Related
Hi,
Am pretty new to Android and came across this really nice App/Widget called ColorNote. An all in one package that has a lot of features and comes in a reasonably sized package.
I'm sure many of you are already using this. The reason for the post however is not to promote this, but to ask if anyone either knows of a way to contact the author or know of an alternative to this.
What I need is an app with all the features of the above, but with a widget that is NOT a sticky post, but with something like a flip pad. That is the widget shows page 1 of the notes and then I either click an up/ down arrow to move between pages or click on the tip of a page to move between them as in the app here -> http://www.appbrain.com/app/simple-notes/hu.monsta.simplenotes
Can someone help me?
Thanks
Evernote is one of the best note taking apps. You can do voice notes, text notes and pictures. Web, desktop and phone apps. My only real complaint is that you can't write checkable lists on the phone app, but they are adding new stuff all the time. Oh and it doesn't have a widget, but you should still check it out.
springpad is also pretty good.. has awidget where you can scrol through different notes...
I use colornote for checklists. I like it. Its very clean and easy to use.
I have been trying to embrace the cloud using Springpad on my phone, CR-48 (meetings/note taking computer at work), my W7 work desktop and my Macbook Pro personal laptop. It's been working out well so far.
Colornote is nice for taking quick notes, like during a meeting or something.
For everything else, I also use Springpad. In the past I've gone through Catch (formerly 3banana) and Evernote both but I feel that Springpad is superior to all of them.
Just to add an extra choice, I've been liking Simplenote
Andronoter is a free Android client of it, www.simplenoteapp.com is the web interface.
first off, i'm wanting to use my tablet for business use. i go to a lot of corporate meetings and i want to:
1. take notes
2. have attachments to those notes (documents, pdfs, spreadsheets, pictures, whatever)
3. be able to attach files from the local storage and access both the note AND the attachment even if offline (if i'm somewhere where there is no wifi)
4. organize my notes into folders so that i can sort them by whatever the meeting is abount
ive been trying various note taking apps such as handrite, evernote, catch, springpad, etc but i've yet to find one single app that will do all that i want.
evernote -nice but you have to pay a subscription fee in order to put attachments on your notes...lame.
catch - the best app for attaching local files on my tablet to the note itself. i can attach pdf's, pics, etc so when i my note open about that meeting, i can touch the attachment and it launches in whatever app i want it to launch with. awesome. problem is that the organization stuff sucks.
springpad - LOVE the interface and it makes it easy to organize stuff. they have a chrome extension so i can add notes and things from my browser which is cool. the only problem i have with this app is that it doesnt allow the local file attachment like catch does. you can attach anything, but it then links to the springpad cloud service to pull the message down...not ideal if i'm offline.
handrite - this just does handwritten notes obviously, but the ideal situation would be to take handwritten notes and then send it to my other note taking app of choice.
SO...i'm still kind of feeling this all out, but i'm hoping that you guys can give me a good solution to my problem. as of right now, im torn between springpad and catch. the two big kickers here are offline usage and attachments. i need to access all of my attachments and notes if offline with no hiccups. thoughts?
Look up GoogleDocs. I haven't used it but try it out and see if it helps.
gqstatus0685 said:
Look up GoogleDocs. I haven't used it but try it out and see if it helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have Google Docs and it works for note taking and organization...but it doesnt allow me to attach files to notes. if i create a note and save it, i want to be able to take a pdf or any kind of other file and attach the file to the note. basically i'm wanting to emulate the pen/notepad experience. in the past i've taken a notepad and pen for note taking...and also printed off any documents (price quotes, slides, emails, etc) that i need for reference, and stuck them in my notebook. so i could have all of my various printed docs ready for reference during THAT particular meeting. i want the same thing with an app and i feel like springpad is almost there...just need a little more.
any other ideas?
Yeah. Install evernote.
Its cloud based so you'll need to register. It allows you to attach files from the file system or photos from the camera. Also arrange your notes into folders (I have a meetings folder)
Plus the big plus is that any notes I write are auto synced with evernote on my PC and vice versa so I don't have to do anything to get what I wrote back to my main machine
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
...oh, you can also record the audio while notetaking which I find really useful in some meetings
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
MrGinger said:
Yeah. Install evernote.
Its cloud based so you'll need to register. It allows you to attach files from the file system or photos from the camera. Also arrange your notes into folders (I have a meetings folder)
Plus the big plus is that any notes I write are auto synced with evernote on my PC and vice versa so I don't have to do anything to get what I wrote back to my main machine
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have evernote installed and had planned on using it until i found out that they require you to pay a yearly subscription fee to upload attachments. $45 a year i think it is. its not crazy expensive or anything...but i dont really care about having my attachments in the cloud. i just want the ability to attach them from my local device or other service (dropbox for instance). i guess you are paying for the evernote storage capacity, but if it would just like to the local device or dropbox, i wouldnt need to pay.
yes its valuable and yes i would probably use it and swear by it, but i was just HOPING to find another solution that wasnt a subscription based model.
Last thing. If you're going to be going without wifi and want to be able to access an existing note or a pre-prepared empty note with your reference material attached, just open the note on your tablet in advance whilst you have wifi and it'll cache it locally so you can access it even from the moon!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Sorry, didn't notice that. I swear I've done attachments without paying... haven't needed to sync them tho... email the attachments to yourself and use the power of multi-tasking!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
MrGinger said:
Last thing. If you're going to be going without wifi and want to be able to access an existing note or a pre-prepared empty note with your reference material attached, just open the note on your tablet in advance whilst you have wifi and it'll cache it locally so you can access it even from the moon!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the tip...this is basically what I want to do. and btw, i just read on evernote's "premium" stuff that the subscription stuff allows you to upload all types of files...but that means that the free version does allow for some types to be uploaded. didnt know that, so i just uploaded a pdf attachment to a note. works well enough. although i'm not really sure why loading a pdf or picture is okay but not a .docx or .xlsx i could see mp3's and what not, but word docs? really?
worst case scenario, i have to convert all of my word docs to pdfs
No worries. Personally I use dropbox to transfer reference material onto my xoom to a folder on the internal storage in advance of the meetings and don't tend to use the attachments in evernote. Hope you find a good solution
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
MrGinger said:
No worries. Personally I use dropbox to transfer reference material onto my xoom to a folder on the internal storage in advance of the meetings and don't tend to use the attachments in evernote. Hope you find a good solution
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm....okay well....hope you dont mind if i ask you some questions?
you sound like you use your tablet in a similar way for business so i'm curious just as to your general "process".
1. walk into meeting with xoom
2. sit down and open up....Evernote and Dropbox?
3. do you type on the virtual keyboard or the bluetooth keyboard? or do you use Handrite with a stylus?
4. when referencing docs, do you have dedicated folders in dropbox for specific meetings or maybe just organized based on project?
as you can see, i'm really wanting to have everything digital, but i want to get down the process so i'm not fumbling through various apps and what not during the meeting itself. sounds like you have this down pat...so i'm open to your suggestions! thanks again.
I tend to have no more than 2 meetings in a day (they tend to be long!) I have a page on my launcher dedicated to my productivity stuff so...
Email widget,
shortcuts to...
Evernote
QuickOffice HD
FileManager HD
Droid scan pro
Remote Desktop Client
Dropbox
I tend to keep my downloads folder very cleared out and organised so I just leave my meeting stuff in there. Saves me having to move stuff after downloading files from Dropbox or email.
I tend to just open evernote and filemanagerHD (which has a nice shortcut on the left hand side to the downloads folder). The xoom with 3.1 is quick enough for me to just open my reference material as I need it from file manager. I then use the honeycomb task switcher to swap between notes and reference
If I'm working on a project longer term I setup a folder for the reference material to keep it separate.
Another useful feature of filemanagerHD is the ability to bookmark files on your xoom for easy access. I do this alot. Often bookmarking the files ill need just before the meeting or as everyone is coming in.
In terms of note taking I use thumb keyboard 4.0 beta in one handed mode (where the keyboard only takes up one side of the landscape screen) so all the keys are withing fingers reach of my hand without me having to move it much. Love thumb kepyboard !
Hope this helps!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Oh. I also regularly take photos of whiteboards from my notes in evernote! That syncs without subscription!
Waiting to see what this leather folio case with built in keyboard will be like when released too! Could be useful!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Thanks man. I really appreciate you taking through time to write all that out for me. I think I finally have a game plan now...thanks again.
Hi!
I'm not really a technic geek, so for me its not easy to root my galaxy gear
But I want to have a pdf-reader on the gear. Whats the simplest way to install it and what for a reader should i take?
Anyone tested it yet?
Thank you guys
Check the threads for how to sideload apps using overshares. It's very simple
Remember the screen is tiny, can't imagine being able see much of a pdf
_____
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 i7310
I'm running Null rom and have Office suite pro and quickoffice installed. They actually work better than one might think. As far as reading them, you'll have to do some zooming. Just like my kindle app I loaded on my Gear - which may sound ridiculous, but actually it works better than one would expect. Not hard to read, just more swiping to change pages obviously. So it's doable and not as cumbersome to use a PDF reader or office app on the Gear. Now the fact that it doesn't have a WIFI radio really is what makes many apps not very useable as you have to BT tether for internet and that is slow and eats battery.
LOL, I installed kindle myself just to see if it would Work.
I think I Used it for 10 Minutes before deciding it was totally worthless and uninstalling it.
I can't even imagine trying to read a PDF on the gear (or why you would want to)
jmorton10 said:
LOL, I installed kindle myself just to see if it would Work.
I think I Used it for 10 Minutes before deciding it was totally worthless and uninstalling it.
I can't even imagine trying to read a PDF on the gear (or why you would want to)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Each to their own. I would not read Kindle books on the gear often, but on a plane or in certain situations it's fine. As far as PDF - I do all my payroll (about 25 employee's) on my TF300 or Note 3 via an excel sheet I made. I loaded the excell sheet with office suite pro and save each bi-weekly payroll so that I have it readily available. The excel sheet figures payroll for me as I plug in hours for each employee, etc. Anyway, I actually loaded that payroll excel sheet onto my gear and I could use it in a pinch. But yes, you had to zoom - a lot - and it was cumbersome. Point for me was more "can I" than "will I" much, or at all. I got the Gear as an Xmas gift, didn't ask for it, so for me it's a fun gadget that I enjoy pushing the limits of the device. :good:
Hello,
I didn't manage to upload my PDFs to Gear.
I've searched for similar topics on this site, but I didn't find relevant posts.
Please help!
5-31-21 I've ceased development on this app because I think there is a better alternative. See post #7.
*updated to version 1.3, adding error trap for discontinued or blank feeds*
It's been awhile since the demise of the last working version of Genie Widget (aka Google News and Weather) but not so long since the big G retooled news.google.com so that our browsers can no longer deal with it and also put the kibosh on the Google News RSS feeds. Sigh.
I have a work-around
Google News 1.3 for the NST/G exploits the "alerts" that Google offers on news topics. These alerts can be optioned in the form of RSS feeds. My app downloads the HTML source for the feed, picks out all the good stuff and trashes all the rest, then builds up a local HTML document which is easily displayed by our browsers (I highly recommend Opera Mobile for ease of scrolling and general all-around function). You can build up your own topics, change your mind, mix them about, read that one more story you didn't get to the first time around, etc. I'm not saying that your browser will negotiate every target link. Some newspaper sites have just become too much. That was true even when Genie Widget was still working. But updating Opera Mobile for TLS 1.2 solves much of that. See this post for details.. The beauty of this app is in the simplicity. It's entirely browser-based once the feeds are downloaded, so you're not going back and forth between the app and your browser (like the current Google News app.......). Designed for both portrait and landscape.
Requirements
1. Android 2.1 has a security issue with opening local HTML files. In order for Google News to work properly you need to address that. Included in the zip below is a tiny app, android-open-in-browser-0.0.4-4-debug. Install that. It's not my app but I have used it for years and wish I could credit the originator.
2. This is a Tasker-generated app. If you already have one of my other Tasker-generated apps or have previously installed GApps, you don't need the two Google maps library files included in the zip and can delete them. If you do need them, copy the two files into the locations shown below:
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar
Set permissions for both files to rw-r--r-- and reboot. Without these files resident, the app will not install.
3. Create a folder in the root directory of your sdcard: Google News (exactly as shown)
4. Install the app itself, Google News.1.apk
How to use
Before you run the app you need to select some news categories, set up the feeds, get the URLs, blah-blah-blah. All of this is covered in the PDF included with the zip. It may seem a little annoying at the start, but it goes quickly once you get started and it's not like you have to do it every time you use the app. You're just setting up your news topics, just as if you were using the current Google News (either the app or the web version). Once you have your topics and URLs and have edited the included text file google_rss_feeds.txt, copy that into the Google News folder of your sdcard.
Note: recently (June 2019) the big G has not been very consistent with the RSS feeds. Some days they are "empty" but come back the next day with lots of stories. Some feed topics simply "die" and a minor change in the topic will resurrect them (change "World" to "World news", as an example). Version 1.3 includes a trap for these eventualities so that the app should not crash, even if your first feed comes up empty. To inspect/edit your feeds, point your browser (on your PC) to your Google Alerts page. If you are signed in this will be found among the options on the Google home page, in the upper right corner where the "apps" grid is shown.
Now you're good to go. Start the app, make sure you're connected to WiFi. There are only three buttons on the app screen. The first one, "Fetch the news" does just that. You will see a little toast that the first news category is being prepared. Once that is done, you will be taken to the browser and that page will open. Meanwhile the remaining pages are being downloaded and reconstructed in the background.
The news page is very simple. I tried to aim for readability over all other considerations (this is the reason the news items are in bold black, even though they are the external links). I have my Opera Mobile set to 100% page zoom. It looks good to me, but you could probably get away with 75%. External websites are another matter. At the title bar left is a drop-down menu button that gives you access to your other news topics. Since no fixed navbar schemes work under Android 2.1, there is a duplicate drop-up menu bar at the end of the page. The use of NoRefresh, or to a lesser extent FastMode, is a plus.
Edit: you cannot use this app with Opera Mini. It lacks the ability to open local HTML files.
The second option on the opening screen, "Read old news" sounds a bit daft, but I just thought maybe someone might have been looking at the topic pages, saw something that interested them and then got interrupted. So this option opens the first local file in the browser again and you can navigate from there. Strictly speaking, WiFi is not needed to browse the local files once they have been created, but it is needed to pursue any stories.
The third option simply dismisses the app screen.
Whew! So this is new...and I think I exterminated all the bugs, but I did not try other browsers. I'm open to suggestions and would appreciate feedback.
Google alert change? No option for RSS alerts anymore...
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm away from home right now but my copy of the app is working so the RSS feeds must still exist. I'll have to sit down with my instructions in front of the computer and see what mischief they've done. Thanks for letting me know.
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I've run through the instructions sitting at my PC. Everything is correct although Firefox no longer wants to open the RSS feed page as anything other than an xml "text" file. That just means the image on page 4 needs updating.
As far as page 3, everything is currently exactly as shown. Just to be sure, you have to be signed in to Google on your browser before you do any of this. Then when you get to the screen depicted on page 3 you need to change the "Deliver to" option to RSS feed. But even before that, it's important not to get sucked into the email alert business back on page 2. Do NOT click on "Create Alert" there, only on "Show options". That's how you get to the screen I show on page 3.
When you finally get to click on the little RSS symbol shown on the lower half of page 3, you (at least on Firefox) may end up at a page of xml code, or perhaps your browser may show a news feed page. Regardless, the URL shown for the page is the same and it's what you need to copy, just as described on page 4.
Let me know if you are still having issues with this.
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So a few days after I wrote my last post, the app stopped working for me. It just hangs on "Preparing......News"
Google has apparently changed the format of their RSS xml file. Right in the middle of something else at the moment, but I will get it fixed.
Nope, nix that. After fooling around with the app and an xml file from the Big G, I find nothing out of place and it seems the app is now working again
They're just messing with us.
Edit: Indeed they are. Today I caught another malfunction but this time looked at the Tasker routines for an error. Google is sending out (at least today) RSS feeds with empty content fields. That messes up my app. So I wrote an error trap for that. Updated in first post. Have to watch the big G like a hawk....
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whilst looking around for a solution to a different issue, I came across this: https://medium.com/@cassandragraft/...tion-not-appearing-heres-the-fix-bf842ca32b88
It appears to address the issue you describe. I never encountered the issue, but obviously some people have.
The Big G is making me very angry lately. Even version 1.2 with a new error trap is crashing. I'm finding that some of my feeds are "empty". The skeleton of the RSS file is there but there is no content populating the file. A category as ordinary as "world" is simply blank. This is new and very annoying. Just a change of topic to "world news" brings up a list of stories longer than your arm. I encountered this before with "science" and fixed it with a slight change in name, so I should have seen this coming. It's a nasty game Google seems to be playing....
Anyway, if the app crashes on the first topic it leaves an overlay artifact behind when you exit. To remove this, go to the App Manager and force stop the app. I will work on a fix which will alert you to the effect that the feed appears dead but allow the app to complete the download of whatever is still working and exit properly.
Grr....
Edit: App updated to v1.3 in first post. I hope that solves the problems. For now.
As I mentioned in my edit of the first post, I think my app is exhibiting creakiness already owing to Opera Mobile's increasing difficulty negotiating many websites.
I have an alternative to suggest, however, that is totally browser based. It seems to work "OK" with Opera Mobile although text display is a bit small with a default zoom of 100%. In Opera Mini, however, it shines, especially with NoRefresh.
Thanks to XDA member @SJT75 , I found out about a list of text-only news sites. One of them is a text version of Google News! The list is at: https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/
While the Google News option does not allow for custom categories (hey, there's an app for that!), it does cover all the usual suspects. Even better, all of the links lead to text-only versions of the sources. Occasionally you go to a page and find it could not be fetched by whatever mechanism the author is using, but pages (even those error ones) include a link to the original source
Also notable on the list are the NPR and CNN sites. Both work well.
Was just re-reading a chapter from my dissertation and went to go read it in the new Office app (unified Word, PP, Excel, Sticky Notes, and Office Lens + some other stuff). Planning on reading while changing songs in Spotify I opened the document and three finger swiped to send it to the secondary screen and it sent the document but kept the home menu on the main screen. If I open another document it does close the previous document on the secondary screen and open the new document on the primary screen. If I close the menu on the main screen to open another app, leaving the document on the main screen, it'll keep the document up as if the app was started on the second screen. I think Microsoft is starting to add dual screen support to their apps and lucky for us some of that code seems to work on the G8X. I think whatever code allows this is the same code that makes it so that on Samsung Dex and other Android desktops it open the document in a new app window vs in the same app window as the menu. I've noticed this behavior in a few Microsoft apps but nowhere else in Dex. I'm sure others have discussed this but it seems like LG basically treats the other screen as an external monitor which take up every new "window" apps produce or is produced by the system when you open something on the second screen. This might also be why other launchers don't work because they can't/don't produce new "windows" that can be put there. Anyways, sorry for ranting on but this is super interesting to me. Thoughts (especially from developers who might actually know the nuts and bolts of this)? Edit: I did a bit more investigation with other MS office apps on Android and none of them exhibit this same behavior even the Word app which on Dex I believe does pop a new window when opening documents like the Office app. Obviously this throws my later theory about windows into doubt.