[Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Hi Everyone!

I'm glad to announce the newest of all Maemo 5 widgets: Sticky Notes.
It is a little application that lets you create as many notes on as many desktops in as many colours as you want!

• It has a sexy UI
• It is easy to use
• It saves your notes automatically
• It is finger-friendly
• It is also optified

Please, install and test it, then post your opinions and ideas here.
Any input is welcome!
I will be glad if you give it a test drive!

Screenshots:

Single note
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/100625/...toltes.hu_.png

Three notes on a SGU background
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/100625/...toltes.hu_.png

The new quick options dialog
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/100721/...toltes.hu_.png

The new colour selection dialog (from Hildon-Extras)
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/100721/...toltes.hu_.png

Two notes and the new formatting toolbar
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/100721/...toltes.hu_.png

(The images are hosted by kepfeltoltes.hu)

Important notes

• Any new ideas are welcome!
• The app is currently in Extras-devel.
  You should educate yourself about the dangers of using apps from Extras-devel before using it!
• The latest version is 0.3.0, update to that if you have an earlier one!
• Sticky Notes uses Hildon-Extras for its colour and font selection dialogs.
  If you are a developer, you should use it, too, because it is great!
• Sticky Notes uses QtSingleApplication, an unofficial extension from the Qt team.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• Q: Why is this stuff better than the existing notes widgets?
  A: Because you may have as many notes as you want. There is no limitation about how many notes you can have. You can also set their colour to any colour you like.
• Q: What do the buttons do?
  A: The first (+) creates another note with same color. The second (•) pops up the Quick Options dialog, and the third (×) deletes the note.
  Easy, isn't it?
• Q: Is this a paid app?
  A: No, but you can pay for it (=make a donation) if you want to.
• Q: Is it open source?
  A: Yes, Sticky Notes is Free and Open Source software.
• Q: Where is da code?
  A: It is available in a Subversion (SVN) repository in the Maemo Garage.
• Q: What is the license?
  A: Sticky Notes is licensed under the terms of the EUPL (European Union Public License). It can be downloaded in several languages.
• Q: Can I have [my favourite feature] implemented?
  A: Sure! Just post your idea in a reply in this thread!
• Q:Can I help in implementing [my favourite feature]?
  A: Sure! Any contribution is welcome, just write a message to me.
• Q: Will it crash hildon-home?
  A: No, it runs under its own separate process.
• Q: How does it work?
  A: It saves your text automatically, 3 seconds after you finished typing.
• Q: Why does it always run in the background?
  A: This is pretty much required for it to operate correctly, see detailed answer here.

Implemented features

• A quick options dialog appears when the middle button is pressed
• Ability to change background colour
• Ability to change font
• Ability to change text colour
• Ability to change opacity
• Nice colour selection dialog (from Hildon-Extras)
• Nice about dialog (from Hildon-Extras)
• Text formatting options: Bold, italic, underline, and strike-through
• Shortcuts: Save (Ctrl+S), Bold (Ctrl+B), Italic (Ctrl+I), Undeline (Ctrl+U), Strike-through (Ctrl+T)
• Confirmation dialog appears when you would like to delete a note

Planned features

• Compact mode (hide the three buttons)
• Integration with Conboy

Features that are welcome to be implemented
These are popular feature requests that require a bit more time than I actually have for the project. They are welcome to be implemented by anyone else, though. I will gladly accept a patch.

• Ability to resize the notes
• Ability to have multiple pages in each widget

I wish to thank my users for their votes in the first N900 coding competition. (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58928)

You want a paid app? Donate instead!

I promise that Sticky Notes will be always freely available to anyone. However, I read from many people on this forum that they need more paid apps for Maemo.

While I don't intend to make Sticky Notes a paid app, I'd like to present those of you who want to have a "paid app", or just show their appreciation a way to do so.

https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif

If you feel that you want to support the development of Sticky Notes, simply click on the button above.

Credits

I would like to express my special thanks to tswindell [alterego on IRC] (whose idea helped solve the problems with the multiple-widget approach), w00t (who helped me with every Qt-related question I had), and eitama (who helped me get through autobuilder)!
Also many thanks to the great people at #maemo, and especially #qt-maemo!

Special thanks to qwerty12 who helped with the most embarassing bugs I ever had and lcuk who answered every random question I had!

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

EDIT: This has been fixed.

Okay, I noticed that there is some issue with the pre-removal and post-installation scripts of the app - it displays an error message after installation.

Note that despite this, you can still launch the app from the app menu.
Anyone who is familiar with Debian packaging is welcome to help.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

That looks great! It always felt like a weird omission to not have a decent finger optimized sticky notes app for Maemo 5, but this fits every feature request I had! Even not being tied to hildon-home.

Rare to see an application that gets so many things right on the first release :P

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I have attempted to install your application, but the installation failed with a "unable to install" message.
After checking the app menu and app manager (restart included), it appears not to have indeed not installed.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

It is in a "screwed up" state until you don't install the next release that fixes it.

The annoying thing about this bug is that everything works correctly if I build the app on my own machine.
The problem only occours when the autobuilder builds it.
If I can't resolve the issue with extras-devel today, I will post a .deb file in here that actually works.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Use a text editor that uses UNIX line endings. ;)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Do you think this is really the issue?
I think I saved all the files with Unix line endings...
But this doesn't explain why it is working for me with MADDE?

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Yes, because when I looked at /var/lib/dpkg/info/sticky-notes.postinst (from dpkg -i'ing http://repository.maemo.org/extras-d....1.3_armel.deb), it was trying to run "#!/bin/sh^M" :)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Thanks. Will give this a try. Was using Simple Note Widget but that no longer works with PR 1.2. Then I started using what I think is called Simple Notes Applet. Prefer it to Simple Note Widget as can have multiple pages. However, edges of text keeps get cut off.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

The files are located here, and thex are saved with Unix line endings.
The same files are good for MADDE, but are messed up by the auto-builder.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Gave it a try. Very nice and simple.

Any possibility for the following:

- ability to resize the note size (so can fit in an increased number of notes on one desktop);

- ability to have multiple pages on each note which you cycle through like in yellow notes applet so that you can have more than one note on the desktop but only take the space of one;

- ability to bold text so that the bolded text can function as a heading for the note;

- ability to change font and text size and color.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Perfection would be the ability to 'scribble' notes ;)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Nice app. already really useful!

Some feature suggestions:

Some way to handle the app when last note is deleted. it keeps running in the backgound, unreachable it seems. alternatively disable the delete of the last note.

Clicking on a note should raise it above the other overlapping notes.

it would also be nice to be able to move a note without putting the desktop in edit mode.

hide all and raise all functionality. hide all should leave a small button. maybe in the toolbar? like in similar apps on linux and windows.

/Bitwit

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Okay, the nasty error is now fixed. The current version in extras-devel should install fine.

For the people who have the screwed up version, you should purge it before installing the new one, or simply reinstall.

For me, the following code from a root terminal worked:
(The start is required because the pre-removal script tires to kill it, and if it can't kill it, it will fail. I know, stupid.)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

This is a feature, not a bug, and is pretty much intentional.
The reason:

• Sticky Notes doesn't run inside hildon-home, thus the only way to make the widgets re-appear on reboot is starting it in the background
• I want only one process handling all of the notes
• If you click on either the icon, or "add widget", the background process is called and it displays the new note
• When running in the background, it really doesn't do anything, just sits there doing nothing. It doesn't use CPU in this state, thus doesn't hurt your battery, either

I hope I could provide a meaningful explanation!
(I also added this one to the FAQ section of the original post.)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Nice app indeed.
I'm using Yellow Notes and like his feature to have multiple notes within one window.
Maybe you can add this as an option to Sticky Notes?

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Okay, I've received some very good suggestions already, keep them coming!

This is already amongst my planned features.

Should be pretty straightforward, but I still have to come up with a good UI for it.

Nice idea, but I don't know how should I fit it into the finger-friendly UI. If you have a suggestion, I'm listening! :)

This is also coming. I'll create a settings dialog for the note and this will be one of the settings available.

I thought about it, but I haven't written anything like this. Good idea, though. :)

Yes, I wanted to, but it seems that it is either impossible or extremely hacky to achieve. :(

Nice one! I will definitely implement this in some way. Unfortunately, this is hacky as well, because desktop widgets don't receive dragging events, as those are handled by the desktop.

Hm, and in which menu should that button be?

Others suggested this as well, so I think I will! :)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I was just thinking that I would need to install a note widget again.

Will give this a spin! Looks cool enough.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

About 'bold'-ing of a text, just have a setting if yo have the first line bold or not. I doubt most people will need more then that.

Would it be possible to have it display one of the conboy notes? Or maybe just have it be possible to point to a file for the note contents. (that way i could point it to the appropriate note file from conboy)

Thanks alot!

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I was thinking about adding key combinations or something like that.

Hm, I haven't thought about making the notes point to certain files, but this is a nice idea.
Should every note point to a file or just the ones you want?
Also, should they delete the file when you close the widget?

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Glad to hear that - let me know the result!

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Yeah first line bolded option would be good. Kind of like what Conboy has. Another option would just be the standard highlight text you want to bold and then press control + B

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Fair enough!
I'll add this to the planned features section.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Any chance of a transparent background? May already be possible with the color background selection but if it is not that simple to do. Peharps just have an option to select transparency level or something like that (I think that is what yellow notes does).

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

When opening a new note, the default text 'Your notes here!' stays in the text entry field and needs to be deleted before actual note entry can begin.

It would be better to have this text removed as soon as the text editor is opened.

Feature requests :

transparency
change font colour (at least allow black as an option)

Otherwise this has already replaced the other desktop notes options I was using. The finger friendly option is great !

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Hey guys, great feedback so far!

I've gotten plenty of great ideas. Big thank you for that!

This is doable fairly easily.
Adding to the planned features.

Actually, this is a very good point!

See above.

Mhm.
Yes, I should have done this feature already.
It is in the planned features list. :)

These kind words always make me feel good! :)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Great work Venemo.

I have a few suggestions :
- Allow suppressing a note for X time (HH:MM)
- Allow suppressing a note IN X time (HH:MM) or @ HH:MM O'clock + Date.
- Allow scheduling a note to pop up at a specific time and date.
- Allow turning a note into a reminder by flashing & making sounds at a wanted time and date.
- Allow selecting text inside a note and striking it.

Cheers,

Eitam.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Thanks for your suggestions!

These are interesting. I may consider them in a later release. :)

Well, there's already an app for that, called "Alarm", and installed by default on the N900.

You can already select text - just not with your finger, as drag events are handled by the desktop and not forwarded to the widgets.
You can select text with pressing and holding the shift key, plus one of the arrow keys.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

You cannot "strike out" text though :)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Yes.
That will be covered by the "basic text formatting" (currently in the planned features section).

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Superb.
I am using sticky notes daily. (for 2 days now - lol)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Thanks, I'm happy to hear about it! :)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Is it possible a kind of To-Do List function to integrate?
Thus the one can identify the individual tasks carried out directly in the widget as.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

This seems to be a nice idea. Could you please elaborate more about it?

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I would imagine it so that you can choose in the Stick Notes menu if you use the widget as a memo or to-do list. For example, like this ..

http://www.bilder-upload.eu/upload/g8ErIvWeWIZXsfF.png

It took into account the possibility always add one more task, completed to identify and remove. It should remember the widget if there are too many tasks, which will create a second page where you can change. Thus, the widget is not larger, but still I can with few clicks go directly to my to-do list.
The icons to add to the page or scroll to next time I would invest in the upper area of the widget.

I hope I could clarify a little what I mean.

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I don't know if this would be possible - but an extension of Eitam's request would be a note that pops up at a certain place - because of a GPS signal.

I always find myself at a shopping mall scratching my head - I know there's something here I needed to buy - and then I get home and remember :D
It would be great if I could set up a note that pops up when I get to within 500 meters of the mall - "buy paper for the printer!"

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

This is actually a very nice idea that can be done on its own. Like a daemon that pops up reminders or alarms when you are in a certain area. Will eat the battery but nice for those who need it. It doesn't even have to be always on. Once you have this nagging feeling that you are supposed to do something just pop the phone out and enable GPS reminders. You can also do it inside Sticky Notes by assigning location meta data to some notes (which makes them hidden unless close to that location) and either have GPS enabled all the time or on demand.

I hope your mall is open, oved_etzot, or you'll not get a GPS lock ;)

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

I actually had the GPS idea long time ago, but I ruled it out because of the need to have GPS always on... battery eater.
But. I could be developed to only work constantly when charger is connected, and like every 5 minutes when it's not connected.

Great minds think a like eh oved_etsot? (:

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

Yeah, I know this is a bit much to ask for a note application but the idea popped up so I wrote it down quick before I forgot....;)
I heard the idea somewhere before - i think mentioned in a thread about GTD. GTD'ers speak of @Context - certain things need to be done in a certain place - so you write the reminder down in a list that is headed by the name of the context - whether they are conceptually related or not. Then you have to remember to pull the list out when you're there... Here's where the idea came up to have lists that pop out triggered by the GPS. Cool idea. :cool:

Re: [Announce] Sticky Notes - the ultimate notes widget
 

You flatter me :o