Post-Its gone virtual..

Another little bit of a software review - maybe i'll make this a regular feature? We'll see.

In class yesterday I saw one of my classmate's using Microsoft's OneNote. It was pretty impressive: he had a nice set of tabs for each of our modules and each tab linked to different pages with all the info for assignments, seminar times etc. While I do already have OneNote myself as I have Office on my Windows side (dual booting using Boot Camp), i've never actually used it. I'm considering using it now to manage all the information i'm gathering for my games design coursework as I do a lot of my actual development in Windows, but I manage all my modules in Tiger and it's where I spend most of my day to day computing.

So this got me thinking about what equivalent software there is for the Mac, as OneNote itself is not yet available for Mac it seems. A quick Google returned a possible three candidates: VoodooPad, MyNotes, and NoteMind.

VoodooPad by Flying Meat Software apparently styles itself after a wiki (I have read but never added to a wiki myself so I can't verify this but it seems to ring true). You create a number of pages, typing in text and drawing doodles with the Sketch tool. These pages are distinguished by tabs and can be linked to each other in a similar way to hyperlinks on the web.

VoodooPad tries to identify possible links as you type by underlining any capitalised and joined words such as "HyperLinks". Clicking on this word will create a new page that previously didn't exist and you can then add more information to this new page. You can also create links manually by selecting some text , cmd-clicking and choose "Link". Additionally, aliases can be created that direct more than one word to the same page (rather than having to individually link "Hyper Links", "HyperLinks", "hyper links" etc).

Additionally, VoodooPad supports LinkBack enabled applications, allowing you to copy and paste content from another app into VoodooPad and reopen that content in the original app at a later date for editing. Changes made are reflected in VoodooPad.

You can also import media from your computer. Images, it seems, can't be imported via the Import menu but drag and drop gives you the option of pasting the image into that page or creating a text link to the image. You can also embed the image which creates a new page from the image. For documents you also have three options: Drag and drop documents into VoodooPad to insert a text link to that file on your computer, importing a document as a new page of the contents of that document, and lastly, embedding documents in an existing page.

Importing them as links works quite well but I don't like that the links show the file suffix, regardless of whether you have "Hide Extension" turned off in that file's info box. For example I was getting "Assignment 1.pages" or "Assignment 1.doc" etc. I've found you can remove the suffix by going to the Page and Document Inspector and renaming the link there (it shows a list of all your links) but this can be tedious.

Importing documents (as pages) only seemed to work for Word files. I couldn't import Pages documents or PDFs. Also, in some of my results there were some layout errors.

Embedding files wasn't so easy either. It only seemed to work for single page PDF files. Embedding multi-page pdf's or documents such as those in Pages or Word format results in a page with a "Download this file" link. The idea is that the file is embedded in VoodooPad so you can delete the original file. This seems sensible if you are sharing the VoodooPad file with someone else as in theory it means they can access your files with only the VoodooPad file, however in my situation where I'll be the only one using this application, and most likely only on this computer, I can't see any real benefit from embedding the files over just accessing the original from the Finder.

Another frustrating thing I found is the way VoodooPad handles links and pages. The demo version is supposed to allow you to create up to 15 pages in each document before purchasing is necessary. However I received this notification when I had created only 4 pages. I suspect it might have something to do with VoodooPad's keeping a list of files and urls, perhaps these count towards the page total, however I haven't been able to replicate this condition in a new document and VoodooPad itself still reports my current page total as 4 pages.

While I found VoodooPad easy to work with, I am a little confused as to the best method to use it to organise information. I've posted in the forum for some pointers, but it might be that i'm just missing something (even though I did follow the tutorial) in the way that I'm currently working with the application. I suspect someone coming from a notes application background (possibly like OneNote) would find this app a lot more intuitive.

The Address Book integration is quite neat. Names in your text that match those in your address book are highlighted and clicking on them gives you the option to open that entry in the address book or email that person. In my tests, i've found that where you have two people with the same first name, VoodooPad doesn't show it as a link until you distinguish between them with a surname. Furthermore persons with no email address only give you the option to open that entry in the address book.

One final thing about VoodooPad, it's got some useful export options. You can export your pages as plain text files, rich text files, xml files, export to an ipod, word documents and, my favourite, web export which creates a rather nice hyperlinked website complete with a background from a set of templates. VoodooPad also has some Automator functionality which is always nice.

VoodooPad pricing starts at $29.95, with a $49.95 pro version (giving you document encryption, triggers, meta data and web-sharing features) available and a lightweight free version (basically bare-bones text editing and linking) also available, from Flying Meat Software.

I haven't spent a lot of time with MyNotes. The website boasts quite a few features such as Address Book/Mail integration and iPod syncing, but in practice I found MyNotes to be (as the title suggests) a simple notes editor. You can create groups and inside each group create notes, and as far as I can tell that's pretty much it. While easy to use, I don't really see this approach as being helpful for organising a large amount of information as pretty soon i'll have a series of notes in a long list. Since I already manage my uni coursework in a folder hierarchy, MyNotes' approach doesn't appear to have any benefits.

While MyNotes supports Address Book integration, I found that this wasn't as obvious as VoodooPad's approach. Names in your address book aren't highlighted in any way and it is only when they are cmd clicked on that you get options to email the recipient (however it does support calling numbers through Skype, something I haven't found in VoodooPad). In my tests with MyNotes, i've noticed that it treats names separately so clicking on a person's first name will often reveal multiple result's while clicking on their surname will show one person (unless you have multiple people in your address book with the same surname of course!). While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, I found it a bit more cumbersome than VoodooPad's approach.

MyNotes has the ability to export your notes as text files, to an ipod and as html, but, certainly for the html page atleast, it's a very basic export, with no fancy backgrounds like VoodooPad. For printing, you do get a few nice templates and these print certain sets of information depending on the theme chosen, but there are only a few tweakable options here and the choice of templates is very limited.

I think MyNotes is best used as a slightly enhanced text editor, adequate for writing letters, diary entries and stories etc, but there's really not much to justify buying this over TextEdit which came with your Mac.

MyNotes costs $19.95 from Mishimo (purchase from within the app or in the online store, Sterling/Euro pricing options also available).

Notemind is created by those nice people at Synium Software, the same people that make MacFamilyTree and CleanApp (both of which I purchased and use regularly) and iFinance (which I'm still taking for a trial run). I actually installed NoteMind a while ago when my interest in data organisation was peaked, but I never did get around to trying it out.

It's similar to MyNotes approach of Groups and notes in that it allows you to create folders and notes, however these can be stacked in a Finder-like hierarchy with subfolders. This seems quite useful as I've got a folder for each module and subfolders to seperate the module information from the assignments.

Like VoodooPad, Notemind supports handling various media. If you import a PDF it will be displayed inside Notemind, regardless of the number of pages. The only option for importing documents appears to be importing a link to that document, similar to the links created when drag and dropping in VoodooPad, however as well as opening the file, Notemind also gives you the option to reveal the file or the associated application in the Finder which is a nice touch.

Notemind also supports importing of websites and these show up in Notemind itself. When you add a website from within Notemind, you get a basic web browser with which to specify the website by filling in the address bar. I used this to direct the page to Google and, after searching Google within Notemind itself, I found that Notemind remembers the address of this new page (as opposed to reverting back to Google) so it acts just like a web browser within Notemind itself. While dragging a website into Notemind seems to just create a hyperlink to that website, selecting add a website within Notemind and then dragging an existing website into the new empty browser window will direct the new page to that address. I've found importing websites especially useful since a lot of my course details are stored online.

Notemind also supports importing images and this was very straightforward (drag and drop or via the menu). Even better, you can also import audio from existing music files or straight from the mic built into your mac. What I like about this is that it accepts all my iTunes files plus my podcasts, so now I can have all those Game Theory podcasts i've been listening to alongside my game design work and I can also make my own audio ramblings;-)

While I could not find a way to link my notes with hyperlinks in the same way that VoodooPad does, and I had some early concerns that it would become confusing if my folder system became too deep, Notemind distinguishes itself from the other two apps by allowing you to create mindmap's from your folders. If you haven't used mindmap's before (and you should - they're cool! - coming from a guy who has only briefly used them!) they are pretty much just spider diagrams, you start with an idea/concept in the middle and create offshoots of related ideas around it, these sub items then have their own offshoots and so on.

While Notemind lays out the mindmap content according to the folder hierarchy rather than any organisation of ideas (unless you've already separated your items logically, which you probably have) it's a really nice way of visualising your files. The icons in the diagram are typically Mac-gorgeous and I like how the icons for notes show the first few lines of text - very useful! Also, by clicking on an item, you can drag it about and there are options to rotate the icon, change it's size, and the colour of it's label. Talking of labels, you can colour the labels of all your folders and files in Notemind by importance - very helpful!

Lastly, a nice feature is that if you move or delete a file/folder after creating your mindmap, the change is immediately reflected in your mindmap without you having to create a new one - simple but all too often overlooked I think!

Notemind costs $20 (£9.85) from Synium Software

Well, that's my round up. Believe it or not, when I started this review my preference was for VoodooPad, however playing around with Notemind more has clearly swayed my opinions as i'm sure you can tell. Still they are all useful apps and as always it depends on individual preferences. In terms of functionality, I think both VoodooPad and Notemind are leagues above MyNotes but hey that's just my opinion and my individual requirements, yours might be different.

On a final note, also from the creators of VoodooPad are two nifty little apps: FlyGesture and FlySketch.

Very quickly, FlyGesture, when invoked by a key press/mouse button, sees you gesturing with the mouse pointer to control a whole plethora of stuff on your computer. You can define these gestures and their effects yourself and FlyGesture comes with lots of in-built ones to fiddle with. As an example, drawing the letter 'M' with your mouse opens Mail. It's a nice idea but I found it requires a little bit of precision to get it right - you have to make a mouse trail through a series of circular hotspots - but i'm sure i'll improve with practice! What I can't fault, however, is the price - free!!

FlySketch is a little sketching and image capture tool. I haven't really messed with it much yet so I won't cover all it's features, but a nice feature is being able to make the app transparent so you can sketch over whatever is underneath (other windows or images for example). Plus there's a screen grab button which, when combined with the app's transparency, makes it super easy to capture Dock icons etc which I think i'll find useful for blogging;-) It also allows you to put images in apps that can't create images, like TextEdit. See the website for a full run down of features.

FlySketch costs $24.95.

That's your lot today then I guess, except to mention that my usual Mac life harmony has been disrupted by two unexpected developments: My flatmate's macbook has developed a cracked screen with the ink now obscuring everything and it turns out this accidental damage is not covered by her warranty?!? Reading around, it seems this fault is quite common and so is Apple's policy of saying it's not covered under warranty! I advised my flatmate to query it and possibly speak to the CAB but as she's signed a repair authorisation bill, I think this might bind her into paying up. In any case it's put me off buying a macbook anytime soon!

Secondly, since last night i've developed a mysterious blue pen mark on my otherwise pristine Mighty Mouse. Gah! The horror! It could even be a scratch but ... wait ... nope, it doesn't come off with a cloth and warm water. Hmmph! Since I treat my Mac like a newborn baby (which, depending on your fruitcake mindset could mean anything!) i'm stumped as to how this mark appeared and, if it is indeed just pen ink, why the hell won't it come off?! Oh the shame...!