[Ann] CintaNotes 4.0 UI Prototype!

[CintaNotes Developer]

In the note edit window is an attachment preview, and the attachment box is in a small corner. What happens when there are more attachments?

Current plan is:
When there are more attachments that would fit into 1/2 of the width, attachments should move to a new line and take whole width.
If there are more attachments that would fit into whole width, they'll become scrollable.

[Bill]

Alex, yes, just a simple color for the background of the notes -- not an image. It would reduce our eyestrain considerably.

When I am checking a note to see whether it has all the tags necessary, it's frustrating that I sometimes can't look at all of the tags unless I manually push them left or right. (Yes, I admit I am a tag-addict.) I also use MyInfo, and, as I said earlier, it runs tags onto a second line if needed, and I've never found it difficult to spot them there. Better a second line than complete invisibility!

[CintaNotes Developer]

Alex, yes, just a simple color for the background of the notes -- not an image. It would reduce our eyestrain considerably.

Ok, we will take this into consideration, thanks.

When I am checking a note to see whether it has all the tags necessary, it's frustrating that I sometimes can't look at all of the tags unless I manually push them left or right. (Yes, I admit I am a tag-addict.) I also use MyInfo, and, as I said earlier, it runs tags onto a second line if needed, and I've never found it difficult to spot them there. Better a second line than complete invisibility!

One of the way to solve this would be to make the number of lines tags are allowed to take configurable.

[ChrisCN]

I like the new look and feel and found nothing to dislike.
I especially like the compact view

My hope is, that keyboard shortcuts will still be there to use them extensively

[CintaNotes Developer]

I like the new look and feel and found nothing to dislike.
I especially like the compact view

My hope is, that keyboard shortcuts will still be there to use them extensively

Hi Chris,
Thanks for commenting on the new UI, glad to hear that you liked it.
Of course the keyboard shortcuts will be kept.

[Hector]

Hello, thanks for sharing the prototype UI. It looks very nice! Great job.
Several things a immediately clear, and very welcome, examples:
- The tab of the selected section(s) now have darker color, which helps for greater constrast; in the current UI, it is, to my eyes, distinguish clear and quickly what the active section is by the appearance of the section tab, so I have to rely on the content of the section, rather than on its title. Perhaps in the new UI the selected sections can be made even more noticeable (by some sort of highlighting, such as checkmark sign just next to its name).
- Quick access to other notebooks via de "button" MyNotes

I hope the Menu is not gone in the new UI...

Although not related strictly to the UI, but definitely related to functionality, I would love (because of its great utility) that the new version has a new field (currently it has the fields for tags, remarks and links) which can be **used for sorting notes**. I made this request (Roadmap), but it did not get sufficient votes so far; I guess users do not realize how useful this can be or found indirect ways of partially compensating the lack of such field. There were requests by other users in the same direction, in the sense that a sortable field would be the solution. If adding such field is not possible, please make the "Remarks" field sortable.
This was my request on Roadmap:
http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/forums/1- ... betically/
--
For example, I believe all these other requests (Roadmap) would be met by a sortable field:
Sorting by the Remarks field
http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/forums/1- ... rks-field/
Declined. Closed due to inability to collect 10 votes during more than 2 years. Sorry. It can be reopened later if another user requests this feature
--
tag based automatic sorting (instead of priorities)
http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/forums/1- ... riorities/
--
evaluate and sort notes by importance
http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/forums/1- ... mportance/
evaluate notes by importance, e.g. 1 to 5 stars.
Then sort notes by star number.
--
"Always on top" for notes (Pinning Notes)
http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/forums/1- ... ing-notes/

Congratulations for this absolely great, unique program !!!
Hector

[Bill]

I agree that a sortable field would be extremely useful. In my case I use CintaNotes heavily for bibliographical references. I would like to put the library shelfmarks (call numbers) of my numerous references in that field (and the comments field would be perfectly fine) so that I can sort the shelfmarks before I walk into the stacks -- with my Surface Pro in hand -- in a library. I've already voted for such a feature, by the way, but I'm glad to see it being raised on this forum again.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Personally I dislike the 'metro' or 'modern' style of the user interface. It would be enough for me to start looking elsewhere if it could not be disabled. I have just switched to PaleMoon rather that Firefox partly due to the 'modern' interface. I run a desktop, screen space is always at a premium and anything that puts a lot of space around previously minimal text, icons, items is a backward step for me. Cintanotes is useful on a desktop system precisely because it focusses on usability and not shiny 'chrome'. By all means implement such an interface as an optional skin but never remove access to the 'classic' interface.

Windows for tele-tubbies is a well-used but accurate epithet for Windows with the metro/modern UI. There is no need EVER to force such an interface on power users that aren't using sticky fingers poking onto tablets. The 'modern/metro' was an attempt by MS to prove that its o/s was suitable for tablets and phones. It may have slipped your notice but MS pulled out of the phone business and will be withdrawing the surface range of tablets by the last quarter of 2018 due to insufficient sales of both markets. Requiring your users to use the design hints from a broken interface from a broken series of failed devices is to my mind a mistake.

Any interface has a sell-by date and I would suggest the sell-by date for 'metro' is approaching fast. Why implement something now so late in the day when its time has come and gone?

Cintanotes as it exists now is a bit rough-and-ready but that is part of its charm - it is efficient with regard to screen space and usability. If you have to introduce these graphical 'features' give us the option to turn them off completely and not just partially in one or two places. ON or OFF.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Thanks guys for your comments (and sorry for late reply)! Very useful informaton.

Hector, Bill: adding sorting by remarks shouldn't be a big problem. I'll definitely take a look at it.

yereverluvinuncleber: Duly noted! Alas since we're migrating the UI to Qt, "keep classic interface" will mean "reimplement classic interface", but we'll do our best to make the "screen-space optimized" version available.

[Hector]

Alex, thanks so much for taking a look at the request of adding sorting by the "Remarks" field. That will be extremely useful.

Of course, at some future time, if it is possible to add a new sortable field, so that the Remarks field can be kept for remarks, that would be ideal.

Thanks again!

[hooddy]

I like this flat UI. Just a question in case - oldscool UI will be present or it'll be rewritten from scratch with no ability to switch it?

[CintaNotes Developer]

I like this flat UI. Just a question in case - oldscool UI will be present or it'll be rewritten from scratch with no ability to switch it?

To get the "oldschool" UI we'll need to reimplement it using the new UI framework which is a hardly justifiable time investment. But we'll go to great lengths to make it customizable enough so that with a little tweaking you could get something that resembles the old UI.

[Bugatzki]

Hello Alex,

1) I like the new UI very much, it's much more elegant, very decent and clean, very nice!
Also colours are much better than in old version, better contrasts now.
Four view modes and settings screen: Very good!

2) List grouping sounds promising. I'm sure, it will be quite useful.
Will there be an option to group by tags? Sort by tags?

3) Main Window
No big issue but: I'm always keen on saving clicks or keystrokes.
For example by separating the reverse order arrow to the tool bar, 1 mouse move plus 1 click are saved now. Very nice again.

May I suggest to think about the dragdown button for the view mode? There's a lot of space at the tool bar.
I assume that you don't want to overload the tool bar, and I would always agree, but in this case:

Why not display 4 slightly tinier buttons for the view modes, maybe in a square order? Would save 1 more move and click!
(Although I'm quite sure that you will assign keyboard shortcuts for the view modes as well.)

4) What is a dynamically growing remark?

[Bill]

I have some misgivings about the formatting overlay at the bottom of the note editor. Will it be possible to turn it off? It seems to cover part of the text, and I'm not sure what advantages it has over a right-click menu.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi Bugatzki,

1) I like the new UI very much, it's much more elegant, very decent and clean, very nice!
Also colours are much better than in old version, better contrasts now.
Four view modes and settings screen: Very good!

Thanks, glad you like it!

2) List grouping sounds promising. I'm sure, it will be quite useful.
Will there be an option to group by tags? Sort by tags?

I'm afraid no, as it would require for certain notes to appear multiple times in the list.
This goes against the program's paradigm of "in the list you see notes themselves, not just representations of them".

Why not display 4 slightly tinier buttons for the view modes, maybe in a square order? Would save 1 more move and click!
(Although I'm quite sure that you will assign keyboard shortcuts for the view modes as well.)

I think we will try to make the toolbar adaptive: it can display 4 buttons when there's enough width, and switch to dropdown mode
when the window is narrow.

4) What is a dynamically growing remark?

It means that the size of the field grows (up to certain limit) to accommodate entered text.
This makes for optimal space usage.

[CintaNotes Developer]

I have some misgivings about the formatting overlay at the bottom of the note editor. Will it be possible to turn it off? It seems to cover part of the text, and I'm not sure what advantages it has over a right-click menu.

No worries, the toolbar will be optional.

[Bugatzki]

Hi Alex, thanks for your response!

Will there be an option to group by tags? Sort by tags?

I'm afraid no, as it would require for certain notes to appear multiple times in the list.
This goes against the program's paradigm of "in the list you see notes themselves, not just representations of them".

I have to apologise, I didn't it think till the end.

I think we will try to make the toolbar adaptive: it can display 4 buttons when there's enough width, and switch to dropdown mode
when the window is narrow.

That's even better than my suggestion. Thanks again!

[CintaNotes Developer]

I have to apologise, I didn't it think till the end.

No problem at all!

That's even better than my suggestion. Thanks again!

The whole point of migrating to Qt/QML was to make things like this easy.
But it turned out to be a huge amount of work. Hope we'll be able to release 4.0
at least this year..

[Bill]

Alex, we all assume that you are working steadily on version 4. Is it likely that we will see it before the end of the year?

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hello Bill,

Yes the work on CN4 is going on, although not as fast as we would have liked.
Also a tragic personal event, the untimely death of my mother, has shifted the plan somewhat.
So I can't really promise anything regarding timelines.
All that I can say is that our plans haven't changed and that the work is under way.