Jordan Rosenwald
10-08-2004, 05:10 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-aug04-phatnotes-1.gif" /> <br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Productivity<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.phatware.com/">Phatware</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=45990">Handango</a> [Affiliate]<br /><b>Price:</b> $19.95 Lite Edition, $29.95 Standard Edition, $39.95 Professional Edition<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> 700KB <br /><b>Specifications:</b> Works with all Pocket PC 2000 – 2003SE devices.<br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Great organization of notes;<br /><li>Simple categorization of thoughts;<br /><li>Simple and effective layout for text formatting;<br /><li>Good integration with Outlook Notes.<b>Cons:</b><ul><li>No digital ink.</ul><b>Summary:</b><br />There are few things more convenient on our Pocket PCs than quickly opening Notes and scribbling down information. Unfortunately, there are few things that get cluttered quite like Notes. Enter PhatNotes to try and solve that problem.<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>The Main Interface</b></span> <br />After installing PhatNotes, a typically painless procedure, the interface of the application is pretty straightforward. It’s not until you do some measure of customization that you really get to see the power of organization that this program has, but we’ll get to that in a minute.<br />The main screen gives you some typical menus: New, Edit, View, and Tools, as well as a combo box to filter the note’s categories you want to view. The Edit menu gives you your typical Copy, Delete and Find functions, and also included the ability to password protect a note.<br />The View menu is where you can start to customize your organization and viewing of your notes. You can filter by criteria, group your notes by creation date, category, color you assigned to the note, etc. The View menu also gives you menu selections for getting statistics on your entire PhatNotes database (you can create multiple databases) and changing the font the main screen uses.<br /><br />The Tools menu gives you options for managing your PhatNotes database (create a new database, backup your existing database, etc.). It also gives you options for sending notes via email or IR, importing or exporting your notes as standard CSV files and the ever present “options” selection. We’ll get to the options shortly, but there are a lot, so let’s look at writing notes, first.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-aug04-phatnotes-1.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 1: The main screen.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Writing Notes</b></span> <br />Tapping the new button takes you into a new note. At the top is the oh-so-simple key to PhatNotes success: The Category combo box! The contents have a few standard selections like Fax, Comment, and Meeting. But what is so nice about this feature is that you don’t have to go to another screen to add new categories. If what you want isn’t there, just type in a new item and it will remember it from then on.<br /><br />There is also a space for a subject and then, of course, room for the note itself. The note is rich text, which is a huge step up from the standard Notes application. I even have to admit, I think the layout of the toolbar and formatting layout is even better than Pocket Word!<br /><br />From within the note creation screen, you can, again, create another new note, delete the note you’re working on, password protect the note you’re working on, and do all your standard find/replace work. In addition, however, you can also import and export from/to other text documents (.txt, .psw, and .rtf), set authoring date, attach other files, link to other notes, embed voice recordings, digital ink (only from PhatPad, not from the native Notes application).<br /><br />You can also do such neat tricks as insert any or all information from any or all of your contacts, set alarm notifications, create Tasks and Appointments in the native Pocket PC applications.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-aug04-phatnotes-2.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 2: The formating power of PhatNotes.</i> <br /><br /><span><b>Quick! To The Options Screen!</b></span> <br />Where to begin in this massive options screen? Well there are a bunch of tabs and on those tabs are… options. Tons of them! <br /><br />The first tab deals with viewing options. Hiding the default category, showing a preview pane on the main screen, add gridlines to the screen. The list goes on, including a really great way to expand your notes organization efforts. Remember earlier I said you can create multiple PhatNotes databases? Well, you can also add a folder view of all the databases you’ve created. So you could create a database for work and personal, then have a folder view to keep personal notes from cavorting with your business items!<br /><br />Moving on to the second tab, you can setup such options as the default color, category, and priority of a new note. You can also setup the default notification time for any alerts you set within the program.<br />The third tab is simply a way that you can select what columns you want to see on your main screen. Choices include subject, category, modified (date and/or time), authored, and created (date and/or time).<br /><br />The fourth and fifth tabs set up how you sort your notes on the main page and a few convenient aspects of the voice recording. Namely, where to store you recordings (it defaults to the root of your My Documents folder) and a prefix for each file.<br /><br />Finally, the last tab (phew), sets a few random options for the note editor. Things like enabling formatting, and copying a note’s subject, category, body, etc., to a new task or appointment.<br /><br />Put simply, there are a LOT of options. Phatware has taken just about everything into consideration when it comes to customizing your note organization options.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-aug04-phatnotes-3.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 3: Options abound.</i> <br /><br /><b><span>Conclusions</span></b> <br />So this is the perfect application, right? Very sadly, I have to say no or, at least, not yet. PhatNotes is billed as a Notes replacement. In fact, with the Standard and Professional version, it synchronizes with Outlook’s Notes. By doing this, it set a single expectation that it did not fill for me.<br />That expectation is digital ink. There is no way to pop open PhatNotes and quickly jot a handwritten note, like you can with the built-in Notes application. Instead all notes have to be written using any other input method. The only way to make use of digital ink is by also purchasing Phatware’s PhatPad and even then you’re attaching ink, much like attaching a Word document to an email, as opposed to being able to write directly in the note.<br /><br />In the end, PhatNotes is a fantastic application, but to be honest, it is likely I’ll use it as more of a Pocket World replacement than a Notes replacement.