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Application Review
WarpNote
Review
by: Craig Miller – 07/01/11
OS Reviewed on: eComStation
2.0
Audio: Uniaud16 V1.9.25 & Uniaud32 V2.1.2
Video
Card Driver: SNAP, version 3 (eCS 2.0 package)
Year:
2003
Version: 1.93
Application Type: Sticky Notes
Developed
by: Uwe
Mock
Published by:
N/A
Homepage
Link: Click
Here
Wikipedia Link: N/A
Download
WarpNote 1.93!
This
is the full version, the registration key is not needed anymore.
Download
BlowFish Encryption!
This
allows you to store confidential information, such as IDs and
passwords, in the notes protected by a password.
(1)
Introduction:
Tired of those yellow sticky notes that won't stick on your monitor? Here come the sticky notes that remain where you put them: On your OS/2 desktop. WarpNote gives you easy access to little yellow windows where you can note down everything you want. The program is simple and easy to use and consumes as little memory as possible. Scripting & birthday-reminders included.
WarpNotes offers you an easy way to keep all your thoughts, quick notes, web links, addresses, phone numbers, and other information in one place. Whether you need to create a to-do list, plan daily tasks or organize recipes, WarpNotes finally provides you with everything you need for a fully featured, native eCS application.
I have been looking for a native post-it application for eComStation for awhile now. It seems that anyone starting to program starts with the post-it app, I guess it's easy to create? So to say the least, there are post-it apps out there, but not worth a crap.
I found WarpNotes for OS/2 1.93 but it was all but abandoned. It took me sometime to find the author (thanks to some readers) but in a few days, was able to talk to Uwe Mock. Uwe is very nice to allow WarpNote to be freeware after we talked. Donating such a productive program allows everyone to win. I also talked to Uwe about opening up WarpNote so we can continue to update it, he said that once he finds the code he would think of opening it up to the eCS community.
(2) Installation:
WarpNotes was last developed in 2003, so no WarpIn or IBM installer. Instead, we get a text installer that has a weird issue (explained below).
After you download the WarpNotes zip file and unzip it. You will easily find the install.cmd icon, double click it and you will have a text window come up:
It will ask you if you want to upgrade, but since this is a new install, you should press N on your keyboard, then it will ask you where you want to install WarpNote, you can put it anywhere, so I decided to put it in my D:\Programs\WarpNote dir. It will ask you to continue, hit the enter button.
The installer will install a few files and then ask you what language module you want. Which for a small program, is actually pretty cool that it supports more than just English, not that I can understand anything else.
So you type in “o” for both the German and French language modules, unless of course, you want to have that as your option.
It will then ask you if you want to put a WarpNote folder on your desktop, I said yes.
So now I open the WarpNote file, double click on the WarpNote icon, and I get this:
Oddly, I tried this on a few installs and got the same thing. Instead, I followed the same install procedure as above but this time when it asked me if I wanted to use a language module, I put “ein” (German) then “on” (French).
Now were cooking!
(3) Startup:
There are five icons in the WarpNote folder:
Double clicking on the WarpNote icon brings up two windows, the Note list window and one empty Note. If you click on the Note window, you will notice that the header instantly changes and shows that the new Note was created at whatever date. Nice.
For this start up section though, we want to go over some of the settings. I was actually surprised at some of the options of this little application.
Right clicking on the Note 1 window, you will see the menu come up, if you look at the bottom you will see a WarpNote choice, then Settings...
You can play with the many choices in the settings window whenever, but I wanted to focus on two tabs in particular: More settings and ControlCenter.
With WarpNote, every note you have up will make a new window, which in turn, will open a new spot in the eComCenter bar. You can imagine after having 10 notes open it would be impossible to see anything, so I recommend checking off on “Show notes in OS/2 Windows List”. The rest of the choices are really just options that make WarpNotes very versatile. I highly suggest playing around with them to get it just they way you want.
Control Center is the next tab which I thought was interesting, if you check the “Use ControlCenter” (Ugh) box, you get a new box on your desktop:
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|
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You now have the option to open Notes from this ControlCenter. Just remember, that if you don't want to use the ControlCenter, you have to go back into settings to turn it off, there is no way from the desktop.
(4) The Program:
WarpNotes is a simple program that does a lot right. So you don't need every bell and whistle on the planet like some windows post-it programs have. The first thing you will notice when WarpNotes starts is the double window make up:
This is how WarpNote will start the first time, I strongly suggest that, if you decide to use WarpNote, to drag the WarpNote icon to the Startup folder. When eCS starts up, WarpNote will right away pop up so you can never forget important things.
I have several notes up at once, and since I use virtual desktops, the first screen is always for WarpNotes, when eCS boots up the Notes are always in the same spot which is nice.
If you don't like this, you can just right click on any of the notes or the Note List and click on hide notes. Doing this will hide everything but the Notes List. I can see this being helpful if you are not running virtual desktops, if you are though, this seems redundant.
Of course, you can also right click and show all notes.
One “trick” I found out about when messing with WarpNote, was that you can add a note by clicking on the WarpNote in the eComCenter bar. Since I consider myself pretty lazy, this option is helpful, I can be on any virtual desktop and still quickly bring up a WarpNote
You can change the Notes colors also, though it should be easier, you can either drag a color from the Solid or Mixed Color Palette, or you can do into settings to do it. I wish you could just right click on a Note and pick a color.
This can also be done to change the text color, simply drag the desired color to the note color setting field while holding down the CTRL key.
WarpNote can handle up to 9999 notes, although there is a practical limit in the range between 500 and 1000 notes (the OS/2 window list can only handle some 500 entries). And as a side note, if you have 500 notes, you need to get off your lazy ass and starting working on some of them, I'm just saying...
The notes are numbered from 1 and a note will always keep the same number thus making it easier to remember. Additionally, the first 40 characters of the note text are displayed in the title bar and the Notes list window.
There is an option to print, if you right click on any note, then go to WarpNote, you will see a print/export option.
I have an Epson Workforce 610 printer, and even though the device was checked, I could not find the Epson printer anywhere. I do like how it lets you pick the notes you want to print, to bad it would not print.
WarpNote does support encryption via Blowfish version 1.63 (also able to download at the top of this site). To use it, download the Blowfish file, open it, then copy the ENCRYPT.DLL to your WarpNote directory and restart WarpNote. Done!
From there I suggest looking in the readme for more information. I personally did not install it since I am not putting passwords in my WarpNotes. If someone wants to see what articles I am going to write that bad, come on over and I will show you.
One last thing, if you are using a virtual desktop (I use Object Desktop 2), I found that if I shut down eCS and I am not on the desktop that has WarpNotes, then then next time I boot up, I find the Notes windows all over the place. Shutting down eCS on the desktop with Warpnote stops this issue though.
(5) Final Thoughts:
I have to first, again, thank Uwe Mock for donating this great program to the eCS community.
With that, WarpNotes is a great utility I think everyone should have, I am constantly putting physical notes on my desk and now I have a solid application that can take that job. WarpNote is a native eCS application and so it is crazy fast and I have never had it crash on me.
With that, I do think there are some places that WarpNote can improve on. First off, I think that adding colors to Notes (and fonts) should be done by right clicking the mouse, I am not asking for a color wheel (though that would be better) but for the basic colors to show up so anyone can quickly choose a color for that Note without going to the color pallet.
To take this further, why not allow users to have a bitmap background?
Secondly, and I have no idea how hard this would be, but it would be nice to have the ability to copy images into Notes. I can see doing this for logos and such that you want to keep around and use several times a week.
Finally, it would be nice when you put a website in your notes, it becomes a hyperlink. This would be nice then you have a site you want to use a few times then get rid of, instead of collecting five thousand sites in bookmarks you almost never use.
These are small requests, and in no way a sign that this program is lacking. WarpNote is already a polished product already.
I have talked to Uwe after he donated the program and I am hoping he will open the code. If so, there are some good things that can improve WarpNotes. Either way, WarpNotes is now free, it's a great addition to anyones eCS desktop, download it today.
(6) Updates after the review:
07-01-11 – While doing this review, I did look up the Blowfish software website to see what version the encryption algorithm was at. The Blowfish version that WarpNotes uses is 1.63, I cannot find a version on the site, but from looking at the web, it seems it's at version 2.00. Since Blowfish is open source, it would be nice if the newer version was ported over so we have up-to-date protection.
