Ecco Pro was a

personal information manager A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...

software based on an outliner, and supporting folders similar to spreadsheet columns that allow filtering and sorting of information based upon user defined criteria. The

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

was originally produced by Arabesque Software in 1993, then purchased by

NetManage NetManage Inc. was a software company based in Cupertino, California, founded in 1990 by Zvi Alon, an Israeli engineer. The company's development centre was located at the MATAM technology park, in Haifa, Israel. In June 2008 the company was acq ...

, and discontinued in 1997.

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 Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...

regardless of in 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, with each line assignable to folders/categories which can themselves be their own views, text field, pulldown menu, calendar date (including repeating date), or phonebook entry.

Product functionality

ECCO Professional was introduced by Arabesque Software in 1993, as a

Personal Information Manager A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...

(PIM) with a database backend. This version supports calendar and contact data, as well as to-do lists, and allows integration with other software via import and export capability,

Dynamic Data Exchange In computing, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a technology for interprocess communication used in early versions of Microsoft Windows and OS/2. DDE allows programs to manipulate objects provided by other programs, and respond to user actions affect ...

(DDE),

Object Linking and Embedding Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user i ...

(OLE). A feature called "Shooter" puts a cut and paste tool at the top of the screen facilitating copy of data to and from ECCO. The user interface is based on a "universal outliner" and folders, which allow the user to build a variety of views organizing related information of mixed types. Data is stored as discrete objects, and can be dragged as dynamic links to multiple folders creating cross references. Ecco version 1.x supports shared folders and outlines for network access to data, but does not support windows workgroups. Ram based, the program was considered fast and relatively easy on laptop batteries, but a heavy consumer of system resources. ECCO version 2.0, released in 1994, added support for workgroups, including group scheduling via email systems compliant with

MAPI Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is an API for Microsoft Windows which allows programs to become email-aware. While MAPI is designed to be independent of the protocol, it is usually used to communicate with Microsoft Exchange Ser ...

or VIM protocols, and

Microsoft Schedule Plus Microsoft Schedule+ is a discontinued time management app developed by Microsoft. It was included by Microsoft in the Microsoft Office productivity suite since the Office 95 version. Since the Office 97 version, most of its functionality was incorp ...

, and sharing of contacts, calendars, and outlines, as well as file synchronization and reconciliation via

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in c ...

connections or email. In 1995 PC Magazine praised ECCO as a workgroup tool for scheduling and task management and noted its ability to handle free form data, but considered version 2.0 a "poor choice as a contact manager" which requires customization to match features of contemporary products, and lacks structured and complex search queries, good reporting, logging and correspondence functions. ECCO version 3.0 was released in the summer of 1995 with an updated user interface based on a ring binder. Other additions include an Internet launch tool equipped with an address book containing links to over 2,000 sites. Internet support for the Shooter tool allows the user to push a

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

and title for a web page back to ECCO. Searching improved with a query tool based on forms and support for boolean filters. ECCO Pro version 4.0 added 32 bit support and OLE 2.0. as well as integration with NetManage's Chameleon and Z-Mail. Version 4.01 has support for Palm Pilot.

History

Ecco Pro was originally developed by Pete Polash, who had sold an early Macintosh based presentation program to

Aldus Aldus may refer to: People * Aldus Manutius, a Venetian publisher who popularized small personal volumes * Aldus Manutius the Younger, grandson of Aldus Manutius Businesses * Aldine Press, the printing office founded by Aldus Manutius * Aldus Cor ...

and Bob Perez, a Harvard-trained lawyer hired by

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

as a programmer and

Evangelist Evangelist may refer to: Religion * Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels * Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ * Evangelist (Anglican Church), a c ...

in the 1980s. It was first released in 1993 by Arabesque Software, Inc., based in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as a s ...

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

awarded ECCO Pro their Editor's Choice award in 1996 and 1997 Development by

ceased in 1997 after the July 1997 release of version 4.01. Andrew Brown wrote in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

: "So what happened to the paragon of a program? The market killed it. First it was sold to a much larger company, Netmanage; presumably doing this made the original programmers a lot of money. Then Netmanage panicked when Microsoft Outlook came along as a "free" part of the Office suite, and killed development on the program." NetManage chief executive officer Zvi Alon noted that 'As soon as Microsoft decided to give away Outlook with Office, we started getting phone calls questioning the value of Ecco Pro'. Even though the source code for Ecco Pro is not open source, development of plugin extensions to the software continues. According to Scott Rosenberg, a programmer using the handle "slangmgh" developed an extension to Ecco Pro posted to ecco_pro users group on Yahoo which includes fixes and upgrades to the program, and may incorporate the

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

scripting language. The EccoPro to Android Synchronization Software

MyPhoneExplorer MyPhoneExplorer is a proprietary freeware desktop application allowing management of Android mobile phones. It is developed in Austria, originally for the Sony Ericsson mobile phone. Features MyPhoneExplorer can connect to a phone using a USB cabl ...

able to synchronize Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Ecco Outlines to Android Phones and Tablets was released on 9 July 2013.

References

External links

* *
Ecco Pro users' group
{{Calendaring software Personal information managers Outliners Note-taking software Calendaring software Micro Focus International