Is it worth it?

[srd]

Those who have gotten ON 2007 beta working, complete with Instant Search:
Was it worth the hassle? When you weigh the increased functionality
against the problems with installation, etc. and against whatever
anxieties the beta version induces when you contemplate future work, would
you do it again? I'm trying to decide whether the effort I'm putting into
getting ON 2007 is productive or if the package functions like an
"attractive nuisance" functions in law for children or an insane obsession
with getting it to work right has taken over. Any comments?

 

[Amos Soma]

I don't know what "hassles" you are referring to but I've had none
whatsoever. I would absolutely do it again. I've been using OneNote 2007
Beta 2 with Outlook 2007 Beta 2 HEAVILY for the past 10 days. I've commented
to more than one person how few problems I've had. Everything feels almost
(not quite) as solid as a RTM version. I am very pleased with what I've seen
so far. Microsoft has done a great job.

The only complaint I have with ON 2007 is how pages/subpages are handled. I
don't like not being able to go unlimited levels deep and expand and
collapse them like an outline or tree. I don't understand why they haven't
given us this ability.

Amos.

 

[Grant Robertson]

Subject: Re: Is it worth it?
From: Grant Robertson <[email protected]>

Those who have gotten ON 2007 beta working, complete with Instant Search:
Was it worth the hassle? When you weigh the increased functionality
against the problems with installation, etc. and against whatever
anxieties the beta version induces when you contemplate future work, would
you do it again?

Well, as the Chief Complainer and Bottle Breaker here, I can tell you
that I eventually decided to put up with all the things I had complained
about and use OneNote 2007 full time. I am now putting lots of new notes
into it. Mind you, I made a backup of my OneNote 2003 files just in case.
(Not the backup provided by ON 07 install but an actual copy of all my ON
03 files in a .ZIP file where nothing else can get to them.

I find I need to use a combination of Journal, ON 03 and ON 07 to do
everything I want. But then I link all the Journal files and import all
the ON 03 files I create into ON 07. ON 07 is my central storage system
for all the notes I take and keep.

The main reasons I went back to it (even after getting fed up and
uninstalling it twice) were for the

1) Linking
2) Searching within "printouts" imported into ON.
3) Searching within pictures that are pasted into ON.
4) Better organizational features like separate notebooks & drag-&-drop.

Other things like

A) Smaller rule lines available.
B) Ability to easily hide and show the rule lines.
c) Proper word wrapping of handwritten words when you resize the text
box.
D) The expandable Navigation Bar

.... certainly helped me make my decision.

There are definitely things that I have to tolerate but I have found them
manageable. Things like:

a) Terrible interpretation of handwritten outlines and where paragraphs
start. (This is why I still use ON 03 for most of my handwriting.)
b) It corrupts handwritten paragraphs if you try to rearrange them. (I
expect this to be fixed by RTM. In the mean time I just use ON 03 for new
handwritten notes till I am ready to either convert them to text or they
are finalized and I don't think I will be moving things around any more.)
c) Bad handling of ink drawings. It just creates text boxes all over the
darn place and they are all treated as separate entities. (I just use
Journal for that, then copy and paste that into ON 03 to convert it into
a picture, then cut and paste that into ON 07 where I want it. I keep the
Journal file around in case I want to modify the picture later. I just
drag and drop it onto the appropriate ON 07 page and have it link to a
copy which copies the original into a special _onefiles folder. Then I
delete the original)

Yes, it did take me several tries to get things to work OK. I was only
able to make those tries because I had and used imaging software to roll
back my computer to EXACTLY what it looked like before I first installed
ON 07 (I don't trust System Restore for something like this). I also feel
my 25 years of supporting computers (15 years as a professional
supporting all kinds of bad software) gave me an edge in figuring things
out and interpreting hints I found here. I would certainly not recommend
it to the faint of heart.

 

[Old Joe]

Me to,It's a learning curve just like driving when you don't know how but you
can't stop to get out, I tried that and nearly screwed my system so I'v
decided to trust the engineers to sort it out as they have befor it'll be
fine just stay the course and don't panick. you not alone

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Those who have gotten ON 2007 beta working, complete with
Instant Search: Was it worth the hassle?

YES for me.

When you weigh the
increased functionality against the problems with installation,
etc. and against whatever anxieties the beta version induces
when you contemplate future work, would you do it again?

Clearly YES.

I'm trying to decide whether the effort I'm putting into getting ON
2007 is productive or if the package functions like an
"attractive nuisance" functions in law for children or an insane
obsession with getting it to work right has taken over.

I cannot say for others, especially for those already having used ON
heavily and as one of the main working tools.

On my side the situation may be different from others.
I had started trying out basic things in ON 2003 a few weeks ago as I
got my first TabletPC in April and it took me while to get the licence
and the key for ON which so far was not included in our Office Campus
licence.

So I had not yet done too much with ON and was still trying to get
behind its philosophy and the what and why.
Been sent her from the TabletPC NGs I checked a number of posting and
then immediately made the move to 2007.
I'm really glad to have done.
ON 07 offers a lot of fantastic things. And the great scheme of
synching solve a major problem for me.

I think that I can live with the deficiencies and wait and see what
the Final will bring. In the meantime I'll try get to reporting bugs
and posting suggestion for improvement (given I'll manage to get into
Connect)

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

The only complaint I have with ON 2007 is how pages/subpages are
handled. I don't like not being able to go unlimited levels deep
and expand and collapse them like an outline or tree. I don't
understand why they haven't given us this ability.

Not my *only* complaint, but 100% d'accord with your complaint.

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Well, as the Chief Complainer and Bottle Breaker here,

Wait until I'm through with the postings in this group and through
with checking and testing the features. Your Chief status may be in
danger then <bg>

Rainald

 

[srd]

I don't know if a page hierarchy with sub-sub pages and sub-sub-sub pages
ad infinitum is the way to go. The way I think broad outlining capability
should be incorporated is probably to allow the user to promote pages to
sections, sections to section groups, section groups to higher order
section groups ad infinitum. The Navigating Pane should eventually work
like an outline, with expanding and collapsing headings and the ability to
select multiple entries to reorganize.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Not everyone will have such a problem free experience with ON 2007 Beta
2. I can cause ON to crash on command, cause it to make explorer.exe use
100% CPU, etc.
It is still beta and has bugs. Nothing so far has stopped me yet from
using it since I got it in November as Beta 1.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Grant Robertson]

The way I think broad outlining capability
should be incorporated is probably to allow the user to promote pages to
sections, sections to section groups, section groups to higher order
section groups ad infinitum.

I don't think it would be too easy to convert a section to a section
group since a section is a file containing data and a section group is
nothing more than a folder. When a section gets too big, you can always
create a folder, move the section into that folder, then split that
section into several smaller sections. At least it is a matter of drag
and drop. And it even automatically moves any icon-linked files and
modifies any hyperlinks as you go.

I think if you tried to do more then you would get to a point where the
computer would have to read your mind because everyone would want it to
"automatically" do what they thought it aught to do.

 

[Andrew Oliner]

This is the first time I've heard someone say that ON 2003 handles
handwriting better than 2007.

Is this a widely-held opinion? Because 99% of what I use ON for is
handwriting.