Overview:
ALEX Personal Knowledge Base (ALEX PKB) is a very simple tool to organize your knowledge, notes, ideas and other information - at home and at work!
ALEX PKB is simple!
- No installation needed, just download, unzip and run.
- Very little footprint, everything is under one directory, you can move and use it anywhere.
- Simple and clear interface to add, edit, delete or search information.
- Simple yet smart categorization, you just create the category, ALEX PKB will automatically categorize all your knowledge.
- Easy backup and restore.
ALEX PKB is powerful!
- Full text search with highlighted keywords
- Fully integrated with your browser, actually it can be used as a browser. Try to type in an URL in the search box and press enter.
- Both HTML and plain text format supported
- Configurable interface: you can turn on/off category view; minimize the application to system tray, adjust fonts and etc.
ALEX PKB is FREE and OPEN SOURCE!
- FREE to all type of users to use anywhere
- Source code is available under GNU General Public License
ALEX PKB is platform independent!
- You can run it under Windows, Linux, Mac OSX , AIX or Solaris
Installation:
Download,
unzip it anywhere and run pkb.exe.
For first time user, ALEX PKB will ask you to initialize the database, click "Yes" to continue. ALEX PKB will startup after initialization.
For users to upgrade from older version, just unzip to replace the files of old version, do not worry your knowledge data, they will be kept.
It is recommended to backup your old application before upgrade.
Using ALEX PKB:
Manage knowledge
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Add knowledge: click "Add" button, type in knowledge subject, keywords and content, then click "Add" button.
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Edit knowledge: choose a knowledge item from left panel, click "Edit" button.After modification, click "Save" button
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Delete knowledge: choose a knowledge item from left panel, click "Delete" button.
Tip1: When adding knowledge, you can leave keywords empty, ALEX PKB will automatically populate it with keywords.
Tip2: You can type in plan text or HTML format in content, ALEX PKB will show it properly.
Tip3: Press CTRL+s will add or save.
Categorize knowledge
Click "Content" tab in the left panel, it will switch to category view.
Right click to show the pop-up menu, from which you can add/edit/delete a node, insert after or insert as a child, undo or redo the operations
If you click a category node and leave your mouse for a while, an in-place editor will appear to let you modify the name of the category node.
You can drag/drop the category node to any place.
When you click a category node, all the knowledge items under that category will be shown.
Tip1: Knowledge is categorized by its keywords, so choose proper keywords for a knowledge item will make it better categorized.
Tip2: when you delete a category node, the knowledge under this category will NOT be deleted
Tip3: press "Del" key is the same as click "Delete" button or "Delete" menu.
Search knowledge
Click "Search" tab in the left panel, it will switch to search view.
Type in the search keywords, press "Enter" key or click "Search" button. You will see list of results ordered by match score
Click any item on of list, you will see the content of that item with hight-lighted keywords.
Tip1: If you type in an URL in the search box, the web page will be shown.
Tip2: You can do partial search using wildcard character : '*' represents any number of characters ; '?' represents one character. For instance "sys*" will match any words start with "sys".
Tip3: If the knowledge content is just a link, the landing page will be shown directly
Tip4: press "Del" key is the same as click "Delete" button.
For advanced user:
The query syntax can be found at apache lucene.
The search fields are "keywords", "subject" and "content".
Other functions
You can easily backup or restore your knowledge data from menu: File->Backup or File->Restore or simply backup the whole pkb directory.
Backup as often as you can to avoid data losses.
You can export knowledge data as html files by menu: File->Export .
From menu: File->Preference, you can customize interface of ALEX PKB
To check if you have the latest version, choose menu: Help->About, then click "check version" button.
Feedback:
Software created by Felton with the philosophy "simple is best" .