In its normal operation, Idea Keeper uses two types of windows: the Organizer Window and an idea window.
The Organizer Window displays two lists: the list on the left shows all the Topics, and the list on the right displays all the ideas in the current (or "active") Topic. Double-click on a Topic or an idea to open it. When a new Topic is opened, the list of ideas for that Topic appears on the right. When an idea is opened, an idea window is opened. Each idea correponds to a single window in which you can store text, pictures, sounds, and links to files.
The text in each idea window can be formatted with styles and color. You can define up to 10 separate "style templates" for text, in addition to a default text style, which you can use to format text with a single key-stroke.
Text can be copied, cut, pasted, and moved around with drag-and-drop editing. Idea Keeper allows you to easily insert the current date or time, path names to files, listings of folder contents, pictures, sounds, check boxes, links to other ideas, and links to files -- the latter are live links which open files just by clicking on them.
Idea Keeper will remember whether each window is open, where it is on the screen, its size, and any custom color you assign to the window. This information is saved when you quit Idea Keeper as well as when you select Save All from the File menu. If you make a series of changes which you don't want to keep, you can restore the saved settings by selecting Revert to Saved from the File menu.
Idea Keeper allows you to create up to 100 ideas for each set of ideas (what Idea Keeper calls a "Topic"), and a total of 100 Topics. Ideas can be printed & you can quickly search for strings of text through all of Idea Keeper. In addition, Idea Keeper has one Global Idea which is available regardless of what topic is active.
You can move ideas between Topics by selecting the ideas you want in the Organizer Window and then dragging the selected ideas to any Topic (holding down option forces the selected idea[s] to be copied rather than moved). In addition, you can use the "Copy/Move Ideas" option in the Idea menu. Idea Keeper can import TEXT files (via Import menu in File menu, and drag and drop where you drop a TEXT file onto Idea Keeper's icon in the finder or directly onto a Topic in the Organizer window) and clips from other word processors/text editors (that support drag and drop editing) by dragging the selected text over Idea Keeper's Organizer window and dropping the text onto a Topic.
For an overview of all of Idea Keeper's menu functions, turn on balloon help and pull down the menus.
