addition to MindManager for mindmaps, I use Dropbox as a multicomputer document repository, and Evernote as a web clipping/quote storage application, fwiw).
November 11th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Emacs has truly excellent outliner and task manager called org-mode (http://orgmode.org/). Some people have claimed that its useful enough to justify learning Emacs. You may or may not be one of those people.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Greetings Scott
If you’re still considering Ecco and Agenda-inspired Windows solutions, I highly recommend InfoQube, presently available in a frequently-updated preview version. Perhaps you can arrange a chat with IQ’s developer in Quebec, Pierre Paul Landry; he’s a prodigious talent, a one-man Chandler team.
To understand InfoQube, start with a wrapping rich-text Outliner in which each item can appear under multiple parents, wiki-style. The item is a database record, with built-in and user-added fields as needed. Your data views — record and field subsets — are shown as floating Grids. One field is maintained in an HTML edit/display pane tied to the active Grid. The fields support horizontal and vertical calcs, internal and external hyperlinks. There’s a task manager with billables for consultants, even Gantt charting. The calendar is still a bit rough; that’s high priority for a 2010 release.
Everyone has their preferred tools, of course. All I can say is that after searching months and years for a program to keep track of ideas, people, events, belongings, I recognized immediately and conclusively that IQ was the one.
All best
Jerome
November 14th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
So, the Parallels approach didn’t work out ?
was it Ecco just being too DOSy in a MAC environment, or problem with the Parallels making ecco less than friendly ??
ps: did you also try the SUN vitrual box for MAC ?
ps: I tried EverNote with high hopes, but couldn’t live with bulk information storage that couldn’t be outlined. Ecco (with the MV pane) now does the clip storage ..so nicely…
[really gets you to appreciate ecco in comparing working with web clips from EverNote & Ecco once you've got a bulk of clips stored]. Curiously, the webclip add-on has attracted more ‘word of mouth’ users in 6 months (just under about 4000) then the ‘main’ ecco upgrades did over a few years. Wonder if the ‘global user base of software tools’ is just so huge now that any ‘modern’ application that does anything of interest will attract a tiny % that in actual numbers is large by comparison to user base that used to exist for the same software tools.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
YSWT, thanks for the mention of http://eccomv.com . As an old Agenda and Ecco user, I was pleasantly surprised to hear of the number of active users. Thanks to VMs, Ecco may yet live long enough to see a capable cloud-aware, mobile-aware, desktop-capable Ecco successor (as one or more applications).
Ecco and InfoQube are both mentioned in this good Aug 09 research presentation on PIMs: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18184530/How-to-Audit-Your-Personal-Information-Management .
Have you heard of anyone using eccoext to exchange information (in real-time) between Ecco and an application in the cloud? It seems theoretically possible to use eccoext with external scripts to perform web-based synchronization of Ecco items, as is done with bookmarks by the xmarks browser plugin.
November 21st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The eccoext allows ‘internal’ Active perl and/or Python scripting (in addition to the built in LUA support), (eg., allows per/python script with eccoext functions, activated when any item or folder value changes), and external perl or Python have libraries (eg., Daev Gustafson’s “Ecco Toolkit” Python for ecco, and Terse Systems perl/ecco module–maybe at http://tersesystems.com/code/?overview=shadow ) allow external access & control of all item values & folder values etc..
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
I too was a long-time Ecco Pro devotee. I started with Version 1 and stayed with it way past its sell-by date. In fact, it single-handedly kept me in Windows long after I was ready to switch to Mac (which I finally did in ‘06).
I’ve never found any one Mac app that could take its place, but after trying almost every PIM and digital shoebox out there, I am happily using OmniOutliner and DevonThink.
OO is an excellent outliner, and although it lacks certain key functions – particularly, such Ecco-like things as the ability to filter based on columnar data so one can see one’s information in different ways – it is elegant and pleasing to use. For all my basic outlining needs, it’s excellent.
I’ve been using DevonThink for my more “databasey” needs, and have just discovered that I can get it to do something Ecco-like: DT’s “Replicate” function allows me to assign an item to multiple folders. Change something in one and the change is instantly reflected in the other iterations of that item in other folders. (Sound familiar?) I am now setting up databases similar to the more personalized and customized ones I used in Ecco, and finding it very, very functional.
So while I miss having one program to combine outline with database functions, I’m thrilled to discover these two.
But if anyone could figure out how to re-write Ecco for OSX, I’d be first in line.
February 6th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Bother. I’ve been looking at Things and Circus Ponies. I held out on switching to Mac until December 2009 because I did not want to lose EccoPro, which I can run in VM Fusion. I find it clunky, and figured SOMEONE would have come up with something by now, but apparently not. Maybe I should just keep working my Ecco Pro until SOMEBODY finally reinvents the wheel. Reading that people more techie than I am still think Ecco Pro rocks makes me feel good, though.
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:43 am
Andrea > Reading that people more techie than I am still think Ecco Pro rocks makes me feel good, though
The closest equivalents to EccoPro are
- InfoQube: The outliner UI is OK, but not as good as Ecco’s. Also, the developer made (IMHO) the unfortunate decision of using VB6 (deadware that came out in 1998) instead of modern, supported development tools like .Net or even Delphi
- EssentialPIM : Not as flexible, as the user can’t create new columns to define an item differently, and as for now, can’t sync directly with any smartphone (must go through Outlook, or Google for calendar and contacts)… but otherwise, pretty good application