AskSam or InfoSelect equivalent?

[JunkMonkey]

I'm looking for a good freeform database (i.e. a text based DB with no
predefined fields mandatory). extensive search capabilities on text
strings. I'm currently using enfish Pro which is fine for cataloging
existing documents, web pages, etc., but I want the ability to quickly pop
up the app and enter data/text directly and have the entered data be
considered during searches at the same time as the catalogued external
documents. (enfish will let you directly enter text only notes, but you have
to search them separately,and they can't optionally handle predefined
fields, images, webpages, etc)

In other words, I want to do one search of both catalogued documents and
directly entered data and get all my hits in one window, without having to
do multiple searches. And I want as much flexibility as possible in
how/what I store. AskSam and InfoSelect are excellent examples of what I'm
looking for.

I prefer freeware but will consider low cost software. Anyone have any
suggestions?

 

[Tanner]

Keynote is an RTF-based information organizer which allows for hierarchal
organization of information and Boolean searches of the text. It allows for
images (as well as OLE) as well, but these really bloat file size. You can
paste RTF-style links to external files.

http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html

It has numerous other features that make it very useful -- dictionary,
formatting "styles", import / export to a variety of formats, etc

Treepad is similar to Keynote, but is text (vs RTF) based only. The freeware
version doesn't allow for images or OLE. It also doesn't allow for Boolean
searches directly, but from the site you can download a freeware viewer that
will allow for Boolean searches (but not editing) so you kinda have to use
the two programs together.

www.treepad.com

A third alternative is to use a program like Inforapid. Keep all your info
in a free form text file and use Inforapid to search the file(s) for the
terms you are looking for.

http://www.inforapid.de/html/searchreplace.htm

 

[JunkMonkey]

Thanks Tanner! keynote looks like it's the closest to what I am looking
for. I have downloaded it and will check it out.

Thanks to all - this is a really great newsgroup.

 

[PaulS]

I was looking for the same a while ago.
The only usefull thing I found was scrapbook:
-it is freeform but no html
-you can start links in the text by using F12 key. this link must be
positioned in the beginning of the line.
-the search function in not powerfull.
Until now it is the best I found, besides AskSam

http://home.pacbell.net/nitzsche/scrapbook.html

 

[JunkMonkey]

Thanks for the link to Scrapbook. It's a neat little program and ALMOST
what I'm looking for! Sigh! I really don't want to spring the big bucks
for AskSam!

 

[sdl]

I love ScrapBook 2:14. It's the greatest free-form db I have found
and I was looking for quite some time.
Try it and you might like it too ;-)
The link is http://home.pacbell.net/nitzsche/scrapbook.html

Good Luck.

SDL