Welcome to the IdeaMason Weblog!

Question: What methods does IdeaMason have for importing from and exporting to other applications?

Answer:
IdeaMason can export its content as XML for virtually any type - Materials, Sources, and Compostions. We can also export as .RTF, .doc, and HTML.

IdeaMason can import several kinds of files directly through drag and drop — .txt, .rtf, and .doc files. If you drop one or more files of one of these types on the Material Folder on the portfolio home page, they will be imported directly as IdeaMason materials. In general, people have found this to be more useful than XML-based import because it allows them to maintain the rich-text formatting of the imported item in IdeaMason using a standard file format. For most people, this is far more simple and useful than transforming each application’s XML schema.

For importing sources, have a look at our IdeaMason Importer.

For instance, Outlook has the ability to export its messages to .doc or .txt format. Most other mainstream applications have the capability to export as .rtf or .txt, too.

For more information on importing or exporting, go to our help file or see our video “Import Text (.txt) and Microsoft Word (.doc) files into IdeaMason” on the tutorials page of our website at

Question: Can I edit the text of a group of materials without having to open all of the materials individually and edit them in their dashboards?

Answer: Yes! Use a Composition!
Most of you know the primary use of a composition–outlining, organizing materials, previewing the flow of your work, and creating a draft in your word processor complete with citations.

Think more broadly–a composition can also be thought of as just a container for materials. Any composition can be just a group of materials you want to keep together–a sort of “saved subset” of materials. So, if you have a large group of items you’d like to work with together, just drop them into a composition.

Now, edit the materials by clicking on the “Material Editor” panel in the right-side group of windows. As you select the materials on the left side in the outliner, their main text will pop up in the Material Editor on the right side, where you can edit them with full Rich Text capability and save your changes.

If you get new ideas, you can always add new ones to the composition by right-clicking in the outliner and selecting “Insert New Material” on the popup menu.

We all know that IdeaMason manages the bibliographical data of sources you use in your research. But, did you know that by using Projects and Activities cleverly you can easily organize your home Library?

Filtering Library Groups Using Activities

• Set up a Project called “Library”
• Add an Activity to Library called “All”
• Add an Activity to Library for each subject area in your library, e.g., “Science”, “History”, “Philosophy”, etc.
• Add an Activity to Library called “Read”

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Version 3.1.5 was released April 9th, 2007.

Version 3.1.5 provides bibliography style support for two variants of the Harvard bibliography style in common use in the United Kingdom and Australia. It also includes a few usability enhancements. Read below for more details.

A Note about Harvard Style
The name “Harvard System” is sometimes used to describe any author-date referencing system. IdeaMason already supports two styles which are technically Harvard System styles, APA and Chicago Author-Date. Harvard Style has a number of variations, but in Version 3.1.5 we have added two of the most commonly used (and requested) variants of the Harvard style, the Australian style based on Australian General Printing Service (AGPS, 6th Edition), as well as the United Kingdom style based on BS-5605 and BS-1629 (variation for Bournmouth University).

How to upgrade:
If you already upgraded to Version 3.0 or Version 3.1 you just need to download Version 3.1.5 from the Free Trial downloads page and install it. You DO NOT NEED a new license key and will NOT need to reactivate.

NOTE #1: Be sure to uninstall Version 2.2 before installing Version 3.1.5. If you try to install Version 3.1.5 and get the following message: “Exception occurred while initializing the installation: System.BadImageFormatException: The format of the file ‘IMinstallerCustom.dll is invalid.” - this is an indication that you still have Version 2.2 installed on your system.

Click here to download Version 3.1.5 http://www.ideamason.com/download/download.aspx

If you have not yet upgraded from Version 2.2 you will need a new license key. Click here to go to our Upgrade Version page http://www.ideamason.com/purchase/upgrade.aspx

RELEASE NOTES ON VERSION 3.1.5:
New Features

• Harvard Bibliography Style - Australian (AGPS 6th Edition) Variation
• Harvard Bibliography Style - United Kingdom (Bournemouth) Variation
• Improved Printing and Export Options. The printing and export options dialog now remembers the selected options between uses. It also adds new selections for Item Titles, Material main text, and whether headers are displayed.
• Word Count is displayed in the Preview panel.

Issues Repaired

• Menu item for Move to Category and Remove from Category is disabled for items in “Unassigned Category” folder.
• RTF editor file browser in Options dialog did not save settings in certain situations. This has been repaired.
• Position of the Next button was aberrent in Miscellaneous source wizard.
• Manual relocation of the ChooserDB.ims file by the user caused certain launch problems; the user is now prompted for the new location if the file was moved.