StickyBrain 4.1b3 gets Yojimboed
The developer of StickyBrain is either feeling the heat from Bare Bones’ competing product, Yojimbo, or is just inspired by it.
A new StickyBrain beta (4.1b3) released today introduces at least three new features found in Yojimbo and offers a number of other significant new functions including a full-screen view, a post to blog option and new “Daily Notes” and “Journal” formats.
You can find screenshots and more after the jump…
StickyBrain’s DockNote: StickyBrain has added a side-drawer to the edge of the screen like Yojimbo’s Drop Dock:
It allows you to drag and drop content in a wide variety of formats into StickyBrain. It also offers the ability to paste notes from the side-drawer directly into the current application.
Labels: StickyBrain now has labels very much after the fashion of Yojimbo’s labels:
The labels consist of a name and a colour, both of which can be edited. You can also search by label (as you can in Yojimbo), which gives labels a basic “tagging” function.
Print to PDF: The new beta adds an option to the Print dialog that enables printing directly into StickyBrain as a PDF. You can see it in this screenshot directly under Yojimbo’s print to PDF option:
This new version also adds audio recording capabilities to Audio notes, the ability to post notes to any blog that supports the Atom protocol and new Daily Notes and Journal folders which automatically insert a date stamp into the notes title.
A full screen option for viewing and editing notes is nice and will please those who like to work in full screen mode to reduce distracitons.
Printing improvements also include support for printing Bookmark, Web Archive, Image, and PDF notes.
Even a die-hard Yojimbo convert like me has to admit that StickyBrain now leads the pack. It makes me look forward to what Bare Bones will do to raise the bar again.
StickyBrain is shareware (USD 39.99) and is available from the developer’s web site 
.
I found the beta on MacUpdate .
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May 6th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
“Even a die-hard Yojimbo convert like me has to admit that StickyBrain now leads the pack.”
Leads the pack if you don’t mind gunking up your system with all the OpenBase crap…
May 7th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Is this acceptable? I mean there’s feature-matching, and then there is pure plagiarism. Granted they are similar products designed to do the same job, but surely you can’t just blatantly copy something like this. The only good thing that may come out of this is BB might ramp up their development schedule to roll out some new features for Yojimbo.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I bought version 2 of Sticky Brain at retail based on box descriptions of being able to directly import whole web pages. It did not work as advertised (you could get text only, not pictures and text). Importing text from Carbon apps was not functional. I used it anyway, but was annoyed that it only sorta did what it claimed to do.
Version 3 came out–dot Mac backup between computers was advertised and hoping the html import function was improved, I coughed up my upgrade fee. Yeah, the html import feature was better, still couldn’t slurp stuff out of Acrobat Reader. The other newly added features (.Mac backups among others I don’t remember) sorta worked. The database kept getting corrupted (no error message, just endless spinning pizza) and the only way to fix the mess was to completely uninstall and reinstall, bringing up the data from an uncorrupted database backup. I’m tech savvy (ask me about the open source molecular modeling cluster I’m building), but I have very little patience with marketing hype and stuff I have to fix when I am trying to meet a deadline. Yojimbo has fewer features on paper, but it is solid. I’ve used BBedit for years. It does what BareBones says it will do, without my thinking about it. I don’t have to work around issues, so I paid full price for Yojimbo, knowing BB when adds features they will work. My computer is a tool I use to do work, and I consider my time important. I own a Mac because it just works. I own BBEdit and Yojimbo because they just work. I gave up on giving my money over and over to Chronos for Sticky Brain–just one woman’s opinion…
May 8th, 2006 at 4:00 am
quote> Is this acceptable? I mean there’s feature-matching, and then there is pure plagiarism
answer> as long as those features are not trademarked or patented and the actual copyrighted source code is not plagiarised, then there is little recourse for Bare Bones. Innovation to stay ahead is the best choice. And word of mouth. I agree Stickybrain is a has been and has never worked correctly ever for me, so I would think that would help BB more than spending money on a futile attempt using lawyers.
For those looking for an infprmation manager and are undecided, let me say the incorrect answer is any software that holds the info in a closed database. I prefer the documents “naked” on a hard drive or burned DVD and software that acts like a browser with good search built in. Databases get corrupt and you lose everything unlike a single corrupt file on a hard disk.
May 8th, 2006 at 8:50 am
I heart StickyBrain; it’s been absolutely great for me— Palm syncing, iPod syncing. All the organizational tools I need to capture data quickly and easily is right there. Everything has worked as advertised for me; I hope others end up with a better experience.
Not a shill, just like it lots.
May 8th, 2006 at 8:52 am
I moved from SB3 to Yojimbo when I found out they wanted a $25 upgrade fee to go from ver 3 to ver 4 (so as to get a Universal Binary). There are a couple of things I really liked in SB that are missing from Yojimbo
1). Palm syncing; really liked keeping my Palm memos in SB, and there’s no convenient way I know of to do that with Yojimbo, beyond just copying them.
2). The contextual menu in SB that allowed you to select some text, right-click and automatically import into SB.
With regards to (2), I’ve got a decent replacement going through QS. Select the text (e.g. in a browser), invoke QS with the Alternate Services Menu Key (you have to set this up; I don’t think it’s on by default). That will bring up the QS bezel with the selected text already in the left pane, hit TAB, then Y (to bring up the Yojimbo Import Text Service (you’ve got to have the Services plug-in installed in QS) and enter.
This will create a new note in Yojimbo containing your selection and it’s almost as easy as the contextual menu.
I agree though that overall I would much rather not have OpenBase on my system.
Incidentally, I heard on theMacvoices podcast that Bare Bones is running a special for people wanting to to a competitive cross grade from SB to Yojimbo: a family license for the cost of a single user license.
May 9th, 2006 at 2:40 am
Are people REALLY going to complain about StickyBrain copying features from Yojimbo when Yojimbo is essentially a StickyBrain ripoff anyway? I mean, if you’re going to throw the copycat card…
May 9th, 2006 at 2:44 am
It’s not features that put stickybrain in the back, it was opening it up and waiting 10 seconds for it to finish, it was the fact that its data base could easily go bonkers.
And now we’re giving sb free advertising for ripping off another product?
Here’s hoping barebones doesn’t decide to compete with feature bloat. SB shouldn’t be rewarded for this, and it’s sad to see you write this article.
May 9th, 2006 at 3:50 am
@Silver:
There’s a HUGE difference between repeating a general concept and implementing identical features. That’s like saying every car manufacturer in the world is ripping off the Model T, because they’ve all got four wheels and carry people. Imagine the outcry if BMW simply copied a Mercedes innovation…this is no different.
I’m all for competition though innovation, not through simple copying of features to achieve parity. That’s a dead end. The StickyBrain developers directly copied three separate features introduced by Yojimbo. That’s pretty cynical.
Anyway, StickyBrain itself is far from being the original application here…one of the reviews I read compared the concept to an original pre-OS X app which looked eerily similar to both. Point being is that neither are original conceptually…
I haven’t even bought Yojimbo yet, btw. But I’m pretty sure that I’m never going to buy StickyBrain if this is the level of “development” that I might expect.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:04 am
“The StickyBrain developers directly copied three separate features introduced by Yojimbo.”
And are there any features that Yojimbo copied directly from StickyBrain? Probably.
I use StickyBrain because it works well for me, and the developer is local, and I like to support the home team when possible. I checked out Yojimbo when it was first released, and while it did offer some improvements over StickyBrain, for me it just wasn’t as slick or elegant, and it has a visual crudeness about it that turned me off. I’m sure it’s a great app with many fans.
My point is that “adding labels” to notes or “printing to PDF” may be duplicating features from another product, but to accuse StickyBrain of ripping off Yojimbo without comparing Yojimbo 1.0 to the previously-existing StickyBrain is disingenous. The first time I saw/tried Yojimbo, I thought “Hmm, looks/feels like a StickyBrain ripoff to me.” This door swings both ways.
All this being said, I do wish Chronos would do something to improve the database foundation of StickyBrain, or scrap it for something else entirely.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:52 am
@matonmacs:
Regarding your 1). Palm syncing not being available on Yojimbo…
I emailed BareBones about this last week asking them if there are any plans to implement a Palm conduit for synching…I received they have no plans now or in the immediate future to implement any form of Palm synching.
Too bad. Otherwise, I would have considerered Yojimbo. Without Palm synching, though, it’s useless to me.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:22 am
Regarding copying or not copying features. Are people really making the claim that Yojimbo was the first (and only) app to have:
* Slide out drawers/windows
* Colored labels
* Print to PDF
???
May 9th, 2006 at 5:46 am
Got SB2 for free with .mac and used it for everything - it was simple, useful, and just worked. StickyBrain 3 was so bad I had to revert to SB2 for the entire period of that revision. SB4, however, is a huge improvement and I put up with OpenBase for new features like Spotlight integration, etc. Yojimbo wasn’t enough of an improvement to pay more money to another developer and then try to export/import years’ worth of back notes. Chronos seems committed to continuing developments on StickyBrain, which is why I’m sticking with it for the forseeable future. And hey, if they’re going to play leapfrog with Yojimbo? All the better for me.
May 9th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I’ve been using SB for a couple of years now with no db corruption. And backing it up to rich text is so easy. What’s the problem? That said, I do wish the program was quicker at opening.
But the Palm sync and the contextual menu note taking are what keep me home with SB. And that’s not just compared to Yojimbo. There are a number of outliner programs that duplicate much of the functionality of both. But, none do Palm sync. If I’m going to keep date on more than one box they have to keep everything current.
I have to agree that saying SB copied Yojimbo when Yojimbo originally looked like a poor rip off of SB is pretty funny.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
“while it did offer some improvements over StickyBrain, for me it just wasn’t as slick or elegant, and it has a visual crudeness about it that turned me off.”
I think your opinion is going to be rare among users. Even among those that liked SB better, many seemed to find Y much slicker. SB looks almost cartoonish (crude as you put it), which is fine if that’s what you like. Y has an awful logo however, and I like the stickybrain name better.
“I have to agree that saying SB copied Yojimbo when Yojimbo originally looked like a poor rip off of SB is pretty funny.”
Yojimbo looked nothing like SB when it came out.
“I’ve been using SB for a couple of years now with no db corruption. And backing it up to rich text is so easy. What’s the problem?”
Go to the stickbrain boards and you’ll find plenty of corruption. That you haven’t doesn’t change that fact. And are you honestly saying that since you can ‘back it up’ corruption shouldn’t be a problem? Man, software developers must love you.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I just switched from SB/Soho Notes to Yojimbo. Does Chronos offer more features? Yup. Is Chronos a local company for me? Yup. Does Notes perform as promised? No. .Mac Sync is horribly, horribly broken, and that’s why I bought it.
Is Yojimbo as robust? No. Does it offer as many bells and whistles? No.
Does sync work? Flawlessly.
And that, right there, is the name of the game.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
@Silver, @Tony,
Nobody, least of all me, is trying to suggest that slide-out drawers, printing to PDF etc are original concepts. They are built on the OS which allows for these conveniences.
Nobody is trying to suggest (I hope) that either Yojimbo or StickyBrain are “original” in concept.
Ergo - no I have not been disingenuous. And yes, I have installed and tried StickyBrain as well. It didn’t really do it for me. I also tried Notebook, NoteTaker, Mori, and a few freebies.
Directly copying features, be they built in to the OS or not, of a new competing product weeks after they are introduced is cynical. That’s really the end of the story for me.
May 9th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
While some may seen this as plagiarism, if so you could certainly argue far more features were stolen from the opposite direction (after all there are many similarities and SB has been out many years). And some features (most obvious being print to PDF) could be claimed to be both stolen from DEVONthink (which if we’re picking who “leads the pack” is still far out front… depending on your use). I tried Yojimbo, and as BB fan, wanted to like it (and asked their developers about imminent features added), but it’s too far behind DEVONthink and StickyBrain to be of much. Give me at least the basics (sub-folders, copy to iPod, etc.) and it may enter the game. Much of the excitement for Yojimbo from the various Mac sites seem only possible if you ignore the other options. I mean Yojimbos “radical new organization system” isn’t. It does encryption well. That’s about it so far. Will keep checking back though.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:13 am
JS,
“Directly copying features, be they built in to the OS or not, of a new competing product weeks after they are introduced is cynical.”
So, then are you suggesting the StickyBrain programmers burned the midnight oil to directly copy features that had been released just weeks before, and rushed a new beta to the street with several major changes from their prevoius version, all in a couple weeks time?
I would think it would take them a bit longer, just for testing alone.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I looked at Yojimbo and really liked it…but when they responded that they have no intention of ever supporting Palm synching, that was the end of the story for me. Just like Scott (above) who needed flawless .Mac synching, so for him Yojimbo was the final answer.
For the life of me, though, I don’t understand BareBones’ reluctance to build a Palm conduit. It’s not rocket science, and Palm synching fits *very well* with a note-taking type app…they go hand in hand for many people.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:24 am
That’s what it seems like to me, Tony. They may have taken the time to develop other new features like audio notes, but the DockNote is definitely in response to Yojimbo. It is actually, despite being leveraged on the OS, the one truly original feature of Yojimbo amongst these kinds of apps.
Adding a PDF print service is child’s play. I’ve added a few myself. Again, prompted by Yojimbo’s inclusion of this feature.
For the record I wish BB would do a Palm conduit as well. At the moment I use Missing Sync’s Memopad app for notes I MUST have on the go. It’s a pain.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Yojimbo did, in fact, bear a striking resemblance to StickyBrain when it first came out. I was surprised that it was not mentioned more often.
I had been demo’ing SB for almost a month when Y came out, and the very first thing I thought was “WOW! That looks a LOT like SB!”
Now there may be differences under the hood, but looking at previous versions of SB and Y would lead an honest person to say that they looked similar.
Palm syncing and the context menu features are the only advantages I see to SB over Y. I still haven’t bought either.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Does Safari 2.x render characters right from this page?
Let’s try Swedish: åäö, ÅÄÖ (should be aaö and AAO vith dots and rings)
Just curious because of this entry: there�s
Regards
May 10th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
I think we passed the test :)
I don’t know where these odd characters come from, although I note that they are mouch more common in quoted (i.e. cut ‘n’ pasted) text.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
I see those characters as well sometimes, seems to only crop up in Safari. Camino etc are fine. Changing text encoding doesn’t seem to help, just gives different characters…
May 10th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Perhaps it’s a WebKit quirk then.
I wonder if the same characters turn up in Opera, which also uses the WebKit rendering engine (I think)?