wikidPad

That is exactly what I needed. love it!

I have used WikidPad now since 2008, when I converted to it from a previous web-based wiki system. I have a work wiki of ~600 pages and a private project wiki of ~2000 pages, and I update both every day. I have tinkered a little but almost everything I used is out-of-box functionality. I use it to drive my workload at work using the todo: feature, which also reminds me of external deadlines in my private project. The project has become more and more functional over that time, and the author is excellent at responding to both bug reports and feature requests. One aspect I really value is its ability to run almost on Windows and Linux, simply by copying data files between them. If I were a Mac user, I could use it there too in the same way. I also really like the idea that all my content is in plain ascii text files which I can still use if WikidPad turns into dust one day.

I was searching for months for a good knowledge and task management tool. Previously I was using PageFour (knowledge) and Tudumo (task). I wanted a one-stop-shopping tool that was a bit more modern. I tried tools like TreeDBNotes, TreePad, and AllMyNotes (self-contained databases), but all were bloated, slow, and used a one-file database approach which meant updating a 20m file on dropbox every time I made a change. I explored a few wikis like Zim and (I forget) but found them lacking in basic capability. They were lightweight portable, so I searched more and found Wikidpad. For me it is a great knowledge manager. The linking of one topic to another automatically shows you relationships with information you would not find if using documents or databases. Wiki markup (used to create boldfacing, italics, tables) is actually faster and easier than CTRL-key and menu combinations. Searching is stellar and doesn't miss a beat. Terms are highlighted nicely. Each entry can have it's own dynamically created table of contents anywhere in the doc so long series of notes are super easy to navigate. You can tag, categorize, drag and drop, import and export; the list goes on. It runs on Windows and Linux natively, which is a huge plus. One primary feature it did lack, though, is any form of native encryption or password protection. That is a big requirement for me, but as I assessed all these other tools, some of which had that feature, I found that Wikidpad gave me the best overall set of capability. Plus - a quick installation of TrueCrypt, a free and open source encryption and password protection tool, allowed me to lock down my wiki so that it could not be tampered with by unauthorized users. Problem solved. Wikidpad is a great tool that seems to be updated quite regularly. It gets the job done!