Welcome to Notes!

Index

• Overview
• Installation
• Download
• Version History
• Basic Use
• Advanced Use
  • Take Note System Service
  • Move To menu
• Contact Information
  
  
• Screenshots

Overview

Every version of the MacOS to ship for many years contained a small utility named NotePad. It was, unsuprisingly, a very good place to keep reminders and notes without having to keep track of numberous small files or clippings. When I installed Mac OS X with the intention of learning to program in Cocoa, I quickly realized that there was no such place to keep the kind of records or reminders that NotePad offered. Notes was started as a 'Hello World!' type project, through after several complete rewrites as I learned, became a serious project.

Some of the features offered by Notes:

• Easy orgainisation of ideas, notes, and reminders.
• Simple, intuitive interface.
• Full control of text font and size.
• Advanced text editing features, Rulers, Kerning, Ligature, and Baseline.
• Color Text.
• Supports pictures and graphics.
• Import notes from RTF, RTFd, and text.
• Export notes to RTFd.
• Notes can be re-ordered in the list through drag and drop, and categorized into folders.
• Take Note system service, for quick and easy note taking.
• Move To menu system, for ease in organization.
• Search for text in any note.

Installation

All versions of Notes after 1.3 require Mac OS X 10.0 to run. Public Beta users can only use version 1.2 and older.

The Notes download is in standard Disk Image format. See your Mac OS X documentation for instructions on how to install from a Disk Image.

If you want to use the Take Note system service, then you need to place Notes in a folder that is scanned by Mac OS X when it tries to find Service capable applications. The most obvious of these locations is the Mac OS X Applications folder, although the Network Applications and User Applications (if you have created it) folders will also work.

Download

Version 1.3.4 - Download

Version History

Version 1.3.4

• Fixed the name of the Show/Hide toolbar menu item in the German Localization.
• Fixed a few more problems with the new drag&drop visual feedback.

Version 1.3.3

• Fixed a bug that truncates the last letter when renaming notes.
• Fixed a problem with the Window menu in the German localization.
• Fixed a crash when Cancel was pressed in the Import from NotePad dialog.

Version 1.3.2

• Improved the note list visual feedback when using drag & drop.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a moved note to appear in the wrong location.
• Fixed a bug which would cause errors if a note name contained a newline character.
• The Notes window now comes foward when the dock icon is clicked.
• Moved several menu items into more appropriate locations.

Version 1.3.1

• Fixed serious bug that could cause loss of data when rearranging notes through Drag & Drop.
• No longer allows you to delete the last note through the Toolbar button.
• Import from NotePad will now read notepad files from several non-english Mac OS versions.

Version 1.3

• Fixed several issues with Mac OS X Final.
• Tested and fixed issues with printing.
• Moved Printing dialogs into sheets.
• Added a customizable toolbar.
• Updated some icons.
• Better complies with the Mac OS X Final Aqua Human Interface Guidelines.
• Fixed a memory leak.
• Localized the Take Note title.

Version 1.2

• Restored the German Translation.
• The drawer list should now remember it's size.
• Added icons and additional controls to the toolbar.
• Removed the border around the main Notes view.
• The main window now comes foward when the app is launched.
• Fixed the label on the Service Note popup in the Preferences.
• Note window is brought foward when a sheet is used.

Version 1.2 Beta 1

• Note List moved into a drawer.
• Small toolbar added.
• Notes can now be organized into folders.
• Added the ability to import from Apple's NotePad.
• Fixed text appearing at the top of the note when Take Note was used.
• Added a Move To item in the Edit menu, to comply with the Aqua User Interface Guidelines.
• Renamed Set to Standard Font to Set to Default Font.
• Notes are now renamed by double-clicking on that note in the list.
• The name of the open note is now displayed in the window title.
• You can now completely close the Notes window.
• No longer have to hold down the command key to drag notes.

Version 1.1

• Text Search.
• Small bug fixes.

Version 1.0.1

• German localization. Special thanks to Holger Watermann.
• Fixed bug that, under some circumstances, would cause Notes to crash when creating, deleting, renaming, or re-ordering notes.
• Preferences window is now correctly titled.

Version 1.0

• Initial Release

Basic Use

• To create a new note, select New Note from the Note menu.
• To delete a note, select the note, and choose Delete Note from the Note menu.
• To rename a note, select the note, type in the new name in the top field, and hit return.
• Export a note to RTFd by choosing Export Note from the Note nenu.
• Import a RTF, RTFd, or text file by selecting Import Note in the Note menu.
• You can set the default text font for new notes in the Preferences window.
• You can set the font used in the note list in the Preferences window.
• You can select any text, bring up the contextual menu by control-clicking the selction (or using a second mouse button, if you have one), and select 'Set to Default Font' to change the font of the selected text to match the font chosen as standard in the Preferences window.

Advanced Use

Using the 'Take Note' System Service

The Take Note System Service will, when run, move the currently selected text in any Cocoa application, and copy it into the note designated as the Service Destination. Currently, Services are only available in Cocoa applications, but Apple has planned to add this ability to Carbon applications as well in the future.

If you do not explicitly set a note to recieve service text, then a new note named 'Imported Notes' will automatically be created, and be set as the service destination the first time you use the feature. If the service note is deleted, then 'Imported Notes' will automatically be recreated.

To set which note recieves service text, you can use the 'Set As Service Note' under the Note menu. This will cause the currently displayed note to be designated as the Service note. You can also open the Preferences window, and select the Service Note from the popup list there. Selecting 'New Note' will cause 'Imported Notes' to be created again next time the Service is run.

Move To Contextual Menu

To access the Move To contextual menu, control-click (or with a two button mouse, second click) on selected text in the note view. The Move To contextual menu will show a list of every note. Selecting a note will remove the text from the current note, and place it at the end of the chosen note. Choosing New Note will place the selected text in a new note

This is extremely powerful when combined with the Take Note system service, as when using the service, you will probablly collect a large variety of different things in your Service Note. Using Move To makes it easy and quick to sort all of this material out into different notes and orgainse it for easier use later. Using the Move To menu avoids forcing you to copy, switch notes, paste, switch back, and do it all over again time and time again.

Contact Information

If you have any bugs to report, comments, feature suggestions, etc, please send them to:
Richard Schreyer