txtnotes
txtnotes
Today I made quite some changes on txtnotes. Besides redesigning the buttons to go for an even cleaner look I added shortcuts and a way to pin txtnotes to make it always stay on top of all windows.
To pin txtnotes you just have to click the secret button in the top right corner of the note area (it will highlight if you mouse over it). You can also press ctrl + p. If the button is clicked once a little pin icon appears which means that txtnotes is now pinned and will always be on top of every other window. If clicked again the pin icon will disappear again and txtnotes is not pinned anymore.
I also added a shortcut for everything you can do in txtnotes. The shortcuts are shown in the image below. To make it even clearer I also added little tooltips to all of the buttons showing what they do and what shortcut you can use instead. txtnotes has to be the active window to make the shortcuts work. If you pin txtnotes but work in a different application txtnotes is not the active window anymore so shortcuts will not work. Click on txtnotes once more to activate it again before using shortcuts.
Wow, I totally underestimated the time I had today for playing around with txtnotes.
I built version 1.2 to fix some things that I have missed while using txtnotes for work this week. But now that I found some more time (it was right under my large clock) I completed 1.3 already.
I was not happy how the new color picker button looked so I made a new design and that's awesome I think. It is neat but functional. Clicking the smiley face will bring up the color picker. After choosing one color it will close again by itself (or by clicking the smiley button again).
I also added a button that shows the current font size for the note. By clicking the button it will switch between sizes and cycle through 6 (very small) - 8 (small) - 10 (normal) - 12 (large) and 16 (extra large). The selected font size will also be there after restarting txtnotes.
Some buttons moved to the right so that by hiding the notes list these buttons won't show up and the single note layout will be even more minimal.
With this update txtnote now shows a vertical scrollbar if needed.
I also made a toggle button for hiding or showing the color picker to go for a cleaner design. I also changed the colors, because they were sometimes hard to see on different monitors. Also I added white as a color choice.
But my greatest addition is that txtnotes now identifies links in the text and makes them clickable. So you can save links to websites or files and folders. For links to files and folders just add file: in front of the link as shown in the screenshot. If the file or folder cannot be found an error message will appear. I'm already loving it!
txtnotes was created as an exercice for learning basic programming in visual basic and windows forms using visual studio 2019 from some dude with to much time and passion to learn something new.
Having tested every possible note keeping app on the market but finding myself using the standard notepad app on windows again and again I thought it would be fun to create something new for myself - something that I like to use.
The tool should be quick and easy to work with - without any overpowering funcionality - I just want to enjoy using it.
Having spent three days learning visual basic and working with visual studio for the first time I came up with this version 1.0 (to be fair I had quite some experience in vba for excel already).
My notebook is full of ideas for more features already but I want to use it for a while to find out what I really need.
Maybe some backup/export/import of txt files could be the next thing I work on but I know myself long enough to know that changing note colors is what I really need. So maybe that.
I don't think that I'll ever add some sort of syncing between devices - a decent cloud folder app should do. Ok maybe choosing the save directory for the txt files will be something I'll add. Probably.
Also making the window scalable or switching between a small / medium / large layout could be handy. We'll see if I really need that.
Making the program stay always on top of all other windows would be nice but there are already great tools for that out there.
I hope you enjoy this small little thing as much as I do - even if it's just notes. I like notes.
txtnote is a small windows program for creating quick notes
every note is archived as a separate txt file in the user folder - all typing is saved on-the-fly without having to click any button
all notes are shown in a hideble list that is sorted by date of creation in descending order (newer notes first)
txtnote remembers the last note you selected, the hide/show status of the note list, the font size and the color you picked for your notes - even if the program is closed
links in a note are automatically recognized, highlighted and made clickable - that works for web links as well as file or folder links and even mails
you can also choose between state-of-the-art note taking colors
you can find me over at twitter under @viermalbe
