An updated, free version of Notebooks for Mac is available for download and testing. It is not final, which means that certain functions are still missing and a few areas are due to refinement, but we are getting closer and closer to the final version 1.0. – All upcoming changes are meant to streamline the application, make it light weight (still powerful) and easy to use.
We want to thank you for all your feedback, requests and suggestions based on the previous beta versions, and of course we appreciate your feedback on this updated version, too.
Update Nov 5, 2012
If you downloaded NB/Mac last week you may have experienced a crash during startup. An update to fix that is available from the link below.
[button style=”download” link=”/Download/Notebooks%20for%20Mac%201.0b7.zip”]Download Public Beta[/button]
Alfons to my surprise tonight 2 Nov I went onto Notebooks on my Mac (also have it on the iPhone and iPad) only to find a message telling me it had expired. I have followed the link to download Beta 7 but the download link is not working. I hope that I have not lost all my notes that i setup in Beta 6.
Hi Colleen,
the download should work again (obviously our website host was having issues). However, I would recommend to wait until a little later today when we uploaded an update that no longer crashes on startup.
Hi Alfons, I tried again tonight at https://www.notebooksapp.com/Download/Notebooks%20for%20Mac%201.0b7.zip
It immediately turns to a black screen while it appears to open – the file name is always in grey and when it ‘has opened’ there is nothing but a black screen. No file is going to download.
Please assist
I just checked, and the download works fine. Which browser are you using?
Regarding your previous post: there is not need to worry about your documents, they are all in the Dropbox/Notebooks folder on your Mac (if you set a different folder for NB/Mac, your documents will still reside in that folder)
The latest Notebooks beta for Mac no longer syncs with dropbox.
Hi Bruce,
if you set up Notebooks to use your Dropbox folder, synchronization is automatically handled by Dropbox without NB’s interaction. – Does your Mac sync with Dropbox at all?
Best,
Alfons
I’ve been working with Beta 7 for about a day now and I have to honestly conclude that I, personally, much prefer the layout of version 6. That said, I think that some minor changes might satisfy both users who like this new layout and users like myself (more on that in a bit). I have established a large and deep hierarchy of books and I find that the new 2nd navigation column does more to take up real-estate while I’m navigating, and ultimately get in my way , then anything it does to expand or free up the navigation panel. It is also, to my taste, more clunky (there are now more things that I have to constantly move around in order to see both the contents of my texts and the names of books I am navigating to). When you twirl down a hierarchy of books, the tree of names quickly expands out to the right and get covered by the new 2nd column (so that you can’t read the full names of your books). If the 2nd column is scaled to its minimum width (which it usually is, or at least it quickly becomes so as I stretch out the right border of the book column) I can no longer stretch the border between the book column and the new document column to reveal the full name of the books. I have to instead stretch out the right border of the new column and then go back and stretch the right border of the books column in order to see what I am looking at (all the while, greatly reducing the real estate of the text editing column). I know this sounds fussy but having the ability to navigate through all your folders/books while simultaneously being able to see, in large detail, the contents of your notes is one of the great strengths of Notebooks and I feel that this new, by my view, unnecessary chunkiness gets in the way of that.
Now that said, I think that a couple of additional options might essentially restore the ease of the old layout without taking away the benefits of the new:
1. Add the ability to collapse the 2nd column (either by scaling its width to 0 by dragging the borders on either side of it, or by adding a button/keyboard shortcut that would collapse it the way the new “collapse left” buttons collapse the book column). As of the moment the only way, that I’ve been able to find, to get rid of the second column is to hide the navigation panels completely (thus negating the beauty of navigating through your books while seeing large, easy to see and edit versions of your notes – right now, in order to navigate efficiently, I have to scale the size of the edit column to about a half or third of what it used to be, just to make room for this extra column).
2. Auto expand the the book column so that, as you twirl deeper into your hierarchy, the book names don’t keep getting covered up.
3. Restore the old single navigation column as an optional layout that you could enable under preferences.
In short, I found that the old layout was simpler, more elegant, and allowed for more real estate when simultaneously viewing the navigation pane and the editing column. However, if it is decided that the benefits of the 3 column layout outweigh the cons then I feel there has to be a way of keeping the book names from quickly being obscured in large hierarchies (and, again, ideally solving this in a way that doesn’t require the user to reduce their note editing real estate by a half to a third).
All this said, I still love this program and it will (despite the new layout) continue to be a huge part of my working life. I am really grateful that you are developing it and have genuinely been impressed with the overall progress it has made over the past few months (I just really wanted to state my personal preference for the last version and hope that there may be a way to either restore it or find a happy medium).
Ok, I’ve worked it out so that, if I only manipulate the border between the 2nd column and the edit window, I can more or less control what I see with one motion. Never the less, I still feel like I had much more room to see the names of my books as well as the names of the enclosed documents, all while maintaining a large comfortable view of the text editor in the old version (now I can almost never see everything at once). I’m also finding that I kind of miss some other things, like the nice, big easy to see and easy to click plus/add new buttons (obviously, I’m just nit-picking here). I don’t know, maybe I just got too attached but I kind of think you guys had nailed the layout in versions 5 and 6. Just my opinion.
Hi Greg,
thanks a lot for your feedback. When we started to think about redesigning the interface we knew that it would not only have advantages and we anticipated that the result would not satisfy all of our users (I guess that is the reason why Apple Mail still has an option to activate the “Classic Layout”), but there a few things that enforced a change. The most important reason is that we need a space to display search results and other “smart contents”, and that second column seems like the right place for that.
Another example is that we want to enable a preview for documents which you probably know from NB on iPhone and iPad, and again, this is not something to fit into the tree view.
There are good reasons for that change, but I agree that the current state may not be quite satisfying (and in fact, it is still work in progress). I see that we need to add an option to hide the second column, similar to the option to hide the left column right now, so that a user can quickly toggle the columns and change focus. And there are more areas that need improvement for sure. That is why we appreciate your feedback.
As far as the toolbar buttons are concerned, this is an area of personal preference (and maybe should even become an option in NB’s preferences). These buttons were big and easy to see, which was a good thing for some users, but they were too big and prominent for others. You see, we can never do things 100% right, but I am sure that our users will help us find the right balance 🙂
Thank you again!
Alfons
I have using NB since Beta 4 version and I agree with Greg H
I have to second Greg’s comment. The beta 6 layout was much more space friendly. I find that the double column layout is much harder to navigate when frequently switching between two different books (I have personal notes and work notes and sometimes I will make a note for something I have done that is in my personal book, that I need to use at work, thus flipping between the two books. I could open both folders in Beta 6).
Have been using Notebooks on my mobile devices, great for my needs.
However have been waiting for the Mac adoption – would make my day.
Cannot deploy Beta 7 for mac to test. Is it just my Mac (iMac-OSX ML) or a general problem?
Unfortunately there is an issue in Beta 7 when NB tries to open a document that resides several levels down in the hierarchy, and we will post an update today.
Other than that, Notebooks should run fine on your Mac.
Hi Alfons, i feel lack of the “Look Up” option for mac dictionary consult.
This is one of the (negative) side effects of the development environment we use. We’ll have to see how we can change that…
Hi –
Just a quick note to say I really like the new three pane design. Clean & very easy to use and read.
-Robert
I too downloaded the recent version and it crashes on launch
You could try to delete Notebooks’ preference file from
~Library/Preferences/com.aschmid.notebooks03 (it is probably best to use Finder’s “Go to Folder” option), because NB is obviously still trying to open the last visited document. After deleting that file, NB should start up fine.
We are working on a fix.
I have the same problem, but I cannot find the file anywhere on the system. Is there another option for getting it to run or alternatively, how long will it take before you have another version out.
Claus,
you don’t even find the preferences when using Finder’s “Go” menu option? – That is strange…
Regarding the update: if all goes well we have an update ready early next week.
Hi,
It’s a good software!!!
Notebooks style mac soft “post-it” for don’t have to open the soft when it want write a note.
For the team, very good job.
PS: sorry for my english, I am french…
Hi, testing the beta and a bit surprised to not find the same document structure on the Mac as on iPhone and iPad. Synced via Dropbox.
For instance, on the Mac, the root folder does not contain any of the files that is there in Dropbox – only the folders?
Hi Magnus,
when using auto sync, the current version of Notebooks ignores the top level. The reason we implemented it this way was to give users a place to put documents that are not immediately synced (a grabbed web page or a document imported from another app, for example).
So at the moment, you should sync manually from Notebooks’ top level in order to import those documents from Dropbox, but the next update (Notebooks 5.1) will provide an option to activate auto sync for the top level as well.
Cheers,
Alfons
(as well as Ipad and IPod)
First, I am happy as a clam that you opened the public betas. Since I have both a netbook (glorified word processor), and a macbook, I can actually play with both.
Here is one thing I would like to see in the future… actually two things. An ability to compile a folder into a document. That might be a dream depending on how you are doing the database, and copy and paste will have to suffice.
The other might not be that impossible, an ability to do notes like Storyist does, or Jer or Pages, or Word. I am not sure if that is possible, I might try doing internal links from one document to the next, that might be a solution, but that be neat.
I know the holy grail would be tracking changes, but I get it why that one is mostly not implemented on the IOS, though FD is doing it now.
I also know this is something I am putting money on the side, for both versions, so any idea on price, to know how much I should set aside?
Nadin… who so far has not been able to squirrel out any bugs.
Hi Nadin,
you can already compile a folder into a document on your iPad and iPod (Process multiple > Combine); this is something we will further improve (create eBook?), and of course we will add that to NB/Mac&PC as well. I am afraid that won’t be part of version 1.0, though.
Regarding your second request (notes), would you mind describing that a little more?
The price we are targeting is about $20-$25 (the App Store swallows quite a bit of that), but we will definitely start with an introductory offer for all those who have been following us over the past months 😉
Downloaded the latest beta and it worked perfect. Noticed that I cannot rename a note buried two notebooks deep and also that I cannot remove that same note to the trash.
Hi,
to rename a note (no matter where) you would select it in the list and type return; this allows you to change its title. – To move a document to the trash, either right-click its title in the list or click on the gearwheel in the status bar (at the bottom of the document) and select “Move to Trash”. – Doesn’t that work?
Overall, I think the app is really great and I love using it. I do think the toolbar buttons are a bit large, but that might just be my personal preference. The other thing I noticed is that the word count is off. It always states a much higher number than it actually is. For example, a piece I’m working on now claims it’s at 421 words, but in reality it’s 408. I’m a writer so that’s a pretty important feature for me.
Hello Aimee,
Thank you for your feedback. We were not aware that the word count is incorrect, so we’ll have to take a look at that. Do you by chance have a piece of text to demonstrate that and which you could share with us by mail info(at)notebooksapp.com?
Thank you and best regards,
Alfons
1.0 – Beta 7 crash during startup yet.
Mac OS X 10.8.2
We are working on a fix. In the meantime you could try to delete then Notebooks preferences file from ~Library/Preferences/com.aschmid.notebooks03, that should fix the crash. – Sorry for the troubles!