waksaidthis

I have tried other note taking and to do apps, but I keep coming back to Deep Notes. It is just so easy to capture and re-organize. Everything is accessible with the keyboard, including color coding items. The interface is simply brilliant. I am likely to continue testing other apps with more features, but unless I find one that is this quick, I am sticking with Deep Notes.

Simple but could uses better/more preferences.

Love using Deep Notes, but its easy to forget that this software does NOTHING you don't tell it two. There's no auto-save when closing a fine. Not even a prompt. If you've been randomly jotting notes for several hours and then forget to do a save before quitting you'll lose everything. Sounds obvious, but with so many other day-to-day programs that DO save or warn before quitting, its easy to forget. (Ask me how I know...)

Another no-brainer preference would be the option to open to the last file used when launching. I'm probably not unique that I might be working on a single, large outline doc for days or weeks. Be nice to have it open to that doc upon launch if desired, rather than going straight to a new, blank document.

Interface and key commands are just what they should be: simple and direct. Just a little attention to the user preferences would make it perfect.

I love this app, but it still does not work well with Leopard spaces, which significantly limits it's usefulness for me.

Works great for me. I use it almost daily. I use it with Smultron and CSSEdit. Never crashes. At this point I can't see why I would pay for an FTP program.

I considered Quicksilver indispensable for some time. But, I was surprised to find that once I could launch programs, contacts and do calculations with Spotlight in 10.5, all of the sudden all the other things I used Quicksilver for (and there were quite a few) no longer seemed worth price of 40MB RAM. Add to this occasional stability issues and I am no longer a user.

However, I am very much looking forward to what Nicholas Jitkoff has next.

I was having repeated frozen windows, apps not responding. Needed frequent force quits, restarts. After reading alpha & geira's comments here, I realized the glitches could be from Quicksilver. Uninstalled Quicksilver, then did another restart. No more problems.

When uninstalling apps, remember to delete application support files & preference files. It's best to do this manually. Uninstaller apps often leave files behind. Check in Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support; Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences; Macintosh HD > Users > username > Library > Application Support; Macintosh HD > Users > username > Library > Preferences.

I have found that spotlight in Leopard works just as well for basic application launching

just one thing to say... i feel handicapped on any mac which doesnt have this... and i mean, really handicapped... disable spotlight, forget those itunes controllers, forget menubar utilities, forget calc, forget image converter, forget anything... quicksilver ROCKS!

Hi, just to let you guys know; there are alpha releases being built at: http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/ -- these are alphas, but to be honest, they work significantly better under Leopard, many many bugs are fixed. a3 needs manual hacking to get working, but it is worth it IMO.

Most overrated mac app out there. launching apps from stackz (grid) in leopard is so much faster. Quicksilver also has major stability issues that should be fixed.

I am a fan of iBackup. I have been using it reliably for years. Just to be clear, by default iBackup backs up to it's own folder and does not delete files from the backup. But, as with any utility, you need to be careful how you use it.

I recently bought a new MacBook and iBackup was perfect for migrating my settings. I was able to restore just the settings I needed when I needed them.

While the plugin system is nice in that it takes care of gathering all the files needed to restore a particular app – it is getting unwieldy. The interface would be much better if checkboxes were shown only for apps that were actually installed on your computer.

I would also love to see the developer implement a feature that backs up settings for apps without plugins by "guessing" what files are needed the same way that uninstall apps do. These apps could be marked differently to show that they are not guaranteed the same as apps with plugins.

I've stopped using iBackup. There are too many pitfalls that can get in the way of a safe backup and restore, as I found when restoring files to my drive after a hardware repair where the shop replaced my Tiger system with Leopard. iBackup doesn't know from version numbers, so it overwrote Leopard utilities with older versions that had more recent time stamps. (The interface is so pokey that I found it easiest to save all apps during backup instead of selecting some of them.) iBackup also rendered saved text clippings as zero-length files. I've lost a non-trivial amount of data and can no longer use some Apple apps. Hoping a reinstall of Leopard from DVD will repair the damage, but the lost data is gone for good.

I never would have tried it if I hadn't got it free thru MDA, but I am glad I did. I have since paid for it and I have used it regularly for over a year.

One thing about it that I hate though - the alarm. It is too loud and too obnoxious. With so much customizability for the rest of the nap, it's surprising that there isn't volume control for the alarm.

I added this app and it served me well for some time, but I have stopped using it and I replaced it with Max http://osx.iusethis.com/app/max

This is my favorite of the "focus" apps. I only have one wish though. I would love it if simply clicking the menu icon would activate/deactivate Isolator. The menu could be accessed by cntrl-clicking. (This method is used by Caffeine (http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/)).

This feature would greatly increase the usefulness of this app for me.

I agree with Wak - that would be a great idea.

I have to say, I used to prefer Desktopple or Camouflage (I was even planning on buying Desktopple Pro) but - but after trying Isolator again, I've adopted this as my new focus app. As I've said for other apps, what I always do is link the hotkey for Isolator (any similar app) to my top left trackpad corner in Sidetrack.

Looks like 1.4b5 (first I've tried) addresses most of the requests below. However, one that I'd still like to see is resetting the visibility of hidden apps when I turn off Isolation. Of course, if an app was hidden when I started Isolating, I don't want it to suddenly become visible just because I stopped isolating. I have not clue how triky it might be to implement this.

I'm curious why the developer uses "hiding" rather than a "backdrop" window that stays immediately behind the front app. I'd think shuffling window order would be better than changing the "hidden" state of every app. Especially when there's already a backdrop being drawn to hide the desktop.

I realize that it's still beta and that beta releases are often lacking updated docs, but it would be especially nice to document that users now have to ctrl-click the icon to show the window. Adding that detail to a tooltip for the status icon might be nice too.

I like it. :)

mathuaerknedam: The latest development version (1.4beta7) doesn't use 'hiding', it just covers up the background window with a 'veil', just as you (and many others) suggested. The reason I didn't do that before is because it's hard to achieve. The old behaviour is still available (Prefs window) for anyone who really liked 'hiding'. Known issue: Isolation doesn't work reliably with the Finder. Ben (developer)

I noticed there's a new 1.4b8 version up - what are the changes from b7?

rampancy: The newest version (1.4beta8) just improves the behaviour of Isolator when the Finder is activated. That's the last functionality change I expect before releasing a new stable version. I will put out one last beta shortly, see what bug reports come in, and hopefully release that as the next stable version. Ben