Notes: A Pinboard for Short Texts

Notes are the shortest thing Bookmax stores: a serial number, a door code, the three lines somebody read out on the phone. They are not rows in a table and not documents with a title page. They lie on a board like paper notes on a desk, each one where you put it, in the size and the color you gave it. In the application this area is called Notes; older screens and the export file still use the word memos for the same thing.

Groups

Each group is its own board. The left panel lists them, the plus in its header creates one with a name and an optional colored icon, the pencil renames it, the wastebasket deletes it once it is empty. Groups can be nested by dragging them sideways, in the same way as the folders in every other area.

Writing a note

The plus above the board puts a new note on it. Type straight into it, then drag it where it belongs and pull its bottom right corner to the size you need. One thing is worth remembering: a note is written to the account when it loses the focus. Click the background of the board or another note before you leave the page, and it is saved.

Editing works the same way. Change the text and click the background. There is no separate edit form, because for four words a form would take longer than the note.

Moving, sizing, stacking

A note is taken by its header bar, not by its text, otherwise dragging would select the text instead. The note you touched last comes to the front, so overlapping notes can be brought forward simply by clicking them. The bottom right corner resizes.

Selecting and deleting

Click the header of a note to select it, and CTRL-click, on a Mac COMMAND-click, to add more. CTRL-A selects every note on the board. With a selection made, the wastebasket above the board removes them.

A little formatting

Notes take simple formatting, all of it from the keyboard. Mark a piece of text and press CTRL-B for bold, CTRL-I for italic, CTRL-L to turn it into a link or CTRL-F to change the size. CTRL-J draws a horizontal rule, CTRL and the period key change the color of the note, and CTRL-ESC strips the formatting off again. On a Mac it is the command key instead of CTRL, and the application shows the list next to the board. Anything longer than a few lines belongs in Docs, which has a proper editor and a title for each document.

Import, export and limits

Premium accounts can export their notes to CSV and read a CSV file back in. Every account is covered by the backup in the settings, which puts the entire account into one file. How many groups and notes a free account may hold is listed in the account comparison.