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Last post Author Topic: NoteZilla  (Read 63556 times)

Steven Avery

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NoteZilla
« on: June 03, 2009, 11:20 AM »
Basic Info

App NameNoteZilla
App URLhttp://www.conceptworld.com/NoteZilla/
App Version ReviewedNoteZilla 7.0 Build 85 Nov 12, 2008
Test System SpecsWindows XP SP3
Supported OSesWindows 2000, XP, Vista
Support MethodsEmail, very open to discussion
Upgrade PolicyNoteZilla 8 should be available in Aug-Sep next year (2010). And the upgrade price planned to be 30%-40% less of original price.
Trial Version Available?30-day
Pricing SchemeNoteZilla $29.95 (1 person, 2 puters used only by the 1 person) Portable USB $39.95 Sliding discounts on multi-licenses and packs.  Also watch DonationCoder and BitsDuJour.
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product None.  Inhabitants of the same teeming megalopolis.

Intro:
NoteZilla takes the concept of sticky note software to a fine art.  

The first thing to see is that NoteZilla was very stable in my use.  And consistently esthetically pleasing.  You can navigate menus and right-clicks at leisure and find the features, the author will try to answer any puzzles you hit by email and the color and shape and utility of the notes are very flexible.  

One key feature of any power-user sticky note software will be the Auto-See and Auto-Hide function. (I will use this expression in the review, it goes by many names and descriptions.) Linking to programs and web pages and documents .. working through the Windows API for the description of a window .. so that a particular note comes up automatically as an auxiliary to the page or program or document and then hides when the item gives up focus. (Unless you pin the note to the desktop or are working on the note).  

Not realizing this capability existed, I had discarded sticky notes a while back as impractical, sticking with Keynote-NF for note software, a fine program with no sticky capabilities.  Yet the Auto-See-Hide feature exists in a few note products.  Now with this capability understood the question is in reverse .. how much usage to give the sticky notes ?  Since they are so effective and fit into a daily puter usage mix, as they no longer have the tendency to get in the way (also you use the "pinning" feature to reduce real estate for notes in and out of use).

Another feature for power use is that the notes must have a strong central data repository that has multiple features for organizing and searching.  This is not immediately obvious when you think of sticky notes, since your paper notes tend to get crumpled and discarded and mixed-up and you thought the program was just to put a few notes on the screen.  This repository (the well-designed "NoteZilla Notes Browser") is what allows a program like NoteZilla to contend to become your main note program. To either augment or supplant programs like Keynote-NF or Treepad.

Note though that NoteZilla - despite its use for ToDo and reminders, makes little effort to be an all-purpose PIM or to integrate with web snippets. And NoteZilla, and sticky note programs in general, lacks significant functions of the dedicated notes programs. More sophisticated searching and macros as well as word processing style text manipulation. As you move more into project planning and organization and less into notes/reminders you will hit the wall with a sticky note program.  

For Screen Shots NoteZilla has a fairly fine series of 11.
http://www.conceptwo...lla/nz_pictour_1.asp

Here are a couple, on the web-pages is additional NoteZilla explanatory notes on the left, these pics here are actually more how your screen appears. Time permitting I may update these a bit with my own pics.  Mouser and all, thanks for the include-pic-explanation thread !

On this first pic I am not sure if the bubble-annotation-style note is from NoteZilla ! (Either a feature I missed or a bit of picture-fudge using another program, research in process.)

Stickies on Windows Desktop.jpg

On this next pic notice that the MemoBoards do allow sub-folders. Quite easily in fact. (Thus some corrections came to the review). This pic is missing an important element .. the filters which supply a lot of the extra power can be in the lower left .. or the full left if you hide the memoboards. I will plan to pic including the filter area later. Another important element missing in this pic .. the full sortable columns, will also be included.  Overall, you can see the clarity and cleanness of working within the Notes Browser, one of the key elements to NoteZilla.

Notes Browser.jpg

Next we see how far NoteZilla has taken the tags so far.  When there is more than one (not shown) it is simply in the same box, separated by a column.  So tags at this time are essentially one-level use. Still very nice and helpful, yet more can be done.

Tags.jpg

Reminders are done nicely.  This next pic (the popup box at the bottom right of the pic .. the screen itself is a tad color-gaudy) is what you see when the reminder is happening.  You have options for sound or not, to let it buzz for x seconds, put in your own .wav file and bring up the source note.  The "Set Reminder" screen (not shown) is where there are two tabs, one for the basic action and one for recurring entries.  

Reminders.jpg

And for the DonationCoder techies, the pic of the export page.

Export Notes.jpg

Who is this app designed for:
NoteZilla can be for the techie keeping notes on dozens of issues and projects and ToDos and programs.  Using a multi-searchable and sortable free-lance data repository. And sharing the notes with others.

As an example, my first real productive usage was to link notes to program support, such as Online Armor, so that when the OA config box goes up by my directive, my wip questions for their forum come up as well in a NoteZilla note, a note which will include any helpful forum links.

Or it can be for the home user keeping some notes handy for shopping and wanting little reminders and todos and when to pay bills and make appointments and this and that.  The more tech elements (ie. attaching a file or a picture, setting up tags for filing, linking to a program) can be ignored for light use.

The NoteZilla website front page has a few dozen examples. "But, what will I use this program for?"  For many of those I would continue with my existing PIM, which in my case is my bookmark program Linkman, since I have it well-trained to show maximum information on minimum effort.  

Ironically one place where I definitely plan to use NoteZilla was not listed.

Screen capture annotation. Easy capture programs like WinSnap and Purrint and MWSnap do not have an annotation feature (Screenshot Captor and the higher-end commercial programs have this feature).  However you can simply bring up a new note before taking the picture, give the note the placement and color and style (skin) and text that fits best ("My firewall gave me this error msg after I installed Program XYZ"). And then take the picture. Thus you have filled in for the missing feature and can even save the text in your notes, and, in reverse, maneuver to put the resulting picture inside the note !

The Good
First, the two features above are of great interest for my usage.

Auto-See & Auto-Hide
"Attach a sticky note to any document, website, program or window. Great advantage!"

Tagging
"Tags are like keywords or labels that you can assign to sticky notes in order to group them and find them easily. By adding tags you can group your sticky notes by topics, projects, contexts or anything else that is important to you."

Tagging allows flexible grouping of any notes by an additional filter system. Adding to the "note repository" function.  NoteZilla has a strong MemoBoard filtering (e.g. show all notes with Reminders or Starred and sort them by reminder date using the one-click sortable column feature).  However so far it looks like the Tagging is in early implementation and is not included in the filtering system except appearing in a sortable column (which loses functionality when there is more than one tag for a note).

There are a large number of excellent features that can only get quick mention here.

First there is the niceness of transparencies and color and RTF flexibilities and skins and tiling and cascading and separate title editing and text and various ways to size and hide and stick and roll up and down the windows.  These are all done well in NoteZilla and the best is simply to test it out for awhile to see how the basics work.

Reminders with recurring events is a semi-basic Sticky Note feature well-implemented in NoteZilla. If you don't have a reminder program in a PIM or elsewhere (I do not) NoteZilla will fill this function admirably.  

The search function is definitely solid and sufficient, essentially NoteZilla "Finds" all the notes that have the searched-for-texts (with word/string and case options).  And as you look at each found note the text is highlighted (although not in the title, possibly an oversight to be improved).  

Here is my short list of semi-special features.

Picture insert (works excellently !)
Attaching Files and Folder (e.g. a picture is "attached" that will come up in a viewer when the attachment is clicked or a file will be executed by its associated program).
Checklist, bullets numbering
Priority
Spell Check
Hotkeys
Password
Solid flexible export (.html .txt .db) and import (.txt .db)
Portable functionality.
Contact list for emailing and sharing notes
Network sharing

The needs improvement section
More in the concept of enhancement than "needs improvement".

Enhancement request:
It would be nice to see a feature where the linking is to ANY webpage with the text "DonationCoder" in the window text.  And not just a specific web-page. This is done by GoScreen, a virtual screen manager, and requires some extra programmer effort and would be worthwhile.

Long-term Enhancement Request:
Enhanced PIM functionality/integration in various ways or form.  The principle one I see is a calendar integration coming out of the reminder system.  This could be program enhancement or export to an .ics (iCalendar) file for import to another dedicated calendar program.  

Another longer-term consideration is adding phone #s to the contact and some other information and then having contact-note linkage.   So that you scan your contacts and have the phone # and whatever put right into the note.  You would also have a view of notes for a contact.

Bugs and annoyances were few and far between.  I asked the developer to consider putting the "hide" button on the other side of the top-bar so you might not accidentally hide a work-in-process.  Gautam responded favorably, and thought it a good idea for consideration. (Generally he either showed me a feature I had missed or looked upon the suggestions favorably or for consideration.) Online Armor had a few extra unusual prompts at time that I had to repeat. Essentially I have hit no bugs or annoyances of note.

And I also asked the developer Gautam to consider a "Properties" tag similar to his "Statistics" section.  I was not able to determine what pages a note was linked to (not even in the Notes Browser).  Thus all the pertinent information about a note (including linked pages and files and folders and other properties) would be best easily visible on a right-click option.

Another feature request was a hotkey capability for a specific note. All hotkeys now are NoteZilla global functions.

A minor request was an option to simply keep the excellent top-bar up, rather than requiring a mouse-hover or mouse-click or key to unhide the bar.  The reason it is not up is that it detracts from the super-simple "Sticky Note" appearance, yet I think it actually often adds to appearance and functionality.

Also a request to make the "Title" line more distinctive than it is currently (color, underlining-sectioning) although actually you can accomplish some of that with default colors and fonts, as the Title line is kept distinct in applying RTF attributes and has a separate default.  Also if you ask to have a note tagged with date and time, that ends up starting out as the Title-line until you edit it.  A smidgen unelegant, I would rather open up right to the title awaiting my input.

=====

There were two lacks that I found notable. Both may be more in the line of "newish feature -- and .. nobody asked about it yet".  (Also I may have missed some functionalities.)

1) The lack of an easy way to see the Auto-See linkages from the note itself, or even from the Note Browser. They are only triggered when the program or web page or document opens.

2) NoteZilla is not yet oriented toward full multi-tagging.  Multi-tagging is possible, but will not help in grouping (filters). The second tag will simply be listed to the right of the first in a row view in the Note Browser, as a sort field and to show what tags a note was placed in.  They have no function within the filtering section, which is their most natural power-use.  This grouping functionality is a feature that is strong in some ToDo lists programs and was strong when I used Time & Chaos.  Once NoteZilla includes user-defined multiple groups, it becomes important to give them fuller function.

Why I think you should use this product
NoteZilla sticky notes are surprisingly versatile.

The Auto-See-Hide feature of linking with a document or program or web-page is such a powerful feature, combined with a fine interface, that I highly recommend at least trying a program with these features.

The Notes Browser (data repository) is excellent, the key feature of searching and collecting and organizing.  

On the lighter level there are freeware alternatives, yet many would prefer NoteZilla.  

On the techie level NoteZilla is simply a sweet software.  Price is very moderate for a daily-use software so I recommend not economizing on a lesser program unless you are extremely comfortable with the program.

How does it compare to similar apps
NoteZilla appears to be the standard bearer, the measuring line.

Stickies by Zhorn is a very competent freeware product that does have the linking to url and programs feature, yet lacks the tagging and is lighter in general in elements like filtering.  With Stickies I did not feel as comfortable, and missed the top bar on NoteZilla which is very nice.  (Giving you options to hide, roll/up or pin the note and showing you whether there is a reminder or attachment and quick access to the full note menu and allowing you to work in an intuitive and visual fashion.)  Overall I felt NoteZilla was superior for active use, while Stickies might be fine for lighter use. Note: I may have missed aspects of how to use StickyNotes, in my brief usage periods.

Post-it Digital Notes by 3M is a commercial competitor.  One article on DonationCoder lamented how they botched the upgrade and transition to the new version, which is what can happen with corporate software.  Plus I do not see the Auto-See-Hide feature and tagging in the blurb.

There have been some attempts to add sticky notes to PIM or web applications, working in reverse.  None have stood out in my research to date. Google Sticky Notes and Exstora (mentioned in some portable apps pages) are two.

There are many other shareware and freeware and donationware stickies.  I will try to list many of them with a url and note in a separate post, noting here a few names that seemed substantive.

Freeware & Donationware - NoteIt by Veign, PrestoNotes, NetNote, Stickit, Freebie Notes, hott notes, Wirenote (more PIM features but no active development)

Shareware - Power Notes, Magic Notes, TurboNote+, NetNote 6 and Server

In some cases, like NetNote, you have a freeware and commercial product.

Conclusions
NoteZilla simply does its job, and well.  NoteZilla is under continual development with an active and helpful software author.  A webforum or at least an email forum would be an excellent addition, although less critical on an app like this than a lower-level utility like a security app or a virtual screen monitor.

Links to other reviews of this application
These two reviews were linked to from the NoteZilla pages.

Notezilla Review - Free Downloads
http://www.free-down...les/Notezilla_Review

PC World - editorial review
http://www.pcworld.c...e,1/description.html

Not many reviews,  Lifehacker only has it in favorable comments, the program cannot qualify for the excellent freeware reviews like Gizmo or FreewareGenius.  Even Fileforum and Snapfiles only have a smidgen.

Overall, I enjoyed studying for this review, like homework, compelling me to learn a ton more about the program in a few hours !  Helpful to me, hopefully to you as well.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
« Last Edit: June 03, 2009, 07:23 PM by Steven Avery »

mouser

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2009, 11:23 AM »
Great stuff  :up:

cranioscopical

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2009, 11:37 AM »
Nice review, Steven  :up:

app103

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2009, 12:35 PM »
Ack! You beat me to it. I was working on a review for this, too.

This is a great application with a lot of power.

One of the uses I have used sticky note memoboards for is project planning, and NoteZilla's tree style memoboards is superior to the 12 tab single-level limit imposed by a similar application I used to use. Notezilla's memoboards can have sub-boards, which can have sub-boards!  :-*

Scheduling of alarms show when an item is overdue, and by how much. Great anti-procrastination feature.

You can also set a due date but schedule the alarm to ring before it, giving you enough time to make sure you don't miss it or end up late. So for example, you can set a due date on a birthday reminder to be the actual birthday date, but tell it to remind you a week or 2 in advance, so you have enough time to buy a gift or mail a card.

Being able to stick notes to web pages, without the need of supporting specific browsers through the use of plugins is fantastic. Some sticky notes applications only support IE, or require an extension in Firefox, and no support for other browsers like K-meleon, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. NoteZilla supports them all, without plugins.

The only issue with it is that if you stick a note to a page in one browser, it will not pop up when you visit that same page in another browser, but if you stick to a single browser, that wouldn't be much of an issue unless you decide to make a switch to something else. I am using this to stick notes to profiles on social networking sites, to remind me who people are, why I am following them, and anything else I might want to remember about them.

Searching notes is fast, and it is quite easy to filter by tags if you use Advanced Find:

SNAG-00391.png

And the greatest feature, and the primary reason why I switched applications: It has options to export your entire database in a non-proprietary format! (choices: tab delimited txt for importing to Excel & Outlook, HTML, each note to a seperate txt file, or a NoteZilla db)

As far as bugs and annoyances, there were a few I found that you didn't mention.

taskbar button flashing on alarms- I would love to see an option to turn that off. It makes my large hidden taskbar fly out halfway across my screen, covering whatever I am doing.

z-order foul up - When the alarm window pops up, it messes up the ability for application windows that are supposed to always be on top to have the ability to do so, until you dismiss the alarm and click the windows affected. This affects a number of things on my desktop, including my taskbar, Launchbar Commander, my clock, Trout minibar, Messenger Plus desktop contact buttons, etc. It's a real pain to have to minimize windows to find and click everything affected every time an alarm rings.

But all in all it's a great application and I am quite pleased wth it.

And if you would like to give it a try, there is a generous 30% discount for DC members.

Steven Avery

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2009, 12:48 PM »
Hi Folks,

Thanks app103.  Great points up and down the line, some of them I will have to play with and see.  (You know the software issues here with more background, I am pretty new to this stuff and had to enroll myself into Sticky Note School.)  

You could still put in a separate review in toto, especially if you had already written a bunch up, I appreciate what you shared above and any ideas you have about these softwares. Although I did have a fun time punching this thing out, you end up spending a few more hours than expected.  Earlier I sort-of did announce (buried on another thread) that I planned to do this review.  A few days ago, to be eligible for the end-of-May extension Total Commander thingie !  Sometimes a real deadline (which I may have made) acts as a super-spur.  The linkage was made easier since NoteZilla and TC are two of my fav programs, I would never force a review simply for a shot at a nice license, the idea of doing my first review on NoteZilla seemed very sensible, especially after we had some threads that really did not give the full picture.  One thing I simply did not have the time or inclination to do was to reload alternative softwares likes Stickies or PrestoNotes (two I have used) or new others. Maybe if they were part of a PIM and also had a strong feature set I would give another a try at this time.

Oh yeah, off to work.  (A pic or two planned to be added later in the thread.)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
« Last Edit: June 03, 2009, 01:09 PM by Steven Avery »

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2009, 06:50 PM »
I don't think it is really accurate to describe Stickies as a light version of NoteZilla. It's more that it has a different feature set.

For instance-
It has a skin design program and 14 pages of skins available for download, not all of them rectangular.
It has a version for PPC & Palm, rather than relying on passing notes through Outlook.
It has an API and an option for other programs to create stickies.
It also has a forum where the developer is very active.
It's alarm is much more eyecatching than NoteZilla.
And it does have a top bar, just with different buttons. And some of the skins have a large number of buttons on the top bar.

What it doesn't have is images in the note (and Tom says they are definitely not on the roadmap).
Nor does it have menuboards.
And no tags.

In effect, Stickies is more of a pure sticky note program than NoteZilla.
And there are things you can do in NoteZilla that you can't do in Stickies. And a lot of ways in which NoteZilla can be developed to do these things better. More of that anon (possibly a day or two).
(btw, I like the NoteZilla way of doing the note title)


Steven Avery

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2009, 07:52 PM »
Hi Folks,

Thanks for the extra info Dormouse.

And to be fair, the Stickies equivalent to the MemoBoard is :

Manage Stickies
http://www.zhornsoft....uk/stickies/ss.html

Based on the pic, there is a lack in not having an equivalent to the "Filter Section" and the rows have less info and sorting.  

This is the main sense in which I was considering Stickies "lighter", from the semi-techie database repository perspective. Grouping, categories, searching and sorting of notes. Simply that more heft exists in the NoteZilla repository .. although NoteZilla was not fulfilling all the hopes you would have from the nice addition of user-defined tags. And some sticky programs have no such note repository at all, and we would consider them as non-starters.

Beyond that, clearly both programs have a number of features ahead of the other and others where the implementations could be compared with a more precise scope. (Internal pictures is simply one of these advantages for one program. A nice surprise to see but actual use will vary tremendously.)  I would be interested in knowing how well the open-API has worked with Stickies, what programs have used this utility.

Note that NoteZilla (from my review thoughts) should try to export for calendar, to cross to another program either through the calendar program's API or some type of semi-automated export-import. If NoteZilla is not given more internal calendar-heft.

I have Stickies loaded at work, so I will try to spend a little time to understand the differences more completely. The default skin left me a tad frustrated (that was my second try of the program), a more dedicated try may make me more appreciative of the Stickies software.  It has been interesting also looking at the specs of other programs, e.g. TurboNote+ has a feature where a screen capture can go directly into a note, a feature that would save a few steps in using NoteZilla for screen captures.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
« Last Edit: June 03, 2009, 08:01 PM by Steven Avery »

Dormouse

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2009, 08:12 PM »
The Stickies equivalent of the memoboard isn't really equivalent. It gives the list, but you can only view one sticky at a time on it. Accurately described I think as a Manager for the stickies, just as NoteZilla's use of memoboard is accurate.

Looking at the two as pure text sticky note apps, I'd say Stickies is probably superior. Stickies does have a component that allows other progs to create stickies, so it gives an option for very good import. DoOrganizer appears to use it.

Stickies search is OK, but I wouldn't describe the application as a PIM (though Stickies can be grouped in categories and subcategories), whereas NoteZilla does have the beginnings of development in that area. Stickies can import/export in csv whilst NoteZilla has tab delimited; at a guess, csv gives more options for exporting to calendar programs.



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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2009, 06:40 PM »
OK. So, if I think that Stickies is a (slightly) better pure-text sticky note program, what do I use NoteZilla for? And what has it taught me about ways in which it might be improved.

Well, one of things I have to do is to keep track of jobs of a relatively repetitive nature, with multiple processes but without a fixed path. (One example [just for illustration, not what I'm doing] of such jobs would be if running an auto repair business where there is  a tyre/exhaust shop, an engine shop, a body shop and a paint shop.) Many details of each individual job will be needed (customer, task etc), and it will be important to know what stage each job is at - partly to track the job and partly to spot an overload building up in any area.

Now there are many ways of doing this. Project type software (but high overhead to put stuff in and overkill for the job), and various to-do lists. But though I'm very happy using these in other ways (I use AbstractSpoon's ToDoList a lot - but actually mostly as a database and for tracking other people's progress), I've never sustained any use for tracking my own to-do's. Over time I've come to realise that it is because the way you use them does not match the way I think naturally (a bit of a surprise to me since I find these progs easy to get to grips with and I'm good at using them for other tasks). Some people like a very tidy desk with everything put away. I like a very very big and very messy desk with everything out (either in view or beneath other things that are in view with history deciding its place in the layers); with this I always know exactly where everything is. This suggested a preference for a visual way of thinking (again a surprise because I'm very good verbally).

So I reasoned that a visual analog of my very big messy desk(s) might work better. And it does. Most attempts to do it have been using MindMap type progs, but they have quite a few deficiencies for this approach. And when I first looked at NoteZilla, it came to me that I could use it for this job. I can cut and paste into the note; being able to do images too is important since not all my sources are in text format. Using the example above, I can have one menuboard for the engine shop, one for the body shop etc; and, having a note for each job, just move the note to the board it needs to be in at the time (with all info needed on the note).

And it works very well. I can go to a board and see everything instantly instead of having to read a list. I can move notes around as I decide what to do or do bits of work on those tasks. I can set reminders/alarms if I need. And I could never do this with Stickies because it does not have the menuboards and (to some extent) because it doesn't take images.

What it has also shown though, is lots of ways in which NoteZilla can be improved. And, more generally, how non-visually adept sticky note programs are despite the whole raison d'etre of sticky notes being  visual. What I would like to see (in no particular order):-
  • the ability to have different shaped notes; this would be a better/quicker visual trigger to that note's identity; some other sticky note progs (including Stickies) have this; instructions to design own skins would also be good;
  • the ability to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel; would make it much easier to work with a large number of notes on a single board;
  • furl/unfurl is good but is needed to work for width as well as height (currently notes that are very wide because of containing a wide image are either incredibly long when furled or they have to be shrunk manually);
  • to work visually, the categories/tags need to have icons attached and not just be words; and these should be visible on the top menu line;
  • it would be nice to be able to move notes to a different board from the note view as well as the note list; if you are working in note view, having to go to the note list to do this wastes time;
  • the ability to right click on a top toolbar item and then use the mouse wheel to switch between options would be good (eg this could be tags, note colours/skins etc)
  • more control over the size of the board. Wouldn't be a problem if there were zoom, but currently it starts the size of available room in the NoteZilla window and gradually gets longer as new notes are added; doesn't shrink again if a few lines in the middle are moved up to overlap others and can mean having to scroll down past a big empty space;
  • a more eyecatching alarm would be good (at least as an option). Stickies alternates border colours and wobbles from side to side when the alarm goes. NoteZilla just sits quietly in the corner. I need something more obvious if it is time to get something out of the oven (and I can't have the sound switched on if everyone else has gone to bed), though at for other events I might prefer not to have my concentration disturbed by something too intrusive;
  • it would be good to detach menuboard panels from the browser window and to able to view as many as wanted at the same time
  • the sticker view should revert to the last user arranged layout after switching to another view, instead of the original default
  • you can mark a note as completed; this strikes through the title on the list of notes; it would be better if it also struck through the title on the note itself.
  • the toolbar cuts of with an icon for more buttons; on my monitor this happens only 1/4 of the way across the screen; the bar should autosize to the window
    • I may add a few more here as they come to mind.

    Other things that would make a big difference include
    a forum
    Properties button (as mentioned by Steven) so that attached items & links are easily seen in list
    multi-tagging (as mentioned by Steven)
    Adding duration to the reminders would allow proper events and export to ical etc. Would make it much more powerful for todo list.
    Allow export of single memoboards with notes filtered
« Last Edit: June 08, 2009, 05:49 PM by Dormouse »

conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2009, 12:32 AM »

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for the suggestions and feedback.
 
I have read all of them. In needs further analysis and brain-storming, which we will do when we start developing the new version.
 
Let us know how else we can serve you.

Regards,
Gautam Jain

choicefresh

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #10 on: July 03, 2009, 06:31 PM »
They can't call this -Zilla and have it cost money  :huh:

 :P

Babis

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2009, 01:19 AM »
Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for the suggestions and feedback.
 
I have read all of them. In needs further analysis and brain-storming, which we will do when we start developing the new version.
 
Let us know how else we can serve you.

Regards,
Gautam Jain

-conceptworld (June 09, 2009, 12:32 AM)

Hi developer.

I am using notezilla for more than a year and since you are so kind to ask for suggestions, I would like to have a 24 hours format on the "Set Reminder" window, as the AM-PM format confuses me sometimes.

conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2009, 04:00 AM »

Babis,

If you change your system time's to 24 hour format and restart NoteZilla, it will automatically change to 24 hour format in Set Reminder window.

Thanks.

Regards,
Gautam Jain

Babis

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #13 on: July 17, 2009, 07:20 AM »
 :wallbash:

Actually I am using tclock light with the 24 hour format and I thought that I have set globally as 24 hr format but you are right

conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2013, 04:36 AM »

Hello Steven & everyone,

Just to let you know that we have recently launched the new version - Notezilla 8.

The new version comes with several new & modern features. Couple of them are 1) You can sync your sticky notes between multiple computers 2) Access notes from your iPhone, Android, iPad, Windows Phone, Tablet or any other device.

Learn more about Notezilla
See what's new in Notezilla

As usual, you can try Notezilla for free.

Thanks for the opportunity to post here.

Regards,
Gautam Jain



Curt

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #15 on: April 07, 2013, 02:05 AM »
If I upgrade to version 8, this new feature will be one important reason:

Notes can be written in any language
With the new Unicode support, you can write into sticky notes in any language.
-New features

Suddenly I can foresee NoteZilla becoming part of my biblical languaged studies.

----------------------------
[hint]
It would be really nice if someone would update this thread with their user's experiences from upgrading version 7 to version 8. When I first was informed by conceptworld about version 8, I didn't upgrade because my little square mind focused on one line in particular, "The skins of previous version will not work with the new version", and the paragraph titled "features removed":

Features Removed

    Some of the settings such as hotkeys, note properties have been reset. You can set them back using Notezilla Preferences.
    MS Outlook sync has been replaced with Notezilla.Net sync.
    Sending notes based on computer name/IP address has been replaced with sending notes via Notezilla.Net. The new version will not migrate your existing contacts in Notezilla. You will need to create the contacts once again in the new version.
    Memoboards can no longer be locked. Only individual notes can be locked.
    Priority feature of the note has been removed.
    Cascade, Playing Cards & Tiles layouts have been removed.

But by now I assume it all were for the better? I mean, the "New Features" -section is taking up quite a space ;-)
@Steven, April, any NoteZilla users :tellme: [/hint]


conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #16 on: April 07, 2013, 10:50 AM »

Curt,

Thanks for posting about the new version.

Sorry, that you had asked for real user experience. But, I would like to clarify few things based on your post.

>> The skins of previous version will not work with the new version.
>> You would need to re-download them from the skins page.

Our what’s new page says the above about skins. It says that you just have to re-download them again in the new version. We have not removed the skins support.

Since you have not highlighted any of the features added in the new version (out of so many), it could mislead users.

I suggest everyone to look at the What's new page.

If some of the features removed were very important to you then please let us know. We might bring them back. Like we have added back titles feature last week.

The major feature we added was cloud sync, mobile access, sync between computers etc. We had to remove some features so that we could scale Notezilla better in future. Also, some features that were least used & prevented us to keep Notezilla simple, have been removed.

I suggest everyone to try the new version. It is free for 30 days. You can always revert back easily.

Thanks everyone. Please share your feedback. We are listening.

Wish to the best.

Regards,
Gautam Jain

rjbull

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #17 on: April 07, 2013, 11:48 AM »
Ehancement request:
It would be nice to see a feature where the linking is to ANY webpage with the text "DonationCoder" in the window text.  And not just a specific web-page.
-Steven Avery (June 03, 2009, 11:20 AM)
My version of this is to have a particular sticky note pop up on ALL pages of a given site, not just a specific one.  I couldn't see that in NZ7.  Please, is it available in 8?

app103

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #18 on: April 07, 2013, 01:24 PM »
Curt, I won't be upgrading anything for awhile. Not spending any of my money on anything that's not a necessity. My finances are still at the paranoia/panic level.  :(

I suggest everyone to look at the What's new page.
-conceptworld (April 07, 2013, 10:50 AM)

I'd hate to be the person that upgrades without taking that suggestion seriously and reading about what's new very carefully. Some interesting surprises in this version.

A few highlights:

Ctrl+L shortcut key for deleting note has been replaced by Ctrl+D.
Ctrl+D for inserting date has been changed to Ctrl+Alt+D.

A hotkey that used to insert the date now deletes your note.  :o

Many new features depend on a $30/year subscription based cloud service (free the first year) on a site that lacks a terms of service and privacy policy. (might want to fix that asap!) If you decide to upgrade to v8 just for these features and are either unprepared or unwilling to pay for this cloud based service, you will lose any features that depend on it in about a year.

My main unanswered question about this version: Is the taskbar button flashing issue on the reminder popup fixed (optional)? And the issue with it messing up the z-order of everything on the desktop? Because if those 2 issues are not fixed, I won't be upgrading, even when I have the money to do so. I really don't want to spend $20 to be constantly annoyed by these 2 issues till v9. I have already put up with them daily for almost 4 years, and they really do annoy me.

If some of the features removed were very important to you then please let us know. We might bring them back. Like we have added back titles feature last week.

The only two layouts I use are Playing Cards (my favorite) and Tiles. The Playing Cards one goes well with the titles feature, and the Tiles one does a bit more than the Stickers one does, in that it also makes all the notes uniform in size.

Curt

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #19 on: April 07, 2013, 05:16 PM »
I didn't take the time to write about my resistance to cloud based services, because I worried I couldn't say what I think about it, without saying it too harsh... I just don't like cloud based 'anything', when the subject is my private data. Period.

--------------
Ctrl+D
A hotkey that used to insert the date now deletes your note.

-yes, that could of course be a problem. However, I think we will have to agree that the insert date -hotkey was wrong in the first place; many programs are using Ctrl+D to delete, so now the hotkey function has become what it should have been from the beginning.

-------------

The reason I didn't care to paste the other half of the sentence, "The skins of previous version will not work with the new version. You would need to re-download them from the skins page" was that some of the skins of previous version will not work with the new version - because they are >no longer available<!

from my backup:

2013-04-08_000506.gif

But some day I might upgrade all the same because of the new more versatile feature:

If I upgrade to version 8, this new feature will be one important reason:
Notes can be written in any language. With the new Unicode support, you can write into sticky notes in any language.
-New features
Suddenly I can foresee NoteZilla becoming part of my biblical languaged studies.

app103

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #20 on: April 07, 2013, 08:06 PM »
-yes, that could of course be a problem. However, I think we will have to agree that the insert date -hotkey was wrong in the first place; many programs are using Ctrl+D to delete, so now the hotkey function has become what it should have been from the beginning.

I agree that it makes more sense now, but if you don't read about the changes before upgrading...(oops!)

conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #21 on: April 08, 2013, 12:30 AM »

>> My version of this is to have a particular sticky note pop
>> up on ALL pages of a given site, not just a specific one.

@rjbull

You could do this even with Notezilla 7 using wildcards inside titles. When sticking note to a particular window you are shown  the 'Stick To Window' dialog with list of open windows. You can just double click on any window title and edit it like *eBay*. So the note will appear on all pages of eBay website.

@app103

>> on a site that lacks a terms of service and privacy policy

You have access to them when you go to sign up page. I guess we must make it more accessible.

>> Is the taskbar button flashing issue on the reminder popup fixed (optional)?

Sorry. Can you elaborate on this issue?

>> And the issue with it messing up the z-order of everything on the desktop?

This is fixed.

>> The only two layouts I use are Playing Cards (my favorite) and Tiles.
>> The Playing Cards one goes well with the titles feature

Thanks for sharing. I will take note of it.

Regards,
Gautam Jain







app103

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #22 on: April 08, 2013, 09:19 AM »
>> Is the taskbar button flashing issue on the reminder popup fixed (optional)?

Sorry. Can you elaborate on this issue?
-conceptworld (April 08, 2013, 12:30 AM)

As previously stated, back in 2009:

taskbar button flashing on alarms- I would love to see an option to turn that off. It makes my large hidden taskbar fly out halfway across my screen, covering whatever I am doing.

In v7, whenever a reminder pops up, it flashes the taskbar button, which causes my very large hidden taskbar to unhide itself, covering half my screen and staying locked in position until I click the reminder popup. Not very good for productivity. The solution would be to make taskbar button flashing optional.

conceptworld

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #23 on: April 09, 2013, 01:17 AM »

Yes right app103.

Since we do not support this option directly (& not sure if we want to add this option), you may want to try the suggestions listed here: http://superuser.com...on-windows-7-taskbar

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,
Gautam Jain

app103

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Re: NoteZilla
« Reply #24 on: April 09, 2013, 08:52 AM »
I am an XP user...nothing I can do on my end unless you give me that option.