What’s New in Zoot 9.0
Windows 11 Ready!
Introducing a new feature that lets you create, store, and invoke AI Prompts. The new Prompt Engineer and a new Prompts Desktop Database will help you make the most of this powerful new technology.
Added a Copilot voice command to toggle on/off the new Windows Copilot using speech recognition. ⌨ WinKey+C
Added an Always On Top command to make detached item and folder windows stay on top of all other windows. This is a toggle on/off command. ⌨ Alt+Shift+T
Added in-line tags to the Zoot Tags suite. Now you can add tags to an item without taking your fingers off the keyboard. Just add a # symbol before any word to create a tag. This works in the Subject, Comments, and Document fields.
Move selected folders or items to up/down with a keystroke: ⌨ Alt+Up | ⌨ Alt+Down
Move selected folders or items to the top/bottom with a keystroke: ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+Up | ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+Down
Zoot will display PDF files in the Document Viewer for File Links or Mail Items that have PDF file attachments. This lets you view the PDF file without leaving Zoot. This feature requires that you have a PDF Reader installed.
Optimized Tag Search speed. This optimization also applies to any Smart Folders that are based on the Tag field.
The Print feature is vastly improved now that all print jobs go through your default browser. Modern browsers do a better job of printing and this change also makes for a much improved Print to Browser experience. ⌨ Ctrl+P
The Outliner item type has received an overhaul to make it just dead simple to add nodes. To add a node to an outline, just start typing and then press ENTER to save the node. Start typing again to add the next node.
Click the [M] icon on the status bar to access a pop-up menu of manual sort options. Handy when you want to temporarily change the Item Grid sort order. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+M
Many refinements to YouTube and Reddit feeds.
New adaptive scheduling for podcasts and feeds will make fetch times quicker.
Zoot will now fetch all of the images from Reddit Gallery posts.
Zoot now supports Reddit Search feeds. Just run a search at the Reddit website, then copy the URL to the clipboard.
Much work on Slim Reader for E-Mail. Should display 99% of your e-mails in a very tight horizontal space. This lets you view e-mails in a narrow view much as you would on a smart phone. As a result you can then expand the width of the Item Grid so you can see more items in the grid and more field data in columns.
Improved dark mode display, especially for e-mail newsletters, which tend to exhibit a wide array of formatting quirks.
You can now create an E-mail Server in any of your databases. This mail server will upload, to any IMAP mail account, items you have clipped using the Zooter or fetched using the Fetch Content command (either directly or by sending yourself an e-mail with a URL in the body of the message). This new feature puts a reader-friendly version of your content in the cloud automatically! To learn how to set up a mail server in any of your databases click here.
If you receive an e-mail from someone and that e-mail includes a link, you can fetch the link and Zoot will display the reader-friendly version of the web page below the original e-mail for easy viewing.
When searching with Zoot's Search Box applet, your searches are saved in the Web database. Now these searches will be saved to the Web database even if Zoot is not running. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+?
Zoot's Search Box applet will bring up the Windows Dictation Bar when Dragon speech recognition is not running so that you can still enter a query by voice. Speak your query and then say DO IT to launch the search. There is a Microphone checkbox at the bottom of the Search Box window to turn this feature on/off. Note that the built-in speech-to-text applet is much better in Windows 11.
Bang searches are now supported in Search Box.
Zoot will now fetch Google Podcast URLs as it does with Pocket Casts URLs. The Google Podcast fetches are not as good as Pocket Casts, so still recommend the phenomenal Pocket Casts for use with Zoot.
If you send a Microsoft To Do check list or Google Keep check list to Zoot via e-mail, Zoot will convert it to an interactive check list.
Fetching Google Search URLs will produce a sleek new search results presentation. The results are weirdly useful for discovery. ⌨ Ctrl+~
Fetching Washington Post URLs will produce a cleaner article. ⌨ Ctrl+~
Zoot will now fetch Mix URLs. Mix is a very nice discovery website with apps for both iOS and Android. ⌨ Ctrl+~
Added a Reddit Desktop Database to complement Feeds Desktop Databases. To create a Reddit database, just create a new database and select the new Reddit database template.
Added a Podcast Desktop Database. To create a Podcast database, just create a new database and select the new Podcast database template. If you have a favorite podcast player, you can export your current subscriptions and import them to Zoot.
Added a Shop Desktop Database for keeping track of shopping receipts and such.
On start up Zoot will now display a Restore Session dialog. This might take time for Zooters to appreciate, but very useful.
When you run Zoot on a new day, if Zoot detects you are not at your computer after your databases open, the program will run daily refreshes on all open databases to save a bit of time when you return. Similarly, if you open 2 or more databases using the Ctrl+Alt+O dialog, Zoot will run the daily refresh on those databases if you've stepped away from your computer. This time saver will be most noticeable on BIG databases like the Mail, Feeds, Podcasts, and Reddit databases. See also: Restore Session
Quite a bit of work on improving the Touch Screen experience for those rocking a touch screen or 2 in 1 laptop.
The Cloud Zooter has been tweaked to produce better output when sending Web Pages, Tweets, Reddit Posts or any content you've highlighted in Zoot or any other Windows application. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+C
Wikipedia articles sent to a Kindle via the Cloud Zooter are cleaner now for improved readability. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+C
Content sent to a Kindle via the Cloud Zooter can be sent as plain text or formatted text. Note that not all devices support formatted text and Amazon has had some trouble supporting this ability, but you may want to experiment with it. The default behavior is to convert content to plain text and this is still the best bet for reliability. If you want to try sending formatted content, uncheck the Convert Content to Plain Text checkbox when sending content to the Kindle.
Add +kindle to your e-mail address when sending a URL and Zoot will fetch the web page and then send the content off to your Kindle device.
Anything you Print to Browser can be sent to the cloud via the Cloud Zooter.
The Scrap Book has been updated to produce scraps with a more lovely and consistent presentation. ⌨ Ctrl+Shift+S
The % Complete field will not track progress through long documents. You can override this behavior and set a different value by setting the field value manually or via a folder action.
You can restrict a Quick Query file search to a specific file type. Just add the file extension to the beginning or end of your search criteria. For example: cat mouse .pdf will search for PDF files that contain both cat and mouse. Putting the file extension up front works too: .pdf cat mouse
Added a toolbar button to send the contents of the Scrap Book to the cloud via the Cloud Zooter. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+C
Added the voice command Snap Assist to bring up the new Windows 11 pop-up Snap Dialog. ⌨ WinKey+Z
Added a Reader Width setting to the Reader tab in the Settings dialog. This lets you specify the width you prefer for reader-friendly content.
Added an option to launch the URL associated with an item. This bypasses the default behavior which is to open the item in a detached window. See the Tweaks tab in the Settings dialog.
Added Dark, Lite and Mono themed icons. Theme Dialog
Zoot's Title Bar color will reflect your Dark | Lite choice of theme in Zoot. Note that you can specify any Title Bar color you desire via Windows Settings.
Added ability to show | hide the menu bar in Zoot's main window and in detached Folder and Item windows. ⌨ Ctrl+[
Added ability to show | hide just the tool bars to quickly free up the vertical workspace. ⌨ Ctrl+]
Added ability to show | hide both the tool bars and menu bar to quickly free up the maximum vertical workspace. ⌨ Ctrl+\
Added support for the Brave and Vivaldi web browsers.
Zoot's built-in browser as been deprecated for some time and in this release it has been removed entirely. The browser was based on Internet Explorer and was never very good. Microsoft has recently discontinued support for Internet Explorer, so it was time to be rid of it altogether.
When launching a shortcut, if you hold down the [SHIFT] key, Zoot will open the shortcut target in the main window instead of a detached window.
If Zoot detects that an e-mail has an unsubscribe link, you'll see [Unsubscribe] just above the Item Editor. Click on it if you want to unsubscribe to the newsletter or otherwise spammy content.
You can now import a file or folder directly from an item shortcut. If an item has a file or folder shortcut, just open Shortcut Manager, then right-click on the file or folder you want to import and choose Import from the pop-up menu.
⌨ Ctrl+Shift+V will always paste clipboard contents as plain text. ⌨ Ctrl+Alt+V brings up the Paste Special dialog.
The Zooter Dialog now lets you choose the item type when you clip something. Zoot will remember your choice the next time you clip something.
On copy/move an item to another database, the Copy | Move dialog now lets you choose a different item type for the item. For example, you might copy a Mail item to the Tasks database and choose to change the item type from Mail to Task.
If you hold down ⌨ Ctrl+Shift keys together and then copy something to the clipboard, the Zooter will be triggered. This is handy in some situations, like when a web page features a Copy button designed to let you quickly copy just a snippet from the web page.
Any Multi-line Text Field can be set up to behave like a bullet list (as the Next Action field does by default). This includes the Comments field.