HTML problems in copying and pasting

[MsJulie]

I am trying to transfer a lot of notes from InfoSelect into UltraRecall.

Most of the notes that I would like to transfer have been copied from webpages into InfoSelect. Many of the notes that I have are in some hypertext format that results when I mark something from a webpage, and drag it into an InfoSelect note. InfoSelect can preserve the hyperlinks in the same way that it was displayed on the webpage -- underlined text with the URL hidden underneath.

[I should note that I get the same behavior in UltraRecall when I mark text in a webpage and then drag and drop it onto a blank note. And this behavior is desirable.]

BUT when I try to copy and paste notes from InfoSelect into UltraRecall, UltraRecall makes everything into displayed text. Yes, the hyperlink is blue -- but the hyperlink is the entire URL written out.

For example, this is what my short InfoSelect text looks like when it gets into UltraRecall:

Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University (<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/rockefeller_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>), had gotten curious ...

You must admit, it makes for annoying reading.

I'd really like to know how to copy and paste so that the details of the URL where still hidden under the relevant text, instead of displayed.

Alternatively, is there a way to strip those HTML references out of a note? (Using the "Paste Text" option does not do it. I get the exact same output that I got using the normal paste function)

I hope you can make sense of what I'm talking about. I don't "do" HTML, so I realize that I am creating my own vocabulary to describe the problem I'm trying to work around.

I also got the program Clip Mate, which seems to have a lot of options and I was thinking I could use that as an intermediary. But the straightforward use of that program did not give me the results I wanted -- but it has so many options, that he might be able to use it as an intermediary if I understood the problem. I don't understand the problem -- I only understand the results. (Aah page, the woes of the uninitiated!)

I would really like to get out from under InfoSelect, but this characteristic is a big constraint. Many thanks in advance.

Ms.Julie

[quant]

don't have InfoSelect, so cannot try, but to preserve formatting and hyperlinks, I use Word as an intermediary. Try to copy your note from InfoSelect to Word, and then from Word to UR ... might work, might not ;-)

[Jon Polish]

I think you are doing this the hard way. Instead of copying each not from IS and pasting it into UR, what about exporting all of your notes? You seem concerned with readability, and your willingness to accept an alternative to maintaining the links in your notes leads me to this suggestion.

You may have formatting and images within your notes. If so, you would want to export them with the formatting intact. Try these steps:

1. Go to Tools|Options|Editor. Insert something unique to define a Note Delimiter (I use ==END==).

2. Create a topic and name it (Export perhaps?).

3. Copy all of your notes as sub items of the topic you created. I recommend copying because it will have no impact on your existing IS structure.

4. Select all of the notes you copied.

5. Click Selector|Join. This will combine all of your notes into a single note. The original notes will be separated by the note delimiter you defined in step 1.

6. Make sure this note is highlighted in the selector.

7. Go to File|Export|Export to File. Choose where you wish to save your file, the file name, and most important, the file type. The file type must be rtf.

8. Now open UR and import the file. The type you are importing will be rtf. When you click next, you will see options to enter your delimiter, if it should be removed upon import (yes), and (if my memory is correct) if it should be case sensitive (again check this box).

9. Run the import and you should get the results I think you need. If you have a large amount of items to import, be aware that it can tie up your computer and take a long time. UR is not as fast as IS in this regard.

May I ask why you are moving from IS to UR? Both have their strengths and weaknesses. What compelled you to switch?

I hope this has been useful.

Jon

[MsJulie]

Greetings everyone,

Thank you for your replies to this quandary of mine. Unfortunately, neither of the two techniques have worked. However, the idea of using Microsoft Word as the intermediary did show me that the problem lies in how InfoSelect hands off data. When I transferred text from InfoSelect to Microsoft Word, I got the result that I didn't want. Then, as an experiment, I selected and dragged an equivalent piece of text with HTML embedded from UltraRecall into Microsoft Word -- and things worked out just fine.

I will contact support at InfoSelect, and if they respond, I will pass on whatever wisdom I have gleaned to this forum.

Jon, you asked be why I am moving from InfoSelect to UltraRecall. Yes, InfoSelect does have its strength -- and most of its strength is that it was really the first program of its kind that was a free-form database. (I have been using it since it was Tornado Notes.) I'm not a programmer, but I do think that InfoSelect is suffering from the virtual equivalent of arthritis and old age. I think that some capabilities are just constrained by legacy programming. (This not being able to hand off data in an HTML context is an example.)

In fact, the latest version of InfoSelect has real problems with HTML e-mails -- so much so that the program crashes anytime it gets one, and if it doesn't do that then when you try to respond, it will crash then. I guess I am just tired of all the crashes.

One other thing that InfoSelect is incapable of doing is supplying a URL that would link to various notes. UltraRecall does this -- and it does that by a unique identifier, so that I can group the note around and not worry about the link being broken. The more I think of it, the more I suspect that this is related to the absolute snarl that HTML and URL's create in InfoSelect.

And the coup de grace is this: InfoSelect does not, and I repeat not, work well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Many times when I dictate, even a title to an e-mail, the hand off between Dragon NaturallySpeaking and InfoSelect just doesn't get made. And nothing surpasses the aggravation of trying to correct text in a note that InfoSelect has made. UltraRecall works like a charm with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Having said all this, I have gigabytes of notes in InfoSelect. Three or so years ago I wrote a glowing review of InfoSelect version 7 (at that time I forgave it its difficulties with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, simply because Dragon wasn't that good anyway. Dragon is very good now; in fact I'm dictating this entire post using Dragon.).

But over the past several years, all of the work I have done with InfoSelect has been information copied and pasted from the Internet. But now to e-mail anything is to invite aggravation, and now I am finding that everything I have stored in InfoSelect is possibly stuck there forever because I can't get it into another program without bugginess or idiosyncrasies.

Thank you again for your help. If there are any more suggestions, I will gladly take them.

Virtually yours, Ms.Julie

[Jon Polish]

Ms. Julie said:
In fact, the latest version of InfoSelect has real problems with HTML e-mails

I never liked the email portion of the program, so I don't use it (use The Bat! and you will be spoiled). I disliked it so much that I adjusted the menus to eliminate any reference to email or newsgroups. So IS is set up simply as a PIM for me (but I use others too including UR).

Ms. Julie said:
One other thing that InfoSelect is incapable of doing is supplying a URL that would link to various notes.

I agree and made a feature request some time ago. They will get around to it whenever. This and some of the quirks make IS frustrating to use sometime, but its speed is a very desirable quality. I wish UR was as quick.

Ms. Julie said:
InfoSelect does not, and I repeat not, work well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

I have no experience with this, but it is useful to know.

Ms. Julie said:
I have gigabytes of notes in InfoSelect.

Wow. I thought I had a lot of research.

Thanks for your observations and opinions.

Jon

[MsJulie]

well, Jon, I believe that information has a half-life, so that makes much of what I have in InfoSelect really fairly worthless.

The real problem is having to go back through it. I don't remember the name of the cybernetic guru who observed that the real cost information is in throwing it away -- not in gathering it.

Thanks again & cheers, Ms. Julie

[quant]

Originally posted by MsJulie
The real problem is having to go back through it. I don't remember the name of the cybernetic guru who observed that the real cost information is in throwing it away -- not in gathering it.

The problem is that people gather too much data. Not everything you come across have to be stored in your main db, even for the important info, is enough to store just the excerpt with link to full source, things that are not that important is enough if they are linked altogether, etc ...
We live in the age where suddenly there are TeraBytes of data available and people didn't learn how to use and process it effectively ...

You said you had giga bytes of notes, if that was a text, you would need several lives to read it ...