What’s New in NoteBook 3.0
This page describes the changes between NoteBook 3.0 and NoteBook 2.1.
Shapes, Sketches and Handwriting Recognition
• NoteBook 3.0 includes the ability to add diagrams and sketches to Notebook pages. These shapes live in a layer that floats above each page. The toolbar includes an item that, when dragged out, creates a new shape that you can place on the page. There’s a range of shapes to choose from, with attributes like fill color, drop shadow, and stroke thickness that you can set using the Inspector. There’s also a toolbar item with a collection of lines you can use to connect shapes together, with attributes also set using the Inspector. Shapes can contain text, and shapes will appear in the Mutlidex’s text pages under the words they contain.
• The toolbar also contains an “Ink” item that lets you set the mouse mode for drawing in the shape layer (note that this item is not in the default toolbar - you have to choose View → Customize Toolbar... to add it if you want it). Mouse mode lets you move shapes with the mouse or stylus. Sketch mode lets you draw with the mouse or stylus. When using a stylus, NoteBook varies the line thickness based on the pressure you apply to the tablet. If you have a tablet attached, you can also switch to Write mode, where the strokes you make using the stylus are converted to text using Apple’s InkWell handwriting recognition technology. At some point after you write, NoteBook asks InkWell to evaluate your strokes and shows you the best interpretation of what you’ve written. InkWell generally provides ten possible interpretations of handwriting - click an interpretation to see that list, or choose Edit to write a new one. When you choose Edit, NoteBook switches to “write anywhere” mode, which means you should just begin writing the new text anywhere on the screen, under which InkWell will place a yellow pad. By default, NoteBook always shows you how InkWell has interpreted what you’ve written - you can turn them off using the Ink toolbar item.
• The command View → Shapes shows/hides the shape layer, and the command View → Focus on Shapes lets you tell NoteBook you only want to work with items in the shape layer.
• You can add an attachment to the shape layer by holding down the Shift key while you drop it onto the page.
• The Ink toolbar item has a command for setting the pen color and width.
• There is a Shapes menu for adding shapes without using the toolbar.
Outlining
• When NoteBook 1.0 first shipped, every page was an outline, and all content lived within outlines. With the addition of writing pages, shapes, and the like, outlines are no longer pervasive which makes commands like Paragraph Mode and Expand and Collapse odd entries in general menus like Edit and View. For this reason, a new Outline menu has been created that replaces the Cell menu and consolidates all outline-related functionality.
• Also, the default page is called a “Note” page rather than an “Outlining” page. Note pages start off completely empty except for their name. To start creating an outline, press Return. You can also double-click anywhere to place a note at that spot.
• You can now set cell numbering on a per-cell (and descendants) basis. There is no longer the concept of a page-wide outlining style - when opening a 2.1 Notebook in 3.0, NoteBook 3.0 will transfer each page’s numbering settings to its cells.
• You can now set the line spacing of levels in an outline.
• There is now an option in preferences to have left/right arrow keys initiate editing rather than turn the page (those shortcuts become Option-Cmd Left/Right Arrow).
• The default line spacing option is now set to “height of tallest cell,” which should avoid the problem of unwanted extra lines after a font change, or the “extra line” problem that often occurs after pasting multi-font text from a web page
• The List Mode/Paragraph Mode default settings in preferences no longer apply just to new Notebooks. NoteBook no longer displays a List Mode indicator on the page.
• Pressing Shift-Return creates a new cell above the current one.
• You can now fully drag cells to copy or move them between pages and Notebooks. In 2.1 you could drag a cell to a Contents Card entry or a page’s tab to deposit the cell on that page. Pressing Option while dragging now copies the cell to that page. Hovering over a tab or moving over a tab pressing the Space bar temporarily turns to that page, allowing you to precisely position the cell on the destination page.
• You can now add a new cell above the current one using the Outline → New
Indexing
• “Multidex” is now the new name for what was called the Index Section. Where an index page was once referred to as the “Text Index” page, it is now called the Text page within the Multidex.
• Pressing Option-Cmd while opening a Notebook forces a rebuild of its index.
• When using NoteBook on Leopard, NoteBook uses the Leopard “tokenizer” to locate words within a cell. This change should mean little for Western languages but will make a significant difference when indexing languages like Japanese where words are not separated by spaces. If you open a Tiger-indexed Notebook on Leopard, or if you open a Leopard-indexed Notebook on Tiger, NoteBook will force a reindex so that the platform-appropriate index is used.
• NoteBook’s indexer has been reworked somewhat, to do a better job of locating numbers and to not break up special strings within the text that are combinations of text and numbers.
• NoteBook now indexes and presents all words within a Notebook. Previously NoteBook used a “stop list” to ignore common words like “the” and “and,” but as of NoteBook 3.0 the stop list concept has been abandoned. A stop list helps reduce the index size on disk, but thanks to another change in how NoteBook saves index information, the index files NoteBook 3.0 generates are 1/2 or less the size of NoteBook 2.1 index files, even without the stop list. The first time you open an old Notebook in NoteBook 3.0, NoteBook will force a rebuild of its index.
Cell Above command
NoteBook and Spotlight
• All of a Notebook’s text now appears in Spotlight (subject to the 100k limit imposed by Spotlight on the amount of text it will index from one document). Previously only the words that appeared in a Notebook’s Text Multidex page would appear in Spotlight, which meant words on the stop list did not appear. Also, if a Notebook has encrypted pages, all the text from the Notebook except for that on encrypted pages will appear. Previously if a Notebook included encrypted pages, none of its content appeared in Spotlight.
• When a Notebook opens as a result of a Spotlight search, NoteBook now initiates a Super-Find search on the Spotlight search terms to show you where the Notebook matched the Spotlight search.
Working with Pages
• You can now open a page in its own window, separate from the window of the Notebook that contains it. Opening a page in its own window is akin to temporarily pulling it out of the main Notebook, so while a page resides within its own window you cannot turn to it within the main Notebook window. Any changes you make to a page in its window are preserved when you save the Notebook or close the page’s window.
• Option-clicking a page in a Divider page opens that page in another window.
• You can now prevent editing on any page within a Notebook.
Clipping
• You can now clip to Divider pages. Each time you clip to a Divider page, NoteBook adds a new page to the Divider to hold the clipping.
• When clipping to an Outlining page, NoteBook now places the clipping at the end of the page.
• There is now an Add Cell Clipping Service command in the cell contextual menu.
• You can now send a PDF version of a document directly into a Notebook using a Clipping Service. When printing in another application, the Print sheet’s PDF button now contains a “Send PDF to NoteBook” menu that lists your Clipping Services - choose one, and the Print sheet will send the PDF it generates for the document to that page in your Notebook.
Encryption and Password Protection
• When you encrypt a page, NoteBook now requests the Notebook’s password only when you turn to the page or otherwise need to access the encrypted page’s data. When you turn to a Multidex page, export or print a Notebook with encrypted pages, NoteBook asks for the password to access the encrypted data - if you don’t enter it, NoteBook restricts your access to just the unencrypted data. Once you’ve entered the password, NoteBook won’t request it again until you cover the Notebook or close and reopen it.
Contents Card
• The Contents Card has been redesigned, and now includes a proper scroll bar. It also includes a current page indicator and displays the page number of each item.
• When dragging cells to the Contents Card, you can now hover over a Divider page or press the Space key to expand the Divider within the Contents Card. If you hover over or press the Space key while positioned over an Outlining page, NoteBook turns to that page within the Notebook, allowing you to position the cells on that page.
• The Contents Card only appears with a Notebook’s main window - it cannot be attached to the window of a page that you’ve opened in a separate window.
Sticky Notes and Flags
• You can add Sticky Notes and Flags to your Notebook pages. The notes and flags can contain whatever text you like, and there are several different designs to choose from. To remove them, drag them away from the page (they will “poof” away). When you turn away from a page, its Sticky Notes disappear except for whatever portion sticks out beyond the Notebook’s border - clicking a sticky takes you to the page it’s attached to. Sticky Notes do not appear when you print or export as a website, but they do appear in the Multidex’s text pages, under the words they contain.
• Note that when you double-click in a Sticky Note to edit its text, you have to click back inside the Notebook window it’s attached to to end editing (or press Escape or Enter). While in edit mode it’s not possible to move the note.
• You can attach a Sticky Flag (the skinny stickies) to any cell in the Notebook. To do this, hold down the Option key while dragging the Sticky Flag - a small arrow will appear, and NoteBook will highlight the cell the flag is attached to. To unattach it, drag and press and release the Option key.
• The View → Stickies and Flags command hides/shows sticky notes and flags (this is a Notebook-wide setting).
Attachments
• On Leopard you can tell NoteBook to QuickLook (using the contextual menu or the Quick Look command in the Outline menu) an attachment, which will cause the attachment to appear in the standard Quick Look viewer.
• You can now move files into a Notebook. Previously the only file operation options were copy and link. Pressing Command while dragging to a page adds the file(s) to the page and moves the original(s) to the Trash. Note that you should only opt to move files when dragging from the Finder. NoteBook cannot know the drag source application, so if you drag an attachment from Mail, say, NoteBook will proceed with the move, leaving Mail confused about the location of the attachment.
• You can now set NoteBook to hide completed cells, which it will do once per day.
Printing
• The default print settings are now closer to what you might really intend when you print (i.e. no page border or paper lines, narrower margins), and should allow you to really feel like you’re positioning text and shapes on a real piece of paper. For example, if you add a rectangle shape and position it along the page’s left margin such that part of the shape is not visible, you will get nearly that same positioning when you print the page.
New Toobar
• NoteBook 3.0 includes a new toolbar that has been redesigned to resemble a ruler at the top of the page, and incorporates the standard text ruler. It includes larger icons (a frequent request). There are two background styles: plastic (you can set the color in preferences) and wood grain. You can also reduce the size of the toolbar by Cmd-clicking the toolbar “lozenge” (the control located in the window titlebar’s upper right corner).
• The toolbar includes a search field which searches the current page.
• Note that the small Inspector “i” button is no longer present in the lower-right corner of the Notebook window. If you want a button that brings up the Inspector, add the Inspector toolbar item to your toolbar.
Redesigned Inspector
• The Inspector panel has been redesigned. It is now 25% narrower, and resizes vertically as needed, both to conserve screen real estate.
• You can now make changes to multiple cells, attachments or shapes at once (not just one-at-a-time).
Cell Dates
• The View menu contains an option to view both dates and times when viewing cell dates (Creation, Change, Due). NoteBook has always stored times with cell dates, so all cells in existing Notebooks can display their dates and times.
• In the Inspector you can now modify Creation and Change dates. With multiple cells selected, these changes will apply to all of the selected cells.
Miscellaneous Changes
• Cmd-click opens links in the background.
• NoteBook will now speak the text in the selected cells.
• There is an Outline → Add Keyword command which lets you assign a keyword to a cell without using the Keywords Inspector. When you choose it, a combo box appears in the Keywords column in the same row as the selected cell, which you can use to choose an existing Keyword or create and add a new one. You can also double-click in a cell’s Keyword space to make the combo box appear.
• When you click in a cell’s date area in the due date column, a calendar button appears which brings up a graphical time/date control for setting the date.
• When you open a Notebook, NoteBook now preserves the modification date (previously that date would change to whenever you opened the Notebook as a result of NoteBook writing the lock file).
• When parent cells are set to display the soonest or latest date of their children, NoteBook now ignores completed children.
• NoteBook now preserves Finder Spotlight comments for documents dragged into Notebooks documents.
• With web export, the file format for transparent images is now PNG instead of GIF. When NoteBook was first released, there were many Windows computers that could not properly render transparent PNGs but 5-years later the problem should be rare. Transparent PNGS look much better than transparent GIFs.
• The Voice Annotation panel lets you set values for metadata such as the recording’s title, which will appear when exported to iTunes.
• When running NoteBook from the Desktop, Downloads folder, CD or .dmg, NoteBook offers to install itself in your Applications folder on quit.
• The way NoteBook draws highlighting has changed slightly. It’s not hyper-realistic as you see in Leopard Mail notes as this proved to be too distracting, but it is nicer than 2.1 highlighting.
• Added a little more space at the bottom of the page so that when you’re typing at the very bottom you’re not typing right up against the page border.
• There’s now an option to have NoteBook strike-through action items when they are completed.
• The built-in due date sort now sorts ascending by default (so that the oldest incomplete items appear at the top).
• Added a heaviy-requested 3-ring binder option.
• You can now associate a name with each highlighter color.
