[Ann] CintaNotes 2.0 early preview - Tabs & Links to notes

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share some exciting new developments with you
If you happened to visit our roadmap in the last 2 months, you probably know that
were are preparing 3 major new features for the upcoming CintaNotes 2.0 release, namely:

- Tabbed notebook sections
- Links to notes
- Simplenote synchronization

Well, the good news is that the first two features are almost ready!
Since this is going to be quite a hefty release, I'd like to collect some early
feedback to insure you from any nasty surprises at the time of the final release.

Here's a screenshot:


What has been done:
Tabbed notebook sections:
- Sections themseves and sections bar
- Create and delete section commands
- Setting a section as "inbox for clipping"
- Selecting multiple sections at the same time with Ctrl (or Shift)
- Configuring section color
- "All" button for selecting all sections at once
- Keyboard shortcuts for navigating sections: Ctrl+digit, Ctrl+Left/Right, Ctrl+`
- Basic license limited to 3 sections max.

Links to notes:
- Copying a link to note
- Inserting note link with Ctrl+Alt+L
- Suggestion dropdown with note titles
- Registering of "cintanotes://" protocol to link to CN notes from other apps (to use, first activate Options/System/Register link protocol [needs admin rights!])

Other features:
- Associating CN with .db files (Options/System/Associate.., [needs admin rights!])
- Selected color theme now affects the app icon and UI. The color of notes is now determined by section configuration.

What we plan to finish till 2.0 release:
- Import/export of sections
- Context menu commands for moving sections left/right
- The "Add section" button (as a "plus" icon to the right of the tab control)
- The "Move/To Section/.." command in the note's context menu
- Horizontal scrolling in the tab control (now tabs that don't fit just disappear).
- Straighten some rough edges in note links functionality
- Obviously, SimpleNote sync

What is planned for versions after 2.0:
- Drag&drop support for moving sections and notes
- Section selector in the notes editor.

What we'd like to know now, is how well the chosen UI model works for you.
When we discussed section tabs some time ago, many people voted for global search. I however decided to go with a bit different approach, where each section has it's own filter and sorting state. So when you switch tabs, the search string, selected tags and sort mode switch as well. However, when you add more sections to the current selection, the current filters stay and overwrite the filters of the sections you've just added. This also applies to the "All" button.

So please play with this functionality and tell me if it's convenient for you, or you'd rather have global search and global sorting.

DISCLAIMER
THIS IS A PREVIEW VERSION. THE DATABASE FORMAT MAY BE CHANGED AND MADE INCOMPATIBLE.
THE SUPPORT OF THIS FORMAT IS NOT GUARANTEED.
PLEASE DON'T USE ON YOUR LIVE CN INSTALLATION, AND ALWAYS CREATE BACKUPS FIRST.

Download here:
CintaNotes_1_9_1_Beta2.zip

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi Alex,

congratulations to that next big milestone in CN's history! Shortly after your release i started testing, so this reply is fresh I have some minor overall issues that i will discuss in a separate reply. First i want to focus on "linking notes", which comes in really handy. Links make fun . The chosen implementation has its benefits, though i needed to get used to some of the details. I like the fact, that the editor's layout remained the same as with 1.8.x, so no change in the GUI here.

Linking notes

• In-Place editing of link title and deleting link by deleting the link title is convenient, but unfamiliar, when used first time. No problem
• Editor's context menu "copy note link"
  An entry "copy note link" is missing. A shortcut should also be added. However Ctrl+L can not be used, because it is already taken for managing lists. The feature must be blocked for just created notes, not saved yet.
• Editor's context menu "delete link"
  An entry "delete link" is missing. This would be more convenient and easier to understand, than deleting a link by deleting the link text. The shortcut Ctrl+Alt+D can be used.
• Editor's context menu "edit link"
  An entry "edit link" is missing. This would be more convenient and easier to understand, than deleting a link by deleting the link text and creating a new link. The shortcut Ctrl+Alt+L could be used, because the system is already smart enough to recognize the caret is placed on a link when it reports "Can't add link to text that already contains link".

Create Link

• Searching existing note
  I had expected a separate dialog for creating/editing notes. It didn't came to my mind right away, that i simply can search by typing, after pressing Ctrl+Alt+L. I think i got confused by the "create new note" entry, that is highlighted already and the fact that there is no visual clue, like an arrow-down-symbol for selecting notes. Once i got used to it, it is more convenient than having a separate dialog. A solution could be an inplace-label, e.g. "type for searching". Another solution could be the use of a drop-down arrow, that is always there and even allows searching/scrolling without having to type a search word first.
• Creating new note
  Just pressing ENTER is strange. I'd expect the "create new note" entry not to be highlighted, so that i have to press arrow down first, highlight "create new note" and press ENTER at last.

Also tested

• I was able to paste links using Ctrl+Alt+V and switching to the linked note by the usual link mechanisms like Ctrl+Click on the link.
• I succesfully deleted a linked note. When clicking the referenced link in the other note, a message reported the deleted link and offered removing the link or creating a new note.
• I could not fool the system by creating a link to the note itself. Nor by selecting the note when searching inside the Ctrl+Alt+L dialog. Neither by pasting a link using the Ctrl+Alt+V key that was copied from the main window using the Ctrl+L key.

Summary

• add editor context menu "copy note link"
• add editor context menu "delete link"
• add editor context menu "edit link"
• add combobox style when creating link
• don't highlight "create new note" when creating link

HTML-Export

• Exported links don't work in HTML pages. A click on a link mixes together with the local file name, e.g. file:///C:/Temp/1.html#8486a485-f5aa-4f26-ba6b-a86180d7bffd
• I would like to have an option for smart exporting of all linked notes. In which case the links must be transformed to some file link. Linked notes shall all be exported to the same directory and may use an artifical file name. Also the note's title could be used by taking care of invalid characters, that are not allowed in the file system.

I didn't experience bugs or any other strange behaviour. The feature looks pretty stable. Overall it needs more experience with the functionality. This is hard to achieve, when it can not be used in production. Since this is an early beta and the database format still might change, i'll switch back to 1.8.5. Anyhow, i like the feature a lot and can't wait to get my hands on the final!!

Thomas

PS: I've just ran into the first bug, but will post as a separate reply.

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi Alex,

as said in my previous post, i'll report my first bug regarding linking notes here.

Example note:
* News
- Project options include auto height
- record helper for for simple types
- Firemonkey Layout Controls

Steps to reproduce:
place the caret one space after "(...) simple types"
paste a link, here "Record helper for simple types (string, integer, double, single)"
place the caret on the first letter of the first word of the link
press ctrl+backspace to delete the word "types", which is not part of the link

The bug is, that the blue underlining of the link messes up and "Firemonkey" becomes part of the link. It gets worse when you repeat ctrl+backspace. No workaround here, the link and the text just get messed up.

Thomas

[Thomas Lohrum]

Alex,

two more issues regarding links.

1. When i select some text that will match an existing note title and press Ctrl+Alt+L, this will create a new note, instead linking to the existing note. I understand this can be convenient when you really want to create a new note, but it can be confusing the same time, when matching a note that already exists.

2. editor context menu "convert link to text"
An entry "convert link to text" is missing. This would be more convenient, than deleting the link and re-enter the text. A shortcut can, but must not be supported.

Thomas

PS: Yes, i really had the need for these. It is not about testing only

[Thomas Lohrum]

Alex,

here are my test results regarding "Register link protocol".

• UAC is not supported
• The message that pop's up "Can't modify registry" should have a more convenient message including a hint how to handle the issue, e.g. "start Cintanotes with admin privileges to register link protocol."
• To register i had to start CN in elevated mode, that is, i had to close my running instance first, start CN elevated, close again and at last start CN in normal mode again.
• While elevating a blank database was shown
• The system menu state does not reflect the state, even though the protocol is now registered.
• I copied a CN link to firefox's address-bar, which opened the CN note. But why would i want to do this? I copied a CN link to an Outlook appointment's note and was able to open the note. Personally i have no plans to use the feature.
• When opening a linked note by the system, CN's main window opens together with the notes window . It shouldn't.

Maybe a separate tool could be provided to handle the task of registering the link protocol. Starting the tool with higher priviliges would be easy... ehm and you would be easily capable of supporting the UAC request with a separate tool. The tool can be used to turn the option on/off.

Also the installation should have an option to register the link protocol.

Thomas

[Thomas Lohrum]

Maybe a separate tool could be provided to handle the task of registering the link protocol. Starting the tool with higher priviliges would be easy... ehm and you would be easily capable of supporting the UAC request with a separate tool. The tool can be used to turn the option on/off.

Also the installation should have an option to register the link protocol.

Since a separate tool has its drawbacks, such as maintenance and usage, i suggest a different approach. Configurations affecting the registry shouldn't be handled by CN's gui. As such those issues should be handled by the installation process only. To turn on/off registering the link protocol requires re-installing, which is not really a hard step to do. The option to register the protocol inside the main window (options/system) should be removed.

As a workaround to the beta-setup, which is a zip-archive only, a reg-file might be provided or some instructions on how to configure the registry.

Thomas

[ChrisCN]

Fine to see CN taking this big step forward.
Will try to play with the GUI tomorrow to provide some feedback.

Configurations affecting the registry shouldn't be handled by CN's gui. As such those issues should be handled by the installation process only. To turn on/off registering the link protocol requires re-installing, which is not really a hard step to do. The option to register the protocol inside the main window (options/system) should be removed.

I think we should also consider that CN can be used as a portable application. If someone starts CN on a computer where it was not 'installed' we still need a solution for that. CN could try to register the link protocol on every start of the application. This could be very convenient and I wouldn't mind to change the registry on every 'host'. As others may have different opinions - this could be an option.

[Mark S.]

Tags don't copy between tabs. Or possibly just tags with /

After creating a new, empty tab, I went back to main. I set a filter to select all of a group/ . I cut the notes. I moved to the new tab. I pasted. Great! Except that all of my tags have been deleted.

Thanks,
Mark

Edit: Tried it again on a second "tag tree". Created a new tab. Went to main. Set the tag filter to show only the tree. Selected all notes. Cut. Went to tab and pasted. All notes pasted -- but without tag tree.

Went and tested on a standard (no tag tree) note. Cut. Tab. Paste. Note pastes without tags.

Very reproducible.

[Mark S.]

Changing note sort order when a filter is active always causes an error box ("class error...") though after the box is cleared, the new order is applied and everything seems to work.

[Mark S.]

A tag filter set in "All" overwrites the filters in each tab section.
Likewise, a tag filter set in any tab section becomes the active filter when you switch to "All".

I think "All" should be treated like any other tab section. The filters you set there should have no bearing on the tag filters you set in the tab sections and vice-versa.

Thanks,
Mark

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks a lot for such a comprehensive testing!!

An entry "copy note link" is missing. A shortcut should also be added. However Ctrl+L can not be used, because it is already taken for managing lists.

I suggest we use Ctrl+Alt+C in both Notes List and Editor. Also I think it makes sense to add this command not only to the text editor context menu, but it should be available anywhere you click.

An entry "delete link" is missing. This would be more convenient and easier to understand, than deleting a link by deleting the link text. The shortcut Ctrl+Alt+D can be used.

Agreed. I think this entry should replace the "Insert Note Link" command when selection contains note links, what do you think?
Or maybe "Insert Note Link" could be used in this case to quickly change the link target?

An entry "edit link" is missing. This would be more convenient and easier to understand, than deleting a link by deleting the link text and creating a new link. The shortcut Ctrl+Alt+L could be used, because the system is already smart enough to recognize the caret is placed on a link when it reports "Can't add link to text that already contains link".

I'm afraid this will make too many context menu entries and the context menu will become messy. But I wouldn't like to move note link commands into a submenu, since they are expected to be used quite often. Here is how I see it:

The "Edit Note Link" command should replace the "Insert Note Link" command in the NoteRichEdit?'s context menu when the selection is wholly inside of a single note link, or contains just one note link. The link bounds should not be changed by this command, only link target.

The "Delete Note Link" command should be added, which should be enabled when selection contains any note links. The shortcut for this command should be Ctrl+Alt+D

I had expected a separate dialog for creating/editing notes. It didn't came to my mind right away, that i simply can search by typing, after pressing Ctrl+Alt+L. I think i got confused by the "create new note" entry, that is highlighted already and the fact that there is no visual clue, like an arrow-down-symbol for selecting notes. Once i got used to it, it is more convenient than having a separate dialog. A solution could be an inplace-label, e.g. "type for searching". Another solution could be the use of a drop-down arrow, that is always there and even allows searching/scrolling without having to type a search word first.

I think that adding a label is a really good idea. We'll do that. About the arrow I'm not sure - loading all notes' titles is not really useful and can be a huge performance drain. Maybe it would be worth it to display only first N entries, sorted by title. This however will be very confusing if there are many notes having empty title.

Just pressing ENTER is strange. I'd expect the "create new note" entry not to be highlighted, so that i have to press arrow down first, highlight "create new note" and press ENTER at last.

Fully agreed. We'll fix this, thanks.

Exported links don't work in HTML pages. A click on a link mixes together with the local file name, e.g. file:///C:/Temp/1.html#8486a485-f5aa-4f26-ba6b-a86180d7bffd

Yes, this is deliberate to allow navigating the HTML file. But probably we should really check that the link's target is exported in the same set as well, otherwise insert a system-wide "cintanotes://" link.

I would like to have an option for smart exporting of all linked notes. In which case the links must be transformed to some file link. Linked notes shall all be exported to the same directory and may use an artifical file name. Also the note's title could be used by taking care of invalid characters, that are not allowed in the file system.

But this is already related to this, isn't it? CN currently doesn't support exporting to multiple files. I suggest you add this request as a comment to that readmap entry. So that when we are implementing it, we don't forget to add an "Also export all linked notes" checkbox.

I didn't experience bugs or any other strange behaviour. The feature looks pretty stable. Overall it needs more experience with the functionality. This is hard to achieve, when it can not be used in production. Since this is an early beta and the database format still might change, i'll switch back to 1.8.5. Anyhow, i like the feature a lot and can't wait to get my hands on the final!!

Great to get such a positive review although of course there are bugs, as you write below) but still it is very reassuring, thanks.

[CintaNotes Developer]

The bug is, that the blue underlining of the link messes up and "Firemonkey" becomes part of the link. It gets worse when you repeat ctrl+backspace. No workaround here, the link and the text just get messed up.

I confirm, will be fixed! Thanks!

[ChrisCN]

Just tried to start a few tests but failed to split may main DB into seperate files.
I did a selection of notes and an export to XML.
Opened a new tab and tried to import it again.
--> ERROR :" The programm has encountered an error during import. Precondition failes: app::model::Notebook::addImportNotes!notes.empty()
Maybe this was my fault - I am not very experienced with this feature.

Another thing I noticed is:
If I do a tag selection in one tab and a different filter on another tab
this selection/filter is preserved when switching between those tabs.
BUT: If I change to tab ALL and then back to the other tabs -> all get the filter/selection now ALL uses.

I just noticed that I possibly misunderstood the section/tab feature.
Does every section represent a new CN-database-file?

[ChrisCN]

I seem to have a general problem:

I opened my main db file with the new version
opened an existing note
tried to insert a Note-Link using the context menu
and get the ERROR: class err::InvalidArgumentException Precondition failed: gdi::Rect::Rect left <= right

[CintaNotes Developer]

1. When i select some text that will match an existing note title and press Ctrl+Alt+L, this will create a new note, instead linking to the existing note. I understand this can be convenient when you really want to create a new note, but it can be confusing the same time, when matching a note that already exists.

We will make it so that "Create new note" will always come last, and the issue will be resolved.

An entry "convert link to text" is missing. This would be more convenient, than deleting the link and re-enter the text. A shortcut can, but must not be supported.

I actually always imagined "Delete Note Link" command to work as "Covert link to text". Deleting is easy enough to do with a single DEL press, no need for a separate context menu command for this. Don't you agree?

[Noddy330]

I’ve not thought this through fully, and so it may be a flawed suggestion, but what if TABS were just promoted TAGS. Or maybe promoted top-level TAGS. Having promoted a TAG to a TAB, you would also be able to demote it back to a TAG. Call them all TAGS for simplicity – the difference being some are listed at the side and some are listed at the top. Add a note to a TAB by selecting its name in the TAG box. Simple? Elegant? Or may be not. But however it works I can see many uses. Bring it on. Nod

[CintaNotes Developer]

UAC is not supported

Will be supported, although with the time frame that we have it can require waiting for 2.1.

The message that pop's up "Can't modify registry" should have a more convenient message including a hint how to handle the issue, e.g. "start Cintanotes with admin privileges to register link protocol."

Agreed, and will be done. Thanks.

To register i had to start CN in elevated mode, that is, i had to close my running instance first, start CN elevated, close again and at last start CN in normal mode again.
[*]While elevating a blank database was shown

Strange.. and where is your CN instance located? In Program Files?

The system menu state does not reflect the state, even though the protocol is now registered.

Couldn't reproduce this. Please remind me your system config.

I copied a CN link to firefox's address-bar, which opened the CN note. But why would i want to do this? I copied a CN link to an Outlook appointment's note and was able to open the note. Personally i have no plans to use the feature.
[*]When opening a linked note by the system, CN's main window opens together with the notes window . It shouldn't.

I think it shouldn't only when CN is already running and is minimized to tray. Otherwise, the user will know that 1) CintaNotes has started and closing the editor won't close it; 2) How else to quickly find the linked note in the notes list?

Maybe a separate tool could be provided to handle the task of registering the link protocol. Starting the tool with higher priviliges would be easy... ehm and you would be easily capable of supporting the UAC request with a separate tool. The tool can be used to turn the option on/off.

It can actually be cintanotes.exe itself - just with a special command line switch.

Also the installation should have an option to register the link protocol.

Do you think it should be user-selectable on the stage when the user hasn't even seen the program? I would have no clue should I select this or not.. I think it would be better just to register it, like Evernote does.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Since a separate tool has its drawbacks, such as maintenance and usage, i suggest a different approach. Configurations affecting the registry shouldn't be handled by CN's gui. As such those issues should be handled by the installation process only. To turn on/off registering the link protocol requires re-installing, which is not really a hard step to do. The option to register the protocol inside the main window (options/system) should be removed.

As a workaround to the beta-setup, which is a zip-archive only, a reg-file might be provided or some instructions on how to configure the registry.

I fully agree with the installer part. But about reg file - not only beta is a zip-archive only, but also our portable version. Of course we could include a reg file for that, but I'd like to move away from "geek-orientedness", not towards it "Normal" people neither know nor care what a reg file is..

[CintaNotes Developer]

Fine to see CN taking this big step forward.

Thanks, Chris!

I think we should also consider that CN can be used as a portable application. If someone starts CN on a computer where it was not 'installed' we still need a solution for that. CN could try to register the link protocol on every start of the application. This could be very convenient and I wouldn't mind to change the registry on every 'host'. As others may have different opinions - this could be an option.

I fully agree. CintaNotes should try to register automatically, but without causing UAC to pop-up.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi Mark,

Tags don't copy between tabs. Or possibly just tags with /

Confirmed, this is a regression. Will be fixed, thanks.