[Ann] CintaNotes 1.8 Beta 2

[Thomas Lohrum]

auto-indent is broken

Hi Thomas
I tried your example and can't reproduce it. If I start a bullet list and type enter I get a new bullet list line - cursor also doesn't jump to 'column one'?

Hi Chris, i didn't mean a bullet list, i really used the asterisk!!! I use this most of the times, because it allows me to have an extra empty line between each "fake" bullet entry. I use the extra line spacing for better readability.

[ChrisCN]

Hi Chris, i didn't mean a bullet list, i really used the asterisk!!!

And how do you manage to jump to the "second column" in the second line?
I get:

Code: Select all

* abcd         <---- ENTER
efgh

If I use a tab it works like expected - if I use spaces it behaves like described from you.
(Has this ever been different? - can't remember)

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi Chris, i didn't mean a bullet list, i really used the asterisk!!!

And how do you manage to jump to the "second column" in the second line?
I get:

Code: Select all

* abcd         <---- ENTER
efgh

If I use a tab it works like expected - if I use spaces it behaves like described from you.
(Has this ever been different? - can't remember)

Yes, this has been different. You must enable "Options\Editor\Auto Indent".

[ChrisCN]

sorry - took a while till I understood the problem - now I can confirm it
>> spaces do not trigger auto-intend (only tabs do)

[ChrisCN]

I think I found a bug...

If I select a part of the note and try to copy it (CTRL+C or context menu)
CN always copies the whole content of the note (not only the selected one).

[Thomas Lohrum]

I think I found a bug...
If I select a part of the note and try to copy it (CTRL+C or context menu)
CN always copies the whole content of the note (not only the selected one).

To be more precise.... if you paste to CN itself, the content is correct, e.g. when copying to a new note. It is also fine when you copy to WinWord. However, with some applications (plain editors?) like the one here in the forum, the whole content will be copied. I confirm this is a bug.

[Thomas Lohrum]

One more strange bug with the clipboard: Copy some text from a plain editor and paste it to the notes title. The text will appear twice!! It also happens for the tags field. The notes editor however is not affected. This bug is hard to reproduce though. For example using the forums editor appears to be no problem. Also Winword works fine.

[Thomas Lohrum]

Alex, i just had the need for F5 in the title and was happy it was there right away

[ChrisCN]

To be more precise.... if you paste to CN itself, the content is correct, e.g. when copying to a new note. It is also fine when you copy to WinWord. However, with some applications (plain editors?) like the one here in the forum, the whole content will be copied. I confirm this is a bug.

This indicates that it behaves different for different content typs of the clipboard (richtext part vs. plain text of the clipboard).
I verified it and the copy command is loading the select text in the clipboard but only for the richtext part. The normal text parts are filled with the content of the note from the first character till the selected part).
I assume this is easy to fix

[ChrisCN]

One more strange bug with the clipboard: Copy some text from a plain editor and paste it to the notes title. The text will appear twice!! It also happens for the tags field. The notes editor however is not affected. This bug is hard to reproduce though. For example using the forums editor appears to be no problem. Also Winword works fine.

confirmed - I can reproduce it with notepad++

If I enter a text in notpad++ and copy/paste it into the title it is inserted twice -> the clipboard content contains the text only once.
(Just noticed: it even works within CN -> copy a text from the note into the title)

[Thomas Lohrum]

One more strange bug with the clipboard (...)

confirmed - I can reproduce it with notepad++. If I enter a text in notpad++ and copy/paste it into the title it is inserted twice -> the clipboard content contains the text only once.

Chris, thanx a lot for checking, confirming and making this bug reproducable! Thank you

[CintaNotes Developer]

Guys, thanks a lot for your reports - I confirm all bugs and we are already at fixing them!

[wag]

Fairly new to CN. Checking out, but like the program. Just update 1.7 to 1.8 and can't get 1.8 to stay loaded. Crashes within seconds. Reloaded it; uninstalled and reloaded; restarted, still crashes within seconds. Fortunately still had the 1.7 dnld on my system. Ran 1.7 and it is working fine. Using Win 7 64-bit on lenovo laptop.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi wag, sorry to hear about the problem.
Could you please try the attached version? Hopefully it will shed some light on the issue.

[Mark S.]

Two problems relating to dates.

First...

I don't know if it happened in 1.8 or 1.7 (I skipped) but to me the calendar has been broken by being "fixed".

Previously you could use the "Create" field as a way to track an action date. In real life, neither the "Create" date nor the "Modify" date are as important to me as this action date.

Now if I try to set a future date in the Create field, I get an error message because creation is occurring before modification. I can fake it out by putting in a future modification date, but this is an extra, tedious step. I don't see why we need enforcement of the relationship between these fields.

Second -- the picker problem is back. You pick a date in the calendar tool, and it returns a (seemingly) arbitrary date.

It appeared that the picker problem was fixed in Beta 1, but now its back.

Thanks,
Mark

[CintaNotes Developer]

Previously you could use the "Create" field as a way to track an action date. In real life, neither the "Create" date nor the "Modify" date are as important to me as this action date.

Now if I try to set a future date in the Create field, I get an error message because creation is occurring before modification. I can fake it out by putting in a future modification date, but this is an extra, tedious step. I don't see why we need enforcement of the relationship between these fields.

But the creation date has only very recently become user-editable, how did you cope before that?
Actually using the creation date as "action" date is somewhat kludgey.. The perfect way to do this would be implementing "alarms in notes", but even before that, you could use the title field to track this date, which maybe would be even more convenient, because you'd retain both creation date and action date.

Second -- the picker problem is back.

Confirmed to be fixed in 1.8.1

[Mark S.]

Previously you could use the "Create" field as a way to track an action date. In real life, neither the "Create" date nor the "Modify" date are as important to me as this action date.

Now if I try to set a future date in the Create field, I get an error message because creation is occurring before modification. I can fake it out by putting in a future modification date, but this is an extra, tedious step. I don't see why we need enforcement of the relationship between these fields.

But the creation date has only very recently become user-editable, how did you cope before that?
Actually using the creation date as "action" date is somewhat kludgey.. The perfect way to do this would be implementing "alarms in notes", but even before that, you could use the title field to track this date, which maybe would be even more convenient, because you'd retain both creation date and action date.

It is somewhat kludgey (did you know that 'kludge' is such a kludge that it can also be spelled 'kluge'?).

But its the only way to pick a date off a nice calendar. Better a good kluge than a poor nothing.

The problem with alarms is that not every date or event needs an alarm. Alarms tend to be complicated with multiple choices (use once, repeat hourly, weekly, monthly ... etc.) so I expect that it won't be implemented for a long time.

All I want is a date field to use however I need.

I didn't know that the picker was new. I just recently started moving my calendar to CN. First I moved everything to a tag-based calendar. Then I read in the forums that that approach wasn't recommended. Then I moved everything to date-based, using the Creation date field. This didn't seem to be a problem in 1.7. A creation date field is usually not that useful. Consider the case where you have moved 20 journal entries into CN. The date you are interested in is the date of the journal entry, not the date you happened to transfer them over.

But in 1.8 validation was applied, making it harder to use the creation field. Did someone specifically request validation? What was the harm in leaving the field dates non-validated?

Now I've gone back to a tag & title based approach. The main problem with this approach is that if you move an event to a different date you have to manually edit the title and determine the date. You can't just pick a date off a calendar, which is handy if you're trying to reschedule an event 3 months into the future.

Maybe I'm better off using some other application for the calendar functionality. But I liked the idea of having all GTD, task-driven activities under one roof.

Thanks for everything!
Mark

[CintaNotes Developer]

Better a good kluge than a poor nothing.

Well it's hard to disagree

The problem with alarms is that not every date or event needs an alarm. Alarms tend to be complicated with multiple choices (use once, repeat hourly, weekly, monthly ... etc.) so I expect that it won't be implemented for a long time.

Well alarms are not THAT complicated, there are much more complicated features on the roadmap. So if enough people vote and it gets to, say, top 10, I don't see why it can't be put into production.

Consider the case where you have moved 20 journal entries into CN. The date you are interested in is the date of the journal entry, not the date you happened to transfer them over.

If you use XML for data transfer, the creation date will be retained and not replaced with the transfer date.
But of course if you transfer notes from some other app, you need to take extra steps to set the correct creation date.

But in 1.8 validation was applied, making it harder to use the creation field. Did someone specifically request validation? What was the harm in leaving the field dates non-validated?

I vaguely remember that it was Thomas who suggested to add validation soon after the Note properties dialog was introduced.
The harm was that logically the modified date which is before the creation date makes no sense.
When SimpleNote sync will be implemented, it will rely on creation and modification dates to determine which notes need to be synced.

Now I've gone back to a tag & title based approach. The main problem with this approach is that if you move an event to a different date you have to manually edit the title and determine the date. You can't just pick a date off a calendar, which is handy if you're trying to reschedule an event 3 months into the future.

Well let's see what I can do. In the long-term, I still think that reminders, even in the simplest form, is the way to go. But they can't be implemented right away, unfortunately, they need way more votes. In the short term, how about adding a special option to the settings file which will control whether date validation should be performed.
This is a quick-and-dirty solution, of course, but it should work for the time being.

[Mark S.]

The problem with alarms is that not every date or event needs an alarm. Alarms tend to be complicated with multiple choices (use once, repeat hourly, weekly, monthly ... etc.) so I expect that it won't be implemented for a long time.

Well alarms are not THAT complicated, there are much more complicated features on the roadmap. So if enough people vote and it gets to, say, top 10, I don't see why it can't be put into production.

Alarms that are properly implemented have a lot of overhead. They need to have a repeat interval, and the dialogue to ask the user if the interval is to be repeated, and how often. There is usually also a dialogue or field to set the amount of time to start warning the user before the alarm time triggers. There also needs to be a dialogue that asks the user how long to postpone once a reminder is triggered.

Well let's see what I can do. In the long-term, I still think that reminders, even in the simplest form, is the way to go. But they can't be implemented right away, unfortunately, they need way more votes. In the short term, how about adding a special option to the settings file which will control whether date validation should be performed.
This is a quick-and-dirty solution, of course, but it should work for the time being.

That would work.

How about a 3rd field, with no validation, that will eventually become a reminder date field? That the user can use however they see fit in the interim?

Thanks!
Mark

[CintaNotes Developer]

Alarms that are properly implemented have a lot of overhead. They need to have a repeat interval, and the dialogue to ask the user if the interval is to be repeated, and how often. There is usually also a dialogue or field to set the amount of time to start warning the user before the alarm time triggers. There also needs to be a dialogue that asks the user how long to postpone once a reminder is triggered.

You are right, that's a lot of tiny details, but all in all, none of the subtasks here are really difficult.
Compare this with adding in-place editing support, or implementing Internet synchronization.

That would work.

Perfect, I'll schedule this for 1.8.3 then.

How about a 3rd field, with no validation, that will eventually become a reminder date field? That the user can use however they see fit in the interim?

No, I like to add complete pieces of functionality. You'd probably need to display this field in the notes list and to be able to sort by it anyway, and that's already a lot of effort.