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lightweight software for organizing notes offline? [Stickies, StickySorter]

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brotherS:
Hi,

I tried several approaches to keeping notes visible on the desktop(*) in the past, but none really worked for me. The best so far is keeping different win32pad (a lightweight txt editor) windows on my second screen and moving them around as needed, but that's not perfect because when Windows crashes I lose them all (so I have to always save them to the clipboard (where I use Ditto as a clipboard extender, see https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=9013). Also, once I reach 10 opened editor windows, it gets messy (and probably isn't so lightweight anymore).

I'm sure there MUST be a better way - I just haven't found it yet... any ideas?

(*)my brain likes visual reminders, so seeing the notes (or at least the most important ones) works better than not seeing them hidden away somewhere... and yes, I wonder how to integrate this into a GTD (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done) system I plan to set up in 2012

cmpm:
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/stickysorter/Pages/default.aspx

Found this Sticky Sorter from gHacks.
You may like it, or not, I do.

IainB:
@cmpm: Yes, StickySorter is a great affinity diagramming tool. I think it's probably unique. I reckon it's one of the nicest proggies to come out of MS Labs. Quite useful too. Nice how you can operate on the database using Excel. It could be a PIM (Personal Information Manager) to some extent.

MS Labs also did something called OneNote Canvas that looked  pretty interesting, but it was a developmental dead-end.

If you like SS, then you might like to take a look at the Compendium tool (though it's not "lightweight"). It's used for notes, for knowledge-building/sharing models, and comes from the Compendium Institute at the Open University in the UK. I have played around with this, but not in any productive way. I first came across it being used whilst I was working on a contract at a government department, some time back. It could be a PIM too, but I can't quite see how to use it to good effect as such, so I don't use it.
http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/

Winkie:
The best so far is keeping different win32pad (a lightweight txt editor) windows on my second screen and moving them around as needed, but that's not perfect because when Windows crashes I lose them all...
-brotherS (November 16, 2011, 11:43 AM)
--- End quote ---

For that role I use 2 instances of Memo (AHK scripts by Drugwash) which has auto-save.

IainB:
@brotherS: Quite coincdentally, I have only today been putting my ToDo list up onto my desktop, using the Samurize tool. It was one of the last applications to have been migrated from my XP to my Win7-64 desktop.

I have it set up so that I can open the .TXT file containing the To Do list in my notepad - I use EditPad Lite as the notepad.
The file is ToDo.txt in My Documents folder.

I can open the file by right-clicking on the ToDo text on the desktop, or, if I hover the mouse over the text, a balloon pops up at that point telling me to [press "Shift+Ctrl+N" to edit ToDo list].

All this and the desktop objects in the foreground are managed through Samurize. That includes:

* the analogue clock, which is built up using 5 or so objects, one of which is the moving seconds hand.
* the red CPU and HDD temperature readouts taken from Speedfan (they are blurry because I converted the .PNG screenshot to .JPG format at 50%, so some of the colour has been lost).
* the battery meter. (Some of the colour has been lost there too.)
* the calender date/time.
* the IP address.
* the blurry Samurize desktop actions (which tells you on mouse hover what actions you can take and the AHK hotkey combos to do so - basically dynamically reload the Samurize configuration file, or edit the file before reloading it).The above seem to form a single consolidated object on the desktop - you can drag it around if you want.

There are some other objects - 2 x rolled-up sticky notes (from Stickies), the open ToDo.txt file in EditPad Lite, and the Win7 desktop widgets in the background on the RHS of the desktop.

I originally tried out Rainmeter, but settled on using Samurize for this as it seemed by far the more powerful of the two. Though Rainmeter is fairly simple to use, and Samurize isn't (IMO), you can make your desktop stand on its head once you begin to understand how to configure Samurize, and it's not a resource hog either.


I didn't think Samurize (which is quite an old application) would run on Win7, but I was wrong. It runs very well, but I have a glitch that I am trying to fix at the moment - the Taskbar won't always stay in the foreground, though the Start Menu always does. I am unsure what is causing that. It could be my wallpaper changer which changes every 1 minute.

EDIT: 2011-11-17 0945hrs
I am currently trying to see if I can incorporate the ToDo list from Stickies on the desktop, instead of the .TXT file. However, I suspect that I have probably got the best lowest common denominator in the shape of the .TXT file. You can't get much simpler than that.

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