QuikNote adds a quick note taking ability to the Psion 3a/3c and Siena. How many times have you wanted to just pick up your Psion and quickly kepy in a phone number or short note only to stumble around opening a new word file or create a new database entry? QuikNote gives you the ability to do just that and also view and manage multiple notes in multiple QuikNote files.
One of QuikNote's operating modes runs the program automatically whenever you power on the Psion, whilst still allowing you to return to the previously running application with a single keystroke. Alternatively, you can set up QuikNote to only run on power-up if you press ESC (ON) quickly, twice in a row (probably the most useful operational mode).
Notes of from 1-253 characters long are stored in the standard database format, so you can also access the notes database using the built-in DATA Application. QuikNote supports bi-directional Bring - so data can be easily moved in and out of QuikNote to other applications.
QuikNote features a multi-line editing window with cut, copy, paste evaluate and single key shortcuts for inserting words or phrases. QuikNote databases can be filtered by a search string so that only certain records are displayed.
QuikNote is a shareware program with a modest registration fee: press Psion/R to bring up the registration screen with the pricing information.
As an incentive for registering, you get a special registration number that permits more than 10 notes to be stored in the database and which also allows you to use multiple quiknote files.
To register QuikNote, send US or UK cash, money order or cheque (drawn on US Bank only!) to:
C. E. Steuart Dewar
Pimlico Software
2031 Lowery (Old Loving) Road
Morganton, GA 30560
USA
register on-line through Compuserve by entering GO SWREG and following the instructions to specify that you want to register the QUIKNOTE Program (id# 12277).
register on-line through RegNet by pointing your web browser at:
http://www.swregnet.com/576p.htm
There is a slight premium for registering via RegNet, but this is offset by the ease of registering for most users.
Installation
The QUIKNOTE.ZIP file contains three files:
* Quiknote.opa The application program
* Quiknote.wrd A Psion Word document containing
the QuikNote Manual
* Readme.txt Installation notes and other last minute information
After unzipping the file on your MAC or PC, copy the QUIKNOTE.OPA file into any APP directory on the Psion palmtop using the copy command.
Install QuikNote by selecting the install option on the Apps menu of the System program.
Upgrading from Version 1.0
Install QuikNote as described above. When you run Quiknote, after the message that a new preference file has been created, enter your V-2.0 registration number with Psion/Shift/R. Then press Psion/J. This will convert your V-1.0 file and place it in the QuikNote sub-directory. Your old file is not deleted, so you may wish to manually delete it afer you confirm that it can be read properly with V-2.0.
If you are a currently a registered user of V-1.0, you can upgrade at no cost by email only by requesting a V-2.0 registration number. If you are unable to email, please send the $5 difference beween the V-1.0 and V-2.0 registration fees for your 2.0 registration number. With your request, you must include your V-1.0 registration code.
Installing a new version over an older version
In most cases, you will have to delete the QuikNote.prf file in the APP directory. A new QuikNote.prf will be generated, and you will need to put your registration code back in. Be sure to write down your registration code before deleting the QuikNote.prf file (you can press Psion/Shift/R to get your current registration code).
Running the Program
When the program is first run, Quiknote will create an APP directory. You will be prompted to create a new database file. Once installed, if you press ESC, control will return to the previously running application.
Scrolling through Notes
Use cursor up/down to scroll through entries and move from page to page in the display. Home/End move to the start/end of the notes list, and PgUp/PgDn move the screen display by pages.
Adding a New Note
To add a new note, press TAB or Psion/W. QuikNote will display a dialog screen to allow you to type in the new note. Notes are either entered at the end of the database or start depending on the sort direction. See Edit Functions for available options in the edit screen.
Starting with V-2.00u, if you press a character in the main screen, a note will open up automatically so you do not need to press TAB or Psion/W.
Copying and pasting Notes
At the main edit screen, you can copy a note to the clipboard with the Note/copy menu option or Psion/C. This is different from using copy/paste in the edit window as the date is also saved. You can then paste the entire note with its date into another QuikNote file by using the note/paste menu option, or pressing Psion/I.
Changing a Note
To change a note select the note with the cursor keys and press the ENTER key or Psion/E. QuikNote will display a dialog screen allowing you to edit the note. Several editing functions are available (see Edit Functions).
Deleting a Note
To delete a note select the note with the cursor keys and press the DELETE key or Psion/D. A confirmation screen appears: press Y to delete the note or N to leave the note alone. Delete actually cuts the note to the clipboard, so you can restore it by pressing Psion/I. Also look at the archive/strikethrough feature that allows you to manage deleted notes in an organized fashion.
Deleting all Notes
To kill all Notes in the Notes file, select the KILL ALL function in the File menu (or press Psion/Shift/Y) and then press K to confirm the deletion, or press CANCEL to ignore the request. Only those notes in the current view will be deleted. This means that you can apply a filter to a set of notes and then kill all to only kill those notes, leaving all other notes alone. To kill everything in the database, make sure there is no filter present before issuing this command
A third option A copies all the killed entries into an archive file.
Global Search
Press Psion/L or select the Global Search option in the File menu. A dialog appears where you can type in a search string of up to 32 characters. The global search is not case sensitive.
QuikNote will scan all files with a DBF extension in the APP directory for a match. All matching notes are displayed in a list dialog with the filename on the left and the start of the note on the right. If the search has not finished, you will see the legend Find More Matches... on the last line of the dialog. To continue the search, select that last line (remember you can use cursor up!) and press Enter.
You can select the note you want (with cursor up/down) and press Enter to load that note file and bring up the selected note.
Filtering (Finding) notes
Press Psion/F or select the Filter option in the Note menu and type in the string to find. The display will then be filtered so that only matching notes in the database file are displayed. To clear the filter and return to displaying all notes, press Psion/G or select the Clear Filter option from the Note menu.
Exiting the Program
To exit from the program, press Psion/X. No data is ever lost as the Notes file is always updated on the disk whenever a new note is added or an existing note is modified. If the edit window is open when an external exit command is processed (for example, you exit all applications from the system screen), the current note (if there is some text present) will be saved back into the database before exiting so nothing is lost.
Selecting an entry
To select a note or scan through the notes database, use the cursor up and down keys to move the selected line up and down by one note. Use PgUp/PgDn (Psion/up-down) to move one screen page forwards and backwards, and use Home/End (Psion/left-right) to move to the first or last entry in the display.
Edit Functions
To move the cursor in the edit window, the standard Psion cursor movements are supported: by character (cursor left/right/up/down), by word (Ctrl-Left/Right), start/end of line (Home/End), start/end of note (Ctrl/PgUp, Ctrl/PgDn). Use the Shift key along with cursor movement to mark copy.
To delete characters, use the DEL key, and to delete a block of copy, mark the copy by holding the shift key down as you move the cursor over the copy and press the DEL key. Copy deleted in this manner is actually cut to the clipboard, so it can be restored by pasting. To copy to the clipboard, use Psion/C and to insert: Psion/I. Copy can be cut and copied from one note and pasted into another note.
To cut and paste to different Psion Applications, use the Bring function. To paste into the QuikNote application, mark the copy in the other application, switch to QuikNote's edit window and press Psion/B. Paragraphs of text will be pasted together with an end-of-line code in between. The tab code is converted to a space. You cannot bring more than 253 characters from another application.
To Bring data into another Psion application from QuikNote, bring up the edit window and switch to the other application and invoke that application's Bring function (usually Psion/B). The entire note will be copied into that application.
To copy just a portion of the text in the edit window, mark that text (in the normal Psion fashion) by holding down the shift key and moving the cursor over the text to be selected.
To evaluate an expression, type the expression in the edit window, and with the cursor inside any portion of the expression, press Psion/E. An equals sign and the result will be inserted immediately after the expression. This feature is often useful as a quick calculator! If you power on the Psion in modes 2 or 3, the edit window opens - you type in your expression and press Psion/E - often this is faster than calling up the calculator application!
To start text on a new line, press Shift/Enter (Enter without the shift just closes the dialog-although a preference option can invert this meaning).
Styling a Note
You can apply a style to a note by selecting Note/Style or pressing Psion/B from the main menu. A dialog appears allowing you to mark the note as Bold, Italic, Underline, or Normal. If you select a style other than normal, the first character of the note will contain the style attribute. This is not seen in QuikNote, but it would be visible if you viewed the note text in another application (such as Data).
StrikeThrough and Archiving
You can strike through a note by selecting the note and pressing Psion/- (if the note was already struck through, it will be cleared). This feature can be useful to flag certain notes (such as completed todo list items). Any existing style attribute (bold, italic, etc.) will be replaced by the struckthrough attribute.
At any time, you can press Psion/H to remove all struckthrough notes and have them transferred to an archive file (which, depending upon your setting of the Preference item, will either a single archive file for all your quicknote files, or a dedicated archive file associated with each QuikNote file)
Changing the Date
You can change the date of any note from the edit window. To select the current date and time for the note, press Psion/N (now). To select a specific date and time, press Psion/D. A standard Psion date/time display is shown. You can press TAB in the date field to open up the 1-3- or 12 month Psion calendar display. The edit/create window at the top of the screen will be updated with the new date and time.
Setting Alarms
You can change set an alarm for an item by pressing Psion/A in the edit window. A small alarm symbol will appear in the dialog title, and in the list display to show that an alarm has been set. If an alarm is already set for an item, it will be cleared when you Press Psion/A. Note that when an alarm expires, the alarm symbol will not be cleared from the item (so you can tell that an alarm had been set for an item). You can edit an item and change the date/time setting and the alarm will be automatically updated and rescheduled.
Tech Note: all future alarms are stored in a file called ALARM.DAT in the APP\QUIKNOTE directory. Only one alarm at a time is actually queued up to the alarm manager. Whenever an alarm triggers, QuikNote will automatically queue up the next alarm in the Alarm.dat file. Because the interface to the alarm manager is a bit fragile in the Psion O/S, QuikNote has a couple of features to help deal with possible error conditions. It is hoped that the average user will never encounter a problem, but if they do, the following items may prove helpful.
First, if for some reason an alarm gets cleared before QuikNote attempts to clear it, the Psion O/S will hang the QuikNote application. QuikNote puts up a message saying -->Press Psion/Esc briefly which is normally never seen. If the Psion O/S does hang QuikNote, however, you will see this message. In that case, just press Psion/ESC to terminate the QuikNote application, and restart QuikNote. Note that you will not lose any data if this should happen.
Second, if some alarms appear to have gotten lost for some reason, you can get QuikNote to re-schedule all alarms by pressing Psion/Shift/U. QuikNote will scan all the QuikNote DBF files and build a new alarm.dat file and then exit. You can then manually delete the current QuikNote alarm (if any) by pressing Psion/V in the Time application. Then restart QuikNote and the alarms will definitely be back in proper synchronization.
Keyboard Shortcuts
QuikNote has a powerful feature for quickly entering common words, phrases or special characters through its Keyboard Shortcut feature. In either the main screen or edit window, you can press Psion/K to bring up the Shortcut library. You can have up to 23 shortcut keys (A-Z except for M (Enter) and H (Backspace) and S (Xoff?)). To enter a shortcut in the Shortcut library, press the letter. You can then type in from 1 to 255 characters as a shortcut for that letter. When you are finished entering the shortcuts, press ESC or ENTER to close the screen. In the edit window, you can now press the CTRL key along with that letter to automatically insert that shortcut.
If you select the preference option to allow multiple shortcut files, QuikNote will optionally create a dedicated Shortcut file that is only associated with the current database, so you can have a separate shortcut file for each database. This allows you to customize the set of shortcuts for that particular database. Whenever you press Psion/K with the Multiple option selected, and QuikNote finds there is no dedicated shortcut file, it will ask you whether you want to create one. If you say no, the standard SHORTCUT.CUT file will be used instead. If you say yes, an empty shortcut file will be created.
NOTE: Use of the control keys in this manner may conflict with the usage of these same keys by other shareware programs that implement macros across Psion applications, but will not interfere with any standard Psion programs.
Multiple Database Files
Only one database file can be open at a time, but you can quickly switch between them by either selecting them from the system screen, or using the File/Open command or Psion/O. A standard Psion file dialog allows selection of another QuikNote file. You can also create a new file with File/New or Psion/N from the main screen. Note: multiple database files are only supported in registered versions.
Also, the last file that was opened is always remembered, and you can toggle between that file and the currently open file by pressing the diamond key.
File Merge
You can merge two QuikNote files together into a single file. Open up one file with Psion/O and then press Psion/V to select a second file to be merged into the open file. The file being merged is always left unchanged.
Help screen
Press the HELP key for a quick summary of all the available functions in QuikNote. Most menu items should be self-explanatory. There is a separate HELP screen in the edit window to cover edit functions.
Preferences
QuikNote operation can be changed through the Preferences menu.
Power On Mode
Can be set to one of 3 conditions:
* Do nothing special on power on
* Go to QuikNote whenever the Psion is powered on
* Go to QuikNote only if ON is hit quickly twice in a row
NOTE: QuikNote cannot run on Powerup if you have the Psion password feature set as that overrides QuikNote. For the third option, you also have an opportunity of setting the delay time (see below). The third option will not work if the edit window is left open in QuikNote. You will hear a barely audible tone if you power up with the edit window open in QuikNote and either options 2 or 3 are selected.
Date/Time Display
Can be set to one of 4 conditions:
* No Date/Time display
* Date Only
* Date with time shown in 12hr (US) format
* Date with time shown in 24hr (European) format
With options 1 or 2, the edit window will show the time in 24hr format.
Default Zoom Factor
Can be set to one of 4 sizes: Tiny, Small, Medium and Large. Medium is the default Zoom factor. The zoom factor can also be changed on the fly with Psion/Z or Psion/Shift/Z.
Delay Counter
This number controls how long QuikNote will wait after Power On to see if the user is going to hit the ON (ESC) key again (only meaningful if the 3rd power-on option is set). A value of 1000 equates very approximately to a second. A value of about 500 should be reasonable for most users.
Sort
Oldest First sorts the database with oldest entries at the beginning. Newest First puts the newest entries at the beginning. Alphabetic sorts notes in alphabetic order. Note that a Newest First or Alphabetic sort forces QuikNote to re-sort the database on each new item since the Psion by default puts the newest entries at the end of the database, so this option is a little slower.
The sort function will sort the file even if automatic sorting is turned off (so you can manually sort the file at any time.
Add Legible Date to Database
If Yes is chosen, QuikNote will add a third line to the database record which consists of the date in a legible form such as: Sun 07 Jan 1996 12:54:34. You can add a label to the DBF file such as DateStr to mark that field, but it is not necessary to do so. After this change, any new entries, or date changes on existing entries will have the legible date field added into the database record. This field is not used by QuikNote.
Size of Status Window
This option controls the default size of the Psion Status window when QuikNote is started up. It can always be changed on the fly by pressing CTRL/MENU. The three available default settings on the 3a/3c are none, Small and Large. On the Siena, there are only two settings: No and Yes.
Keyboard Shortcut File(s)
Yes indicates that QuikNote should attempt to provide a dedicated Keyboard Shortcut file for each QuikNote database. No indicates that only the global QuikNote.cut file should be used for shortcuts. If you set this preference item to yes, QuikNote will always query before creating a dedicated shortcut file. If no shortcut file exists, QuikNote automatically defaults to the global file, so it is not necessary to create dedicated Shortcut files when this option is set to yes.
Advance Alarm
This item allows you to specify a default advance setting of the alarm for an item in hours and minutes. For example, if you set this item to 1:30, then the alarm will always go off 1hr, 30m before the actual date/time for the item. Note that when you set an alarm you can always override this default setting.
QuikNote Global Hotkey
This item is in the MORE Preferences dialog. You can specify a single letter here to use in conjunction with the Psion key to switch to QuikNote from any running Psion Application. For example, 'V' would indicate that Psion/Shift/V is the hotkey, while 't' would indicate Psion/t is the hotkey. Make sure this hotkey does not duplicate a useful key in some Psion application you run!
Note Text,Maximum Line Length
These next six items define parameters for printed output and are covered under printing.
When ENTER Found
This Preference item determines whether the list view displays just the first line of a note or multiple lines. Normally a note has only one line. However , if a note has more than one line (using Shift/Enter), you can choose to display just the first line or as much text as will fit on the screen.
Edit Window Font
This item controls the size of the text displayed in the edit window. There are four available settings (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) and these are independent of the font size set for the list display.
The following items are in the 3rd Preference menu
Close Edit Dialog
This option allows you to swap the normal meaning of the Enter and Shift/Enter keys in the edit dialog:
Enter Enter closes the edit dialog, and Shift/Enter inserts a new line into the note
Shift/Enter Shift/Enter closes the edit dialog, and Enter inserts a new line into the note
Note: the TAB key will always close the dialog regardless of this option setting.
Edit Dialog Buttons
This option allows you hide the informative buttons in the edit dialog so more text can be displayed. The default is to show the buttons so that new users are reminded of the available options, but experienced users will almost certainly want to hide them since you can press the appropriate Psion/key to invoke the function when the buttons are hidden.
Archive File
You can set up two different kinds of archive files. Single sets up a single archive file with the name: archive.dbf. Multiple sets up a unique archive file for each QuikNote DBF file. This archive file is only created when the first archive request is made, and the filename is the same as the QuikNote file except that it has the extension DBK instead of DBF.
Automatic Sort
Normally, QuikNote will sort the file every time a note is entered to ensure that the file is always sorted (Automatic Sort = Yes). However, if you enter a lot of notes in a row, this can be annoying with a large quiknote file. By setting this preference item to No you can disable this automatic sorting and just sort the file manually when you want by pressing Psion/S.
Printing
When Psion/P is pressed, QuikNote provides 4 options: Parallel Printer for the 3a, Parallel Printer for the 3c (on the 3c, parallel printers are actually driven off the serial port), Serial or print to file. Print to File will bring up a dialog to allow you to specify a file to print the contents of the QuikNote file to. Parallel and Serial select the port to print directly to. When serial is selected a dialog appears that allows you to set or change the standard port defaults for use with a serial printer.
Only the displayed notes are printed (i.e. you can set a filter and only the filtered records will be printed). If the program hangs in the printer routine you can always force an exit with Psion/ESC without losing anything.
The More Preferences dialog allows you to specify whether just one line or all lines of a note are to be printed, the maximum line length, number of lines/page, the line spacing, and header and footer lines. The header ad footer lines can also contain these special characters:
\n Generates a new line
\p Generates the page number
\d Generates the current date and time
\f Generates the name of the QuikNote file
Running QuikNote off a write-protected drive
QuikNote will first look for the preference file on the same drive that the OPA file loaded from. However, if the file is not found there, it will look in the APP directory on the interal drive, so by manally copying the file there (and deleting the copy off that load drive), you can still run QuikNote off a write-protected drive without getting an error when it attempts to update the preference file.
Compatibility with DATA Application
The data file that contains your notes (Quiknote.dbf) is a standard database file and can be viewed or updated by the DATA Application.
If you set the Add Legible Date Preference to Yes, you will be able to read the date in a separate field below the note. The Date field in the QuikNote.Dbf file is in seconds since 1/1/1970 (a standard internal Psion data format).
Remember that the data file can always be viewed and/or repaired through the Psion's standard DATA application.
Registering QuikNote
When you register QuikNote, you will be given a registration code. In QuikNote, Select Register QuikNote in the Setup menu or press Psion/shift/R, and type in the code (make sure the case matches perfectly and that there are no multiple spaces between items). The first field in the Preference database file must have a period followed by either a valid registration code or the word UNREGISTERED. If it gets corrupted QuikNote will not run (Use the DATA Application to fix the problem or delete the Preference file so QuikNote rebuild it).
Software Support
If you encounter any problem with QuikNote, or if you would like to suggest improvements etc., the best way to communicate is to send an email to Pimlico at cesd@gorilla-haven.org, send a fax to 706-374-4491 (USA) or send a letter to:
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