XNotesPlus: Users Guide - XNotes
- What is an XNote?
- The File Menu
- The Notes Menu
- Hidden Notes
- Cascaded Notes
- Categorizing using Projects
What is an XNote?
An XNote represents on of those little yellow sticky notes you use everyday.
The primary difference between the two is that the flexability of an XNote
goes way beyond the foldability of its paper cousins.
Each XNote is made up of two parts (plus the scrollbar): A text window
where the text of the note is stored and a menu bar. To enter text into an
XNote, simply move the mouse cursor into the text window and start typing.
Use the mouse buttons and arrow keys to move around the window and for
manipulating the selections for cut-and-paste operations. A number of
translations - ie keyboard shortcuts - are available. See the section on
Keyboard Shortcuts for more details.
The menu bar has four icons, each with its own menu. The first two icons
are, by default, small gray circles. The leftmost circle is for alarms, the
next one for anchors. The next icon, the file icon is for file operations
such as saving or emailing the note. The last icon is the notes icon, which
is used to access features such as naming the note, assigning it to a
project or inserting a calendar.
Clicking the left mouse button on the first icon shows the alarms menu.
There are two options: Set Alarm and Disable Alarm. To set a notes alarm,
select "Set Alarm" from the alarms pull down menu. A window pops up with
month, day, hour and minute fields. The default for each of these is the
last alarm time that had been set (if no alarm had ever been set for a note
then the time is actually the time the note was created). Use the arrow
buttons on either side of each value to set each field to the day and time
you wish the alarm to go off. You can use the Toggle button to reset the
fields to the current time. When the alarm expires, a small window will pop
up reminding you for which note the alarm had been set.
Beneath the alarm settings is a scrolled list of audio files you can choose
to play when the alarm goes off. You don't have to play an audio file, its
just available if you'd like to. A few default audio files should have been
in the distribution you received. If you choose an audio file to play you
will also need to select the number of times to play it. The Repeat field
should be set to something other than 0 or else the audio alarm won't play.
Playing audio alarms requires that an application that can play the files
be installed and XNotesPlus is configured to use it properly. See the
section on Configuring The Audio Command.
If you wish to save this value between invokations you should use either
the notes "Save" option or the "Save All Notes" option from the plaid
windows menu. When a notes alarm is set the gray icon will be replaced with
an icon of a clock (or wristwatch, if you like).
To turn off the a notes alarm, select "Unset Alarm" from the menu. This
will disable the alarm for that note and remove the clock icon from the
menu bar, returning it to the gray circle.
Next to the alarms menu is the anchor menu. This menu has only two options:
Set Anchor and Disable Anchor. These do pretty much as you'd expect. An
anchored note is one that will be at the bottom of the stack of notes when
you cascade them. Only one of the two options in this menu will be active
at any given time. If the "Set Anchor" option is active, then the note is
not currently anchored. If the "Disable Anchor" is active, then the note is
currently set as an anchored note. When anchored, the anchor icon changes
from the gray dot to an icon in the shape of an anchor.
The File Menu
Each XNote has a menubar with multiple menus.
The File menu contains options pertaining to file input and output for the
current XNote.
Save
After entering text in the XNote, you may wish to save the note in a
disk file using the file menus "Save" option. This way, if the machine
goes down due to power failure, or if you simply exit xnotes+, the note can
be restored when you restart the program. XNotes are also saved
automatically (if saveNotes is true) if a SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGTERM, or
SIGQUIT signal is received. Using "kill -9" on the xnotes+ process,
however, will not allow changes to be saved. If you need to kill xnotes+
manually, use the "kill -s HUP " or "kill -s TERM" commands instead, and
only use "kill -9" if all else fails.
To save the note to a disk file, click on the file icon and select the
"Save" menu item. The note will be saved as the file "noteN" in your notes
directory, where N is some number. Saving a note means to save it in the
XNote format under whatever directory has been configured using the
--notedir command line option or the noteDir config file entry.
It should be pointed out that the "Save" menu item will not allow you
to save unless something has been typed in the text window of the note, the
name of the note has been changed, the project has changed for the note, or
the text of the note has been erased. This is a good way of checking if
you've made changes to the note. If the Save menu item is "insensitive"
(grayed-out) then you haven't made any changes to the note or any changes
have already been saved.
It is important to remember that if you have disabled the auto-save
(--sv) feature then the note will not be saved until you have used the
"Save" menu item. Because of this, disabling the auto-save feature is not
recommended. You can also make sure changed notes get saved on exit by
enabling the Save on Exit feature.
Open
Used for importing a file into the note. The imported file must be an
ordinary text file or the results of importing will be indeterminate. The
imported file is inserted at the current cursor location.
Merge
Opens a list of available notes. Select the notes to merge into the
current note, then click on the Accept button. The notes will be merged
into the current note IN THE ORDER SELECTED. The Cancel button will close
the dialog without merging any notes.
Export
Used for saving the text contents of the note to a non-XNotes (ie a
regular) file. Only the text of the note is saved. Project and note name
information is not exported.
Find
Simple search utility that will find a specified string in the note
from which the Search dialog was opened. The search can be done forward
from the current cursor location or backwards. The search does not wrap
when it reaches the end or beginning of the note. Searches are currently
case sensitive.
Spell Check
Notes can be spell checked using an external spell checking tool
compatible with "ispell" ("aspell" is the default but this can be
configured in the XNotesPlus.cfg file). Click on the Start button to begin
checking the text. The Stop button stops the process. Questionable words
are displayed in the "Current Word" field. Make changes in this field and
click on Modify Word to update the note. Skip Word will move
to the next misspelled word, if any. Learn Word will save the
Current Word in your personal dictionary. When finished, click on
the Done button to close the dialog.
Print
Prints the note using the defined printer command. See the
--printcmd
command line option for details on configuring this. Selecting this option
causes the note to be printed immediately, if possible. No dialogs are
opened with the Print option.
Note:You can now configure Print to use CUPS configured printers.
To use this feature, you must compile XNotesPlus using the USE_CUPS option.
See the config.h file for compile time configuration options. By default,
this option is not enabled.
Email
Opens a small window in which you can type or select an email address.
When you click on the Accept button the note is emailed to the specified
recipient using the notes name as the subject of the message. Typing in an
address in the text field and then hitting ENTER will also email the
message. An address must be specified or an error message will pop up if
you hit Accept or the ENTER key. The list of email addresses gets populated
when this window is used in conjunction with the Address Manager. Selecting
an entry from the Address Manager that has one or more email addresses
associated with it will have those addresses added to the list of email
addresses in the Email dialog.
The Notes Menu
The Notes menu contains items for managing individual notes: Hide, Erase,
Destroy, Name, Project, and Insert Date.
Hide
To hide a note, you can click on the Notes menu icon and select it's
"Hide" menu item. This will cause the note to disappear from the screen.
The note is still available, it's just not visible. To bring the note back,
select the "Hidden Notes" option from the Plaid Window's main menu. Then
select the note you wish to make visible again.
Erase
To erase the entire contents of the text window, you can click on the
Notes menu icon and select the "Erase" menu item. The erase is performed
immediately and cannot be undone. The note is saved automatically by the
AutoSave feature if you have not disabled it or if you choose the
File->Save option of the "Save All Notes" option in the Plaid menu.
Destroy
To destroy an XNote, getting rid of its window on the screen and the
disk file it is saved in, click on the notes menu icon and select the
"Destroy" menu item. This will bring up a confirmation window with an
"Accept" and a "Close" button. Clicking on accept will close the window
and remove the associated file from disk. This process cannot be undone.
The close button will cancel the destroy operation.
Name
A notes name appears on the window managers title bar (if you have
these displayed - check your window manager configuration guides for
information on enabling or disabling these). To rename a note, you can
click on the notes icon and select the "Name" menu item. This will bring
up a dialog box, which has two buttons labeled "Confirm" and "Cancel"
as well as a field to enter text for the new name. If you press the
"Confirm" button, the new name will be placed in the title bar of the
note. If you press the "Cancel" button, the operation is canceled. If you
type in a name in the text field and then hit ENTER, this has the same
effect as hitting "Confirm" button and the name of the note will be
changed.
Project
The Project option in the notes menu allows you to select one of the
previously configured projects to associate with this note. The dialog is
similar to the one accessed from the Plaid Window's main menu except this
one does not allow you to modify the projects. You can only select a
project here. Once selected, the notes background color will change to
match the selected project's color.
Insert Date
Adding the date and time is done using the "Insert Date..." option
from the notes menu. A dialog box providing a variety of formats is
presented. Select the format desired by clicking on the format string and
then click on "Accept". The text string will be inserted at the current
cursor location. You can also choose between using abbreviated and full
Weekday and Month names, and between using the computer's local time or
convert the time to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). Be sure to position the
cursor in the note text prior to clicking on Accept.
Hidden Notes
Hidden notes are a convenient way of keeping data for long periods without
cluttering your desktop. To hide a note, select a note's "Hide" option
from its Notes menu. This will cause the note to disappear from the screen.
To bring the note back, select the "Hidden Notes" option from the Plaid
Window's main menu. Then select the note you wish to make visible again.
Once hidden, a note stays hidden until you recall it with the Hidden Notes
option. Once visible, the note stays visible until you hide it again.
This is true in both cases even if you exit the program and start it again.
Cascaded Notes
Notes can be organized on your display to be laid out like a hand of cards.
This is called "cascading" and is accomplished in two steps. The first is
to select the notes which will act as anchors. All other notes will be
cascaded from those anchor notes. To make a note an anchor, select the
Anchor menu (the 2nd ball from the left in the menu bar of a note) and
choose the "Set Anchor" option. To disable this feature, select "Disable
Anchor".
Once all the anchor notes have been set, choose the "Cascade Notes" option
from the Plaid Window main menu. All non-anchor notes will then be placed
on the anchors, with the non-anchor notes distributed evenly between the
anchor notes.
Categorizing using Projects
A Project is just a name and a color, nothing more. You specify a project
name, give it a color, and later assign notes to that project. Once
assigned, the notes text background will assume the color specified for
that project.
Projects are defined through the Projects dialog, accessible from the main
menu's "Projects" option. XNotesPlus uses the GTK+ Color Selection dialog
to choose a color. This is a nice in that you're only likely to get
available colors no matter what color depth to which your display is set.
To select a color, left mouse click on the "Sample Note Text".
You need only type in the new Project name and then click on the "Sample
Note Text" to open the Color Selection dialog. Once you've selected a
color, close the Color Selection dialog, then click on the Accept button in
the Projects dialog. The new project will be added to the end of the list
of available projects.
You can change the color of an existing project by clicking on the projects
name. The project name is displayed in the text field and the sample text
background is updated with the currently configured color. Just select
another color and click on the Accept button. The update is immediate. When
you are done with configuring projects just click on the Close button at
the bottom of the dialog.
A sample projects file should have been part of the distribution you
received. This file is ordinary text and you can hand edit it by hand if
you prefer. However, you're probably better off letting XNotesPlus manage
this file for you.
In order to assign a note to a specific project you simply choose the
"Projects" option from the notes menu in the XNote you wish to update.
The Change Project dialog opens with a scrolled list of projects to choose
from and a bit of sample text to show what the effect will be. When you've
made your selection, click on the Accept button and the note will
automatically be updated. Don't forget to save the note!
|