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Dave Beauvais
04-17-2003, 01:04 AM
I'm sick of the built-in Notes application. When I need to jot something down quickly, I'll fire up Notes to scribble out whatever it is I need to make a note of to look at later. I'd say that about 60% of the time, when opening the note I've made, it's been turned into a jumbled, useless mess. Letters and parts of letters have been moved around so they now overlap other characters, etc. (See screenshot below.) In that screenshot, the big blank space was formerly occupied by the phone number that's now covering up an e-mail address.

http://www.beauvais1.com/images/ppc/useless_notes.gif

This happens to me frequently, often when I'm quickly scribbling out something that I don't have time to write "properly" with an input method of some sort. (I scribble faster than I write.) I end up looking like a damn fool, and my Pocket PC suddenly becomes much less cool. :oops:

This has happened with my four :roll: Casio E-200s, my two Toshiba e740s, and now my iPAQ h5455. I've tried with and without the option to scroll automatically after reaching the bottom, with no improvement either way. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me? Does anyone know of a similar application which allows the creation of freehand notes?

--Dave

ntractv
04-17-2003, 01:26 AM
Amen brother. I can't tell you how many times I jotting down a note and all of a sudden it blocks off my writing as a drawing. It's to the point now that I only use notes if I have my Targus keyboard connected and take notes that way. But that is of now help if I just want to take a quick note.

Jacob
04-17-2003, 03:51 AM
Calligrapher 6.5 comes with a Scratchpad utility that doesn't try to do this at all.

It's not free though.

Calligrapher is the main part of the app which is handwriting recognition software. I use it and like it a lot.

www.phatware.com

Brad Adrian
04-17-2003, 04:00 AM
Huh. I must be using Notes in a different way, because this never happens to me. Can you identify any kind of common thread among the times it happens to you?

Pony99CA
04-17-2003, 04:04 AM
I've never seen that problem, but I don't scribble things much. I either use voice notes for quick things or the SIP keyboard for things I have more time to write.

As for replacements for Notes, Pocket Informant supports scribbled notes -- plus a whole lot more. However, as I don't use scribbling, I don't know if you'll just see the same problem there.

Steve

Dave Beauvais
04-17-2003, 04:09 AM
... Can you identify any kind of common thread among the times it happens to you?
In all cases, the note is fine until I tap OK to save it. The next time I open it, it's jumbled in much the same way as the one above. This one wasn't that bad -- I can at least make out all the characters -- I've had some that were so messed up, I just deleted the note rather than waste time trying to figure out what the frell I wrote.

I usually am writing very quickly -- much faster than I'd be able to write if I were trying to be neat for character recognition. In all cases, the things that get rearranged are recognized as "drawings," not "characters." (You'll note the character part of the phone number is where it's supposed to be, but the drawing part was moved up for some reason. I've done a great deal of experimenting with this with the various PPCs I've owned in the last two years, but can't come up with a way to repeat it at will. Sometimes I'll go five or six notes and not have a single problem; other times, it'll mess up the first one I do. :?

One of the reasons I carry my PPC with me everywhere I go is so I can use it as a notepad. What good is it if my notes are unreadable?

--Dave

Andrew
04-17-2003, 08:39 AM
Dave, like you I use notes to scribble things down quickly and while this has happened to me, its happened only twice. One thing I have noted though is that if I write at an angle, i.e. slope the lines either downwards or upwards slightly, the notes are fine.
I cant even begin to guess how notes tries to format 'ink' files, but perhaps its trying to be too clever for its own good, and my sloping lines make it think the space is occupied and so it doesnt try to move anything.
Its a wild guess I admit but maybe it will work for you.

Andrew

Janak Parekh
04-17-2003, 01:41 PM
FWIW, Notes seems to be the "runt" of all the Pocket Outlook applets on the Pocket PC -- especially because of Outlook's meagre features in handling Notes. Witness the fact that Outlook on the desktop can't handle Notes categories, it has minimal formatting support, etc. Mobile Information Server doesn't support Notes sync, either. I've started using Notes less and less as a result.

I've been considering switching to HPC Notes (http://www.phatware.com/hpcnotes/) by PhatWare; IIRC, Ed is a big fan of it. I haven't played with it yet, though. In the meantime, PI's Alarm Notes aren't terrible, but they're not that much better either.

--janak

Unreal32
04-17-2003, 03:12 PM
I have this happen ALL the time. Very frustrating. I tried BugMe for the PPC instead, but it has huge problems with deleting your ENTIRE scribbled memo when you set a custom alarm, and the people at ElectricPocket don't seem to have an inclination to fix this or at least can't replicate the error. I am considering HPC Notes, too... what is everyone's experience with it? Will it bring over the Outlook synch notes, and synch back to Outlook?

msprague
04-17-2003, 06:02 PM
I experience this on occasion as well. It always seems to be when my writing is partially identified as writing and partially identified as drawing. Then the drawing part gets shifted up. I have found that it is possible to select the drawing portion and drag it down to where it belongs. This usually makes it readable again, but is definitely a pain.
:confused totally:

Dave Beauvais
04-17-2003, 06:25 PM
Thanks everybody for at least confirming that it's not just me. :) I may give HPC Notes a try, but it seems like overkill for what I'm looking for.

--Dave

Kaber
04-17-2003, 07:27 PM
I think it has something to do with the view size and the auto wrapping.

Dave Beauvais
04-18-2003, 12:30 AM
I think it has something to do with the view size and the auto wrapping.
Ya know, that's a good idea. I've had my "writing" zoom set to 100%. I think the default is either 150% or 200%. I've set it to 150% for a while to see if that improves anything. I've created six test notes so far and not one has been messed up. Time will tell, I suppose.

--Dave

onepieceman
04-18-2003, 08:28 AM
On the whole, it works OK for me. The only thing I have sometimes found is that Notes will scroll the note by a line or so, meaning that the top line becomes inaccessible (there is no scroll bar to rescue me).
I've been looking for a good notes app for a long time, and continue to be surprised by the lack of a good "paper notebook" replacement. Most apps make strange assumptions, like for example that you are going to type all your notes, as opposed to scribble them, or that you are only ever going to have one or two notes on your PocketPC, and hence have no need to structure them except as a file list.

cheeso
10-22-2003, 11:53 PM
Janak said
FWIW, Notes seems to be the "runt" of all the Pocket Outlook applets on the Pocket PC -- especially because of Outlook's meagre features in handling Notes. Witness the fact that Outlook on the desktop can't handle Notes categories, it has minimal formatting support, etc. Mobile Information Server doesn't support Notes sync, either. I've started using Notes less and less as a result.


Same here. As a Palm convert I had built a dependency on Notes - it was one of the key apps for the mobile device for me. The lack of category support in the PPC makes notes near useless. I actually wrote an app to fix this one shortcoming. The app is called NotesCat and is free.

There's a huge MSI - 6mb, but the PPC image is just 32k.
http://www.winisp.net/cheeso/dl/NotesCat-Setup.msi

(It requires the .NET Framework on the desktop, and the .NET Compact framework on the PPC. )

-Cheeso

amac
10-23-2003, 11:22 AM
Hi,
I use PocketNotePad from Tillanosoft. http://www.tillanosoft.com/ce/pnotepad.html. It's freeware and creates .txt-Documents, easy to sync with your PC. And no 'Scribble-Mode'.
Greets, Axel.

Lex
10-23-2003, 11:55 AM
I have the same problem in Agenda Fusion Alarm Notes.

The Agenda Fusion tech supporters advised me it related to having zoom set higher than 100% in the native 'Notes' app. Dave's experience disproved that. He had the problem while set to 100% as I continue to.

Pocket NotePad isn't the answer; we're looking for a 'Scribble Mode' that works.

Isn't it sad that with all the PPC can do, this OS bug forces us to use paper to take quick notes ?

piperpilot
10-23-2003, 12:43 PM
I hate Notes for a completely different reason. A few weeks ago, I used it to take notes at a Congressional hearing. When I got back to the office, I sync'd my iPAQ, I found, much to my dismay, that I couldn't print the notes--the Notes application doesn't permit printing! I then tried to copy the text into a Word document. That didn't work either. So, I wound up having to type them. I thought I was saving time and paper with Notes. Ha! :idontthinkso:

Lex
10-24-2003, 12:16 AM
To Piper Pilot:

You should be able to copy text from Notes and paste to Pocket Word on the Pocket PC. I seldom work on my PPC -via- my desktop PC so if that's where you had trouble I'm no help.

Thinkingmandavid
10-24-2003, 12:20 AM
have you tried notestoday? there was a thread about it and it seems it works real well. in fact, itis only 4 bucks for the software and you use it right on your today screen. maybeyou should check into that since you are having some troubles with notes that comes with your ppc.

JustinGTP
10-24-2003, 01:18 AM
Hmm Old Thread.

I just played around with the notes, and nope, its fine! Maybe this is the Windows Mobile fix?

-Justin.

Dave Beauvais
10-24-2003, 06:02 AM
... the Notes application doesn't permit printing! ...
Were you trying to print from the Pocket PC or your PC? I know Outlook 2002 supports Notes printing -- even handwritten notes synced from the Pocket PC -- because I just printed one. I know HP's free Mobile Printing (http://www.hp.com/support/pocketpcprint) doesn't support Notes printing, but Outlook certainly does.

I just played around with the notes, and nope, its fine! Maybe this is the Windows Mobile fix?
I've got to admit I haven't had this problem since changing the default zoom to 150% under PPC2002, so I can't say whether WM2003 fixed it or not.

--Dave