Ecco Pro
 Notepad view in ECCO Pro. | |
| Developer(s) | NetManage, Arabesque Software |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 4.01
|
| Operating system | Windows |
| Type | Personal Information Management |
Ecco Pro is an outliner, calendar and phone book, with fields (including dates) linkable to each parent or child item. Items can be instantly filtered (in multiple simultaneous views) by field but still displayed in their outline context.
As a personal information manager the program includes a phone book, calendar and 'notepad' sections filtered by field associations. All items or subitems can appear in any section, depending upon the item's field assignments. Originally produced by Arabesque Software, Inc., was purchased by Netmanage, Inc., abandoned, and then released for free.
Overview
The product offers three primary types of views — phone book views, calendar views, and notepad views. Central to the program's design is an outlining structure and the ability to easily manipulate information regardless of which view it was entered. Multiple notepad, calendar, and phonebook views can be opened, and each item seen in each view can be a collapsible outline, and each item line can be assigned to folders/categories which can themselves be their own views, or link the item to a calendar date or as a phonebook entry.
Product functionality
ECCO's structure at first seems complex, but affords considerable power to the user. The secret to ECCO's devoted following is that the active views are also the report views. Information is entered in "items," (text blocks up to 32 kilobytes, or a Windows OLE object (such as a .bmp file, Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel document, etc.) that can be arranged hierarchically, as an outline.
Each item can be linked to one or more "folders" (by manual assignment, basic text matching, or with a free 'addon extension' by complex regular expression, relational lookup, computational, and even Lua, Perl, JavaScript, VBScript, or Python programmatic assignments) which function as a fields in a database.
Thus, a user could write a note that read "Meeting with John Smith about Generic Project" and by placing it in folders named "Calendar," (assigned to a certain date), "John Smith," and "Generic project," the user could relate nearly any item to any other. This, combined with the built-in networking ability allowing free or controlled sharing of files and parts of files (online and offline), are seen as the core of ECCO's power. Each item, and each of that item's sub-items can be assigned to thousands of different folders of various types (text, numeric, date, pull-down, or checkmark).
Assignments to a date folder can include complex repeating date rules, alarms (including file/program execution), show until marked done options, advance notice options, advance warning, and follow-up rules and alarms. The items displayed in the Views can be filtered based on multiple criteria. Very basic auto-assign rules can be applied for each folder in native ECCO Pro, and very powerful rules can be auto-assigned by use of a free add-on extension.
With a small fix, a hot link to any file can be added anywhere to the outline. When the user double clicks on the link, the item appears. Any file can be placed directly inside of the ECCO data file. OLE objects appear, can be edited, and then saved within the ECCO file.
The use of outlines and columns can be used to create powerful user interfaces. Outlines are compiled by collecting the items in a folder. Users can display these outlines with columns relating to other folders, very much like a spreadsheet. The use of other features such as filtering and "views" allow it to be customized to meet a wide variety of purposes such as Getting Things Done, project management, bibliography handling, contact management, project management, and printable checklists.
ECCO also provides native PDA support (for Palm and Treo devices) and sharing over a network, and 3rd party add-ons provide for pocket PC (windows) and outlook hot syncs.
Revitalization
Although the source code to ECCO is unavailable, development has resumed through the extraordinary step of disassembling and modifying the binary executable, with active community participation at 'New' ECCO_Pro Yahoo! group, and the EccoMagic Forums. Tutorials are available here and a new tutorial on some of the advanced features (such as project management with dependencies, and programming with the Lua programming language) is actively underway at the "EccoWiki".
The new add-ons and free extensions are available at:
- www.EccoTools.com and
- in the files library of the 'new' Yahoo! here ECCO_Pro group.
History
The Microsoft Windows application was released in June 1993 by Arabesque Software, Inc., originally based in Kirkland, Washington, and later Bellevue, Washington. Development by Netmanage ceased in the fall of 1997 after the July 1997 release of version 4.01, however, NetManage continues to offer the final version as a free download on their FTP site.
PC Magazine selected ECCO Professional for their Best of 93 issue and in their May 17, 1994, issue awarded ECCO their Editor’s Choice. PC Laptop Magazine named ECCO Professional the Top Software Application of the Year. These were but a few of the awards that the product received.
Peter (Pete) Polash co-founded Arabesque Software, Inc., with Robert (Bob) Perez in 1990. As an independent developer, Polash wrote Persuasion, a business presentation software application for the Apple Macintosh. He sold its marketing rights to Aldus Corporation in 1988. Perez, a 1977 Harvard Law School graduate, joined Apple Computer in the 1980s as a software engineer and eventually managed the Macintosh Software Evangelism Group at Apple. Perez has returned to law practice as a criminal defense attorney in Bellevue, Washington.
On August 19, 1994, NetManage announced that it had agreed to acquire Arabesque Software for up to $6 million cash, with $3 million payable upon closing and the balance subject to the achievement of certain revenue levels and technical milestones. In addition to obtaining ECCO, the Arabesque acquisition provided NetManage an entry into the retail marketplace established by ECCO. NetManage's product line at the time, primarily the Chameleon suite of internetworking applications, were primarily sold by a direct sales team.
Versions
Versions of ECCO include:
- ECCO Professional 1.0, June 1993
- ECCO Professional 1.1, Fall 1993
- ECCO Simplicity 1.1, Fall 1993
- ECCO Professional 2.0, April 1994
- ECCO Simplicity 2.0, April 1994
- ECCO Lite 2.0
- ECCO Pro 3.0
- ECCO Pro 4.0
- ECCO Pro 4.01, July 1997
ECCO Lite: (SRP $59; sold direct by NetManage $9.99)
- For standalone users
- Calendar, PhoneBook, and Outlines
- No networking or synchronization
ECCO Internet address book (SRP $69; sold direct by netManage for $19.95)
- ECCO Lite with an ECCO file of more than 2,000 Internet URLs
ECCO Simplicity (SRP $99; sold direct by NetManage for $80; street price $65)
- For network or standalone
- Calendar, PhoneBook, Outlines
- Cusotmizable PhoneBook forms
- Group scheduling, synchronization
- Shared Calendars, PhoneBooks, and Outlines
- Integration with Delrina WinFax PRO
ECCO Professional (SRP $279, street price $175-$199)
- For network or standalone
- Calendar, PhoneBook, Outlines
- Cusotmizable PhoneBook forms
- Group scheduling, synchronization
- Shared Calendars, PhoneBooks, and Outlines
- Integration with Delrina WinFax PRO
- Customizable folders, and columns for categorizing and organizing info
- Filters and sorts for selective viewing of info
ECCO Pro was marketed as the world's first SuperPIM. ECCO competed in the PIM space against several formidable competitors. These included Polaris Packrat, Symantec ACT! (now Sage ACT!), Lotus Organizer, and Microsoft Schedule+ (predecssor to Microsoft Outlook). Also in this product space at the time was GoldMine, Starfish Sidekick, and Jana Contact.
The marketing budget for ECCO languished under NetManage's tenure. NetManage closed the acquired Bellevue, Washington office and disbanded the ECCO development team in fall 1997 after the release of version 4.01.
When the Bellevue office of NetManage was closed, the principal software development engineers for ECCO formed their own non-related software company in Bellevue, Washington named Accumen Associates. That company continues today under the branding name Metro Hi Speed with no ties to ECCO.
Although ECCO development by NetManage ceased in 1997, the program is available as a free download, and development continues by 3rd party vendors.
Problems which had been an irritation for users, such as a Year 2000 (Y2K) bug requiring manually fixing the ending period of recurring dates, have been solved with add-on tools (such as this), and a new 'eccoextension'. There is a still a per-file limit to the number of total outline items count (64k items, which can be up to 32k of text per item or an OLE object, and which can additionally have tens of thousands of text, numerica, pulldown, and date 'folders' (fields) attached to each item). Ecco allows for the development of extensions utilizing a DDE interface, and ECCO still works in the 32-bit environment of Windows XP and Vista, however, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) has resulted in the normal installation process to fail for some users. An alternate install procedure from a .zip file available is available(here) FOR FREE that enables a successful install.
Ecco replacement Wannabes
Over the years, many plans were laid, and many attempts begun to capture the market of devoted uses who find the outline/data/calendar integrated structure of Ecco to be uniquely powerful and useful. NetManage promised numerous times to release EccoPro as an open-source project, but this has not yet materialized. Chandler seemed initially to be going on the Ecco path, but it is clear now that it will not.
The following list the latest outliners/PIM EccoPro Wannabes:
Ongoing community support
Ten years after Netmanage's development ceased, ECCO continues to have a growing and dedicated following.
Community-based support is available in the following groups:
- New ECCO_Pro Yahoo! group list
- pro/ Former ECCO Pro Yahoo! group list (where any members are advised to use the 'hide email address' option to avoid a known problem with email harvesting bots in the group).
- The eccoMAGIC community forums
A downloadable archive of the ECCO Pro forum is also available.
Older information and discussions are also available on several Web sites:
An older program called Ecco Helpers now released as freeware, provides a minimal interface for adding notes and tracking time. The functions have been superseded by the modern add-ons and extension.
There is still at least one known active developer, ECCOMagic, who provides tools, fixes, and freeware utilities for ECCO.
Ecco Pro also contains a DDE API which exposes many elements of the database to external manipulation. The API can be accessed directly via DDE, and there are several bindings with functions specific for EccoPro:
- Python and COM (Freeware)
- Perl API (Freeware)
- Visual Basic (Not freeware)
- The DDE section of the eccoMagic forums (which has (freeware) full visual basic ecco specific coding.)