Before this forum became online, email was the only means to reach me (the developer). During 9 months I've been receiving some feedback from Smereka users, which I'd like to proudly share.
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I just discovered Smereka, a free -- and free-form -- database for organizing just about anything in any way you want it. This could be solid platinum for research notes, novel planning/writing, or just keeping track of things in general. It uses a hierarchical tree that can be dragged around, notes can be plain text, RTF, HTML. You can import all sorts of files, and export parts of the database to separate files. Do read the Help -- it is very helpful.
It has one feature that is not found in any other organizer that i know of offhand -- it will, if you want, save every revision of any item. Never lose that perfect paragraph again, eh?
What sold me on it, besides the fact that it is frocking awesome, is that you can Ctrl+mousewheel zoom for easy reading -- no need to set the font size differently if your eyes are warped. That gets me every time
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I have been trying Smereka for a week and I like it a lot. I'm using it as a "project box", meaning each project gets a Smereka DB and all of its files go there, along with notes (rich and plain text). Now:
* Everything (or most) gets a full text index, so it's easy to find.
* Besides, I've found it more comfortable to navigate this "mini filesystem" than a normal explorer window, because if I want, I can see all the files in one window, instead of having to go up and down folder after folder.
* Rearranging is so easy. This is what got me in; I imported a whole project's folder that had lots of useless files around. In less than 10 minutes, within Smereka, it was clean and tidy, I erased what I didn't needed anymore, consolidated versions, etc.
I've marked some frequently used files with bold letters to easily find them
Backing up and taking files elsewhere is easy: just copy one big file.
And I haven't yet tried using tags, versions... But I'm a tag maniac, so I guess I'll like it.
I like you are releasing under the GPL, and that you use SQLite (isn't it great?). The GUI is well designed and the performance seems quite good (My largest db is had grown to 40+MB, but it's 13MB now, after cleaning it up).
When Windows Vista was being built, Microsoft promised "WinFS". Then, Microsoft didn't deliver. In a way, Smereka has fulfilled many promises of WinFS. I know the approach is not exactly the same, but hey! I can do full-text search to many of my files!
I found about Smereka through NoNags. I hope you keep on developing it. It's really cool! I wish one of these days we get a Linux version. I understand why it wouldn't be so easy, but still, maybe someone wants to help...
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Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful piece of free software that is IMHO the best free personal tree database on the net. It's just a pity that it remains quite unnoted so far - didn't you consider moving the development e.g. to Sourceforge?
Among features that would be nice to have, I'd like to have possibility to encrypt some folders or files. Other very useful feature would be possibility to invoke the standard context menu (copy, paste etc.) with right mouse click in text editor...
Again, thank you for the software and wish you the best.
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Hello: I think your database program, Smereka, is a very good one.
I have made a survey and comparison with all the freeware documentary databases I found in internet, and, in my oppinion, Smereka surpases the features of most of them, being small and portable at the same time. In addition is able to run in Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) 'powered' by Wine.
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