Additional Formatting..and More
I'd like to first say how amazed I am with this app. I came across it just yesterday and I'm already hooked. But the one major drawback that keeps me from going Pro or migrating to NoteAway from MiniNote (formally NotesTab) is the lack of an iOS app. I'm aware this is on the dev's todo list.
I do have some little features I'd like to see in the future:
• Title bar at the top of the note
• Wishful, not sure if .rtf supports all of these:
- Line button that adds a sectioning line to the note.
- Grid button for inserting simple tables
- Checkboxes for checklists
• Option to turn the toolbar always on. Also, I noticed that the toolbar is moveable, but it doesn't retain its position. It goes back centered with the text window, but doesn't take into account the note list if it's on the left or right, it triggers my OCD. =/
• It's very weird that it says I'd have to contact the dev to view/restore the backups, making the backup feature partially useless if I can't restore the notes on my own. Needs to be fully functional.
• I'm being picky with this, but if we could optionally see just the title of the notes in the note list without the one line of content, but showing the attachment symbol, that would be awesome.
That's all for now, thanks!
- I may go ahead and go Pro just to support this great app even without the release of an iOS app. And sorry, I'm a heavy critic when it comes to note-taking apps.
I like this idea
Thanks for getting in touch, I really appreciate your enthusiasm about NoteAway :-)
I'm about to answer each of your questions in order, so reading them in the paragraph form may come out weird ;-P
About a title bar at the top of the note, are you saying you want to be able to add a title that is separate from the notes contents? This is something I have avoided because of how I envisioned NoteAway. I didn't want multiple fields to tab or click through. I've felt that the first line of the contents of a note is enough to serve as a title. But, I know others have wanted a proper title like is present in other apps.
I'll look into some kind of sectioning line. I know HTML has this feature. I'm actually not sure if it's something RTF can do natively, but I bet I could figure out some kind of solution. But it depending on how clean I can make it to see if I'm comfortable putting it in a release.
You should already be able to insert table like you can do in TextEdit... There is a menu item in the Format menu of NoteAway called "Table..." with the shortcut "Control+Shift+T" to insert a table.
Checkboxes for lists is much more complicated and not something natively supported by OS X textareas or RTF files. But, Apple is doing that in the new Notes app for OS X 10.11 El Capitan, so maybe there will be an easy way to bring that functionality into NoteAway on El Cap. I'll have to look into that further.
You can show and hide the Format Bar with the shortcut "Control+Shift+F" but there is currently no way to keep it always visible. I'll consider that for the future.
I also chose to have the Format Bar always show up centered over the text area, but I can reconsider this decision for a future update. We'll see.
About Restoring from backups. I wanted to make sure NoteAway was keeping backups, but decided to release a version before I had finished a Restoring interface. I figured it was better to have the backups there even if I wasn't ready with a Restore interface. I know that's weird, but I chose to get the backups going for everyone before the rest was finished. I will have a Restore UI in the future.
I can see that a smaller list option could be nice, but that would probably come later down the road, I've got other bigger things to focus on before that.
Thanks for these ideas! I've made some notes and will respond back here if any changes make their way into NoteAway.
Thanks for getting in touch, I really appreciate your enthusiasm about NoteAway :-)
I'm about to answer each of your questions in order, so reading them in the paragraph form may come out weird ;-P
About a title bar at the top of the note, are you saying you want to be able to add a title that is separate from the notes contents? This is something I have avoided because of how I envisioned NoteAway. I didn't want multiple fields to tab or click through. I've felt that the first line of the contents of a note is enough to serve as a title. But, I know others have wanted a proper title like is present in other apps.
I'll look into some kind of sectioning line. I know HTML has this feature. I'm actually not sure if it's something RTF can do natively, but I bet I could figure out some kind of solution. But it depending on how clean I can make it to see if I'm comfortable putting it in a release.
You should already be able to insert table like you can do in TextEdit... There is a menu item in the Format menu of NoteAway called "Table..." with the shortcut "Control+Shift+T" to insert a table.
Checkboxes for lists is much more complicated and not something natively supported by OS X textareas or RTF files. But, Apple is doing that in the new Notes app for OS X 10.11 El Capitan, so maybe there will be an easy way to bring that functionality into NoteAway on El Cap. I'll have to look into that further.
You can show and hide the Format Bar with the shortcut "Control+Shift+F" but there is currently no way to keep it always visible. I'll consider that for the future.
I also chose to have the Format Bar always show up centered over the text area, but I can reconsider this decision for a future update. We'll see.
About Restoring from backups. I wanted to make sure NoteAway was keeping backups, but decided to release a version before I had finished a Restoring interface. I figured it was better to have the backups there even if I wasn't ready with a Restore interface. I know that's weird, but I chose to get the backups going for everyone before the rest was finished. I will have a Restore UI in the future.
I can see that a smaller list option could be nice, but that would probably come later down the road, I've got other bigger things to focus on before that.
Thanks for these ideas! I've made some notes and will respond back here if any changes make their way into NoteAway.
• The title bar would just be the first line of the note..like it is on the note list.. But also appearing at the top of the corresponding note. This is the menubar note app I currently use and desperately want to migrate from after a year of meager dev support.
• And wow, didn't realize there was a menu for the app. I disabled the dock icon almost immediately and just realized I could right-click the menubar icon to access the menu. For now I'll get used to shortcuts for stuff like showing the format bar.
> One last thing I'd be happy to see addressed is when you have a scrollable list active and say you're anywhere but the top, leave the note and come back, the note will always automatically go to the top of the list rather than back to the exact spot you left it. It's super annoying. :(
Thanks for the quick and thorough response. I do look forward to future updates.
• The title bar would just be the first line of the note..like it is on the note list.. But also appearing at the top of the corresponding note. This is the menubar note app I currently use and desperately want to migrate from after a year of meager dev support.
• And wow, didn't realize there was a menu for the app. I disabled the dock icon almost immediately and just realized I could right-click the menubar icon to access the menu. For now I'll get used to shortcuts for stuff like showing the format bar.
> One last thing I'd be happy to see addressed is when you have a scrollable list active and say you're anywhere but the top, leave the note and come back, the note will always automatically go to the top of the list rather than back to the exact spot you left it. It's super annoying. :(
Thanks for the quick and thorough response. I do look forward to future updates.
Seeking through Notes lists with the up/down arrow keys is another crucial capability that's lacking.
Seeking through Notes lists with the up/down arrow keys is another crucial capability that's lacking.
I'll think more about adding the title at the top of the window. It feels a bit like unnecessary UI complexity, but I can imagine the utility when scrolling longer notes and such.
I've made a note to add remembering the scroll position when re-opening NoteAway. This is a good idea, thanks :-)
About seeking through notes with the up/down arrows key, I can't use just the up and down arrow keys because those are active for the text area to move between lines in a note.
But, I do have a slightly different shortcut to move up and down the notes list. It's Option+(Up/Down) Arrow. You can find this shortcut in the Edit > Select Note menu. there's also shortcuts to select ordered notes in the list.
I'll think more about adding the title at the top of the window. It feels a bit like unnecessary UI complexity, but I can imagine the utility when scrolling longer notes and such.
I've made a note to add remembering the scroll position when re-opening NoteAway. This is a good idea, thanks :-)
About seeking through notes with the up/down arrows key, I can't use just the up and down arrow keys because those are active for the text area to move between lines in a note.
But, I do have a slightly different shortcut to move up and down the notes list. It's Option+(Up/Down) Arrow. You can find this shortcut in the Edit > Select Note menu. there's also shortcuts to select ordered notes in the list.
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