More on NotepadsI spent the better part of last night downloading various notepad/memo/journal applications from MacUpdate and seeing if any of them met my needs and, if not, if they had features I wanted to put into my own notepad program. I wound up downloading something on the order of 50 programs. Fifty. Five zero. Of those 50 programs, the overwhelming majority spent more time on their serial code implementation than on the program itself. (One let me “register” with 98765. Failed to register with 98756, 98675, 87654, 12345, 54321, or 56789. Mathematical curiosity, it seems.) It seems that they know there’s a dearth of programs that can actually just do note-taking so they whip up something and then defend their little ground with fervor. It’s kind of pathetic. So I have expanded my feature set for my notepad program significantly by doing this, and that’s a good thing since it means you don’t have to go through the pain I just went through. To help in the near-term, here are some of the more polished programs that I found in the mix and at least one reason I found them notable. Note that this doesn’t mean I would use them, or that in some other ways they don’t suck horribly, but that they I believe the programmers spent more time on the program than they did on serializing it. And the list…AlepinInteresting features include multiple highlight colors, a “clear formatting” menu item which strips off any formatting for the note, URL detection and activation, and password-protection for file and entry (uses the Keychain as well). Otherwise, not so special (and several of those features are hard to get to for normal use). DossierRendezvous note sharing with activity viewer. Encryption. Smart folders. Services integration. Cross-entry linking. Mail-like interface (is that good or bad?). Template for new notes. Password protection and/or encryption. Integration with Blogger and LiveJournal. Overall, a very feature-ladden program. Why not use it? The UI isn’t really usable for notes; it’s geared towards journals or other dated entries. This replaces emailing yourself information, not making a thousand stickies. Hog Bay NotebookAs an outliner, this is a very good program. Very Mac OS X-like, uses Mac OS X technology very well (a very nice use of Search Kit, but clean up the UI for it — give it its own window with checkboxes/radios to configure the search), etc. Downside, for me, is that it really, really wants to be an outliner and not a notepad. There’s a wide barrage of features, even a whole menu dedicated to clones and copies and splits and joins and promotions/demotions, etc. If I need an outliner, and I’m sure at some point I will, I’ll remember this program because it does it very well. But now, today, I want a Stickies replacement with the same feature set sans the organization. JotzReally just very cool. Once you change the background from that fugly peach to white the program is halfway usable. Pad-specific settings with application defaults for them, drawers with reference material and to-dos, as well as an immutable toggle for notes make it a pretty spiffy program. Unfortunately I the UI is a bit cluttered and it doesn’t feel like Mac OS X to me. The rule I have is a program should show just as much functionality as you need at that moment and no more. Jotz certainly does not follow that rule. It was cleaned up with drawers to get some clutter out of the way (let’s face it, a lot of clutter out of the way) but it’s still a bit noisy. It also suffers from “unconventional controls” syndrome with half-cocked disclosure triangles showing only some features at times and vertical sliders (very large ones) for font size and such. It’s interesting, but not a program for speedy note-taking. MacJournalThis certainly feels like a Mac OS X program. There’s some things I would clear up and make a little more friendly, but, overall, it’s pretty decent. It has the standard stuff I’ve mentioned before: locking, passwords, encryption, rich text, import, export, LiveJournal, Blogger, etc. Niftier features include an auto-backup on save in XML or plain text and auto-locking/encryption on close. Rather interesting, but overall nowhere near what I want. SmultronThis program is extraordinarily close to what I want. The difference is that it’s centered around code rather than notes. It would work equally well for notes, and when you want to keep bits of code snippets handy it’s very nice. Includes mandatory built-in WebKit preview. Open-source to boot. I’d build off it, but my program will not be GPLed. xPadAhh, xPad. If I had the source, I’d continue it, I really would. The interface is simple, the entries are clear and obvious, there’s grouping in the list by category, standard Cocoa text features with highlight and strike as quick changes in the toolbar or via keyboard/menu. It’s rather quick with moderate numbers of notes, it exports nicely, etc. It’s overall a great program. It, however, has seen no updates since release and the author has at times mused about letting it die (forum activity indicates he’ll update it someday). It has some fatal problems at this point, the absolute most annoying of which is the assignment of Command-Left/Right Arrow to Next/Previous such that I can’t go to the beginning or end of the time without changing my current note. Other small things as well. Code-poeting In ProgressSo there you have it. There are other programs, but they just don’t come close to what I want in a simple, quick, functional, Mac-like notepad. Thus, I guess I’m stuck writing my own. Not so bad a choice, I suppose. I get a program I like and hopefully someone, somewhere will register a copy and I’ll get dinner, or part of it. 
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Quotes
“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” – Sidelights on New London and Newer New York — G. K. Chesterton
If you want something simple, try jNotes by a guy in Australia. The word on the first line of a note creates a tab, allowing multiple notepads. Best of all, jNotes disappears when you click on anything else, eliminating screen clutter. It’s great for common passwords and to do lists. Last time I checked, both Versiontracker and Macupdate had it.
I’m pretty sure jNotes was one of the three dozen pads that landed in the trash. Anything that included a button in the main window pretty much got a free trip off my computer, which eliminated most of them. After looking at jNotes’ web site the reason I didn’t go with that one was two-fold:
Have you tried Notebook from Circus Ponies? I would have thought it would make at least a top 10 spot.
http://www.circusponies.com/
did you try Notational Velocity? I’ve found it very useful for notes. Since it’s free, the author didn’t waste anytime developing a serial code registration system.
http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~zps869/nv.html
Where’s DevonThink? It may not be strictly a notepad, but if you want organization and searching, you won’t find better until Tiger comes out with Spotlight.
Re: Circus Ponies’ Notepad, it’s an overly-graphiced toy. I tried working with it but a complete lack of Mac OS X look-and-feel as well as a rather unorthodox style of formatting notes made it much more work than just opening a document and writing stuff. Same for Curio.
As for DevonThink and derivatives, when used on my machine they crashed regularly and lost data for me. I have friends that swear by it, but I’ve never gotten it working decently and lost a good two days trying.
I’ll buy you dinner if your notepad syncs with Palm, like iPalmMemo.
Did you try VoodooPad?
I just thought I’d let you know—I’ve just released version 1.1 of xPad, and this version finally fixes the dreaded arrow shortcuts issue. It’s also the beginning of plenty of development to come.
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