Which version of FT to use for heavy duties?

1

Hi everyone,

I’m one of the earlier adopters of FT; I have owned a license for ages and, in the past, have used it for a lot of academic work. At some point I decided to put it aside because of a few “costly” data loss/corruption incidents—there were indeed a few isolated cases in which the software lost nodes, and folded content was simply lost.

This was truly a long time ago and it’s likely that these issues have since then been resolved.

Now, I am just about to start a major, book-length writing project, and whatever outlining tool I use will need to be my best ally: the outlines will be humungous and complex. We are talking about 100,000 words.

I’d love to return to FoldingText because it’s simply unparalleled in elegance, concealing from the user all the technical complexity that outlining involves. I’m not aware of a more convenient, more powerful outliner on this platform. But I am wondering about its reliability, given the complexity of the data.

My questions:

  1. Have there been reports of data corruption/loss with the latest dev versions of FT2?
  2. Would you recommend FT2.0 or FTA for a project of this magnitude?
  3. Would it be best to wait until the FT(A) release versions arrive?

Many thanks. It’s gratifying to see that there is a long-term roadmap for this promising software.

2

For me, FT2 has been stable, FT(A) seems like a work in progress.

Never worked on projects of this size, but have you thought about splitting into smaller documents and using the excellent Marked.app to put it together ( http://marked2app.com/help/Multi-File_Documents.html )

3

This is a good tip, many thanks!

Meanwhile, I’d be thankful to hear more thoughts about the robustness of FT when it comes to large files.

4

As far as size goes I think best is to just try your document in the free trial version of the app and see how it performs. Generally I think it should be OK as long as you have enough memory. But best to try first.

Jesse

5

Thanks for the candid response, Jesse. I’ll let you know if I encounter issues. For the record, I’ve owned a license for years, so no need to try the free trial. I look forward to future versions of the software.