After more than two years of development and 15 public beta releases, we are happy to announce that Notebooks for Mac is now available on the Mac App Store.
When we started working on Notebooks for Mac (and PC), we never thought it would take that much time to reach the initial release, but due to the constant evolution of Notebooks for iPad and iPhone, Notebooks for Mac had to keep catching up (and a certain degree of perfectionism might also come into play). As a positive consequence, Notebooks for Mac 1.0 should be more mature than a typical “1.0” release.
Over the past two years, more than 4.000 users downloaded our beta versions every month. We want to thank all of them for their feedback and suggestions – and for their patience.
Releasing a new app – sending it “out into the wild” – is a special moment, anxiously anticipated because unexpected things can happen, as you see from our last minute reject a couple of days ago. But we are positive that this was the only rough part…
As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and suggestions, because that is what helps us improve our apps.
I think I said enough – here is the direct link:
Next, we are going to finalize Notebooks for PC…
Hi Alfons
Fantastic effort of delivering a fantastic suite of applications across multiple platforms. For the desktop versions can you please advise when it will support repeating tasks? If you complete a task on the desktop app it disable the repeats for all types of platforms, if I complete the task on an IOS device the repeat is correctly calculated and a new task entered with the repeat set again.
Thanks
Alan
Hi Alan,
thank you for your feedback. Full support for repeating tasks will take a little while, but of course, completing a repeating task in NBMac should not disable further repetitions. We’ll take care of that asap.
Hi Alfons
The PDF preview window does not seem to work, the only way to view a document is to open it. When selecting a pdf for the first time after opening notebooks it asks to select an app – I have Acrobat reader installed but after selecting it does not display anything. Normally I would use the Preview app but I cannot select it as it is greyed out.
Cheers
Alan
That is a bit tricky, obviously. Opening a PDF in Notebooks is like dropping a PDF onto the Safari icon on your Mac; typically, Safari should open and display it, but the result is controlled by the Mac OS and depends on the installed plug-ins. – The same happens in Notebooks, and currently we have no direct influence here…
What happens when you drop a PDF onto the Safari icon? How does the document display?
Best,
Alfons
The PDF documents in my Notebooks folders open up very nicely in beta release 15. But when I try to open them in version 1.01 I get a pop-up window that asks me to select an Adobe viewer for the PDF.
So … something that was working OK in beta release 15 isn’t working now.
— Bill
Hi Bill,
this is related to “sandboxing”, the security measure enforced by the Mac App Store; it was not active in previous beta versions. – When Notebooks displays a PDF document, it uses the same application or plug in that is set for Safari, and it seems that in your case, Adobe Reader is the default plug in. Mac OS X now does not allow Adobe viewer to display your PDF documents, “for security reasons”.
Currently, the only way around this is to disable (remove) Adobe reader as Safari plugin from
~/Library/Internet Plug-ins
/Library/Internet Plug-ins
We are currently looking for a way to handle this inside Notebooks.
Best,
Alfons
Hi Alfons
If I drop a PDF onto Safari it immediately displays.
Regards
Alan
In the meantime we have some more info; when Adobe Reader is set as plug in to handle PDFs in Safari, Notebooks automatically uses that, too. However, due to sandboxing restrictions, Adobe Reader is not allowed to display Notebooks’ documents…
For now, the suggested workaround it so disable Adobe Reader as Safari plug in (by removing it from ~/Library/Internet Plug-ins)
Glückwunsch zur gelungenen Veröffentlichung. Das Warten hat sich gelohnt!
Ich habe noch folgendes Problem festgestellt:
Wenn ich ein MD-Dokument in ein anderes Buch verschiebe, werden die enthaltenen Bllder nicht mehr angezeigt. Wenn ich das Dokument in das ursprüngliche Buch zurück verschebe, werden sie wieder angezeigt.
Vielen Dank 🙂
Danke auch für den Hinweis zu den Markdown Dokumenten; tatsächlich werden die Bilder, die in .md Dokumenten enthalten sind, nicht mit verschoben, das haben wir übersehen. Wir korrigieren das so rasch wie möglich.
Unfortunately with the MAS version I can’t connect to my WebDAV server anymore (beta versions were working). It just shows a red path in the preferences and acc. to Little Snitch it doesn’t even try to connect.
Also the global search never shows any results.
What is the “official” way to report bugs?
Hi Markus,
Thank you for reporting these issues, and reporting them here is just fine. You can of course also report them by email to info(at)notebooksapp.com.
The WebDAV issues is related to “sandboxing”, the security measures enforced by the Mac App Store. While we are trying to fix it, you could mount the server in Finder and set Notebooks’ Home folder to the drive/folder that appears.
We are not aware of a Spotlight issue, though (at least everything works here as expected). The drive or folder that Notebooks is using, is that indexed by Spotlight? – As a workaround, you can turn off Spotlight search in Notebooks’ preferences, and Notebooks then uses an alternative search method.
Best,
Alfons
Hello Alfons,
I would like to ask for a keyboard shortcut to reset the document format. Note that Evernote app has a shortcut for simplifying the text (cmd+shift+F) that is incredible useful for dealing with long texts. I use it all the time in my academic work.
I would also ask for the zoom feature that seems disable. I use different font sizes between plataforms and the documents formats are always messy.
Thank you very much and congrats for the effort. As we paid US$18 for the app, I hope your team keep focus on improving this Mac app.
Best regards,
Julio SP.
Hi Julio,
thank you for your suggestions.
While Notebooks currently does not have a shortcut for simplifying the document format, there are two alternatives for that:
– select the text or whole document, right-click and select Font > “Remove Format from Selection”; that basically removes all custom formatting from the text
– alternatively, you can select “Reset Document Format” from the Format menu.
The zoom feature is disabled, this is correct; we will see if enabling it improves readability. When font sizes and formats are “messy” that might be caused by different default settings in Notebooks on your Mac any on your iOS devices; could that be possible?
And for course we will continue improving Notebooks for Mac 🙂
Best,
Alfons
What is the intended price point for NB for Mac after the introduction discount phase?
Thx
Sven
After the discount, the official price will be $29.99
Congrats on Notebooks making it into the Mac App Store! Best wishes for good sales!
Quick question: When going from one book to another, I’ll select another book in the far left pane, but the page from the previous book stays visible in the reading pane until I click on a new page/doc in the new book. (I hope that makes sense.) Is there a way to clear the previous page when another book is selected so that the right pane is blank until another page/doc is selected? This happens in the iPad app, too. Having the page from the previous book remain is bothersome. and I’d sure like to change it. Thanks!
Hi Sam,
thanks a lot you for your wishes.
Your question absolutely makes sense, and fortunately, we have added an option that does exactly what you are looking for: in the “General” tab of Notebooks’ preferences, check “Hide Document when changing Book” (I hope that label makes sense). Now the current document will go away when you click on a different book in the left column.
Best,
Alfons
That is great! I did miss that whilst going through the menus. Thank you!
Just checking, it seems like not but do you plan on offering a purchase directly from your site, not through the Mac App Store?
Hi Echo,
we need to provide a purchase option from our site for Notebooks for Win anyway, and depending on user feedback, we might offer a Mac version from our site as well. We have not made a decision on that yet.
Best,
Alfons
Good news, I always prefer purchasing and getting my apps directly from the developer and only use the MAS when I have *no choice*. Now I’m unsure how to proceed. I want to purchase and also get the intro discount, but I don’t want to be stuck with my purchase connected to the MAS. Please advise. Sorry to open a can of worms!
In this case I would suggest to stick with the current beta a little longer (you can use it until end of June). When we have set up everything for NBPC, it should be relatively easy for us to offer NBMac from our website as well. And there should be an intro discount as well 😉
I am happy to hear that, I also prefer buying directly from the developer. Also, then we don’t need to deal with all the sandboxing-issues that users have reported
Dear Alfons,
I like the look of Notebooks for Mac 1.0, but I am troubled by the failure of the new app to display the books & documents which I had accumulated in the beta version (by transfer from iPad via Dropbox). They are all in Dropbox (thank Goodness) but have not been downloaded to the Notebooks home folder on my MacBook; “Welcome to Notebooks” in in that folder however, and I have been able to open a file from Dropbox by dragging it to the Notebooks icon in my Dock.
Does not Notebooks for Mac sync automatically with Dropbox?
Best —– BK
Hi Bruce,
there is a quick solution of for this: just open the “General” tab in Notebooks’ preferences and choose a new Home folder (that would be Dropbox/Notebooks). This changes Notebooks start folder, and you will immediately see all your documents again.
(By the way: Notebooks does not import or move your documents, it just displays the contents of the folder you set as its “Home”)
Best,
Alfons
Thanks Alfons. All is now in order (I think). The Dropbox folder is now the Notebooks Home folder?
Congrats on the new programme – and all good wishes to you and it.
BK
saw this on app store, however i can’t make purchasing decision from the limited screenshots, is there no trial available on your site?
also how long will the discount last? need to access and test your app before making a purchase.
i already have evernote premium and notebook CP thats why i need a trial to see if your app is good enough. thanks
Hi Ryan,
to give Notebooks a spin you could download the last beta version from our website (https://www.notebooksapp.com/Download/Notebooks%20for%20Mac%201.0b15.dmg). Be aware, though, that this is not the final release.
The current discount will last until May 5th.
Best,
Alfons
Hi Alfons,
I just purchased the mac version and have experienced the following:
– Every time I open the app, I have to select the folder again, where I have saved the books, it prompts automatically to “choose a folder for your notebooks documents”.
– The insert image only works by dragging images into. The button insert image opens a window, but no image file can be selected (greyed out).
– In the preferences section, it does not save my settings. If I choose e.g. interface style or number of preview lines, next time I open the app, the settings are back to default.
– Image files with large dimensions, are not resized to fit window
– Image files in a text area are pre-formatted with a white border, with no option of removing them
– No export functionality (PDF, html, etc).
A few questions as well:
– Will there be a possibility to export/print entire books. Lets say I have 20 files inside a book and want to export/print the entire collection of all files within that book.
Thanks ahead for your feedback,
Best,
Grimur
Hi Grimur,
thanks a lot for your feedback.
Issues #1-#3 are all related to sandboxing; #1 & #3 can be quickly fixed by closing Notebooks, deleting the folder ~/Library/Containers/com.aschmid.NotebooksMac and restarting Notebooks. There is nothing we can do about this, Mac OS obviously refuses to correctly save the preferences. If that does not help, you may need to reboot your Mac…
Issue #2 is clearly our fault, because we did not explicitly tell Mac OS that Notebooks wants read access to your Home folder. We’ll fix that asap.
#4: which “document style” did you select for this document? All of Notebooks’ default styles should ensure that images are resized to fit the window…
#5: the white border around images is set for Notebooks’ “Default Document Style”; if you select Minimalist Style, for example, images will show without that border.
#6: to create a PDF, you can use the “Save as PDF” option in the print dialog; to convert a document to HTML, you can use one of the “Convert to…” for “Duplicate as …” options in a document’s action menu.
Options to combine multiple documents and further process them are on our list.
Best regards,
Alfons
Is it compulsory to also sync the system files (.plist files) in order to keep files synced between Notebooks on iPhone, iPad and Mac? If yes, why? These files make the list of files inside the folders in Dropbox very messy.
If you want to reliably and fully sync the contents of Notebooks, then you should sync the plist files as well. They contain info that cannot be saved directly in the document as for example selected fonts and colors, original creation date, task states, protection or read/only states etc. While you can keep Notebooks on iOS from syncing these files and Notebooks for Mac from creating them, you would lose quite a few commodities.
But as you are primarily using Notebooks for Mac to access your documents, you won’t notice the plist files very often anyway 😉
Best,
Alfons
With the RTF capabilities of Mac and the iOS 7’s Textkit are there any plans to make Notebooks able to edit and work with RTF files?
On the Mac that would be possible (RTF support is built in), but TextKit for iOS 7 does not help us too much, it just allows us to implement RTF support. So let’s see what iOS 8 will add to that. – RTF is far from being an ideal format for rich text, by the way…
Glad the app is official! Thanks for the discount, though even $30 isn’t too much for a great app that I use all the time.
So, now that you’ve hit the Mac App Store, up next is PDF annotating on iOS, right? 🙂
Thanks again for a great set of apps!
I used Notebooks 1.0b15 and have now downloaded 1.0.1 from the Mac Store. On opening I am asked for a folder. I don’t want to lose my old data/information from 1.0b15. Which folder should I select to use my old data.
Thank you
Hi Mike,
if you don’t remember which folder Notebooks b15 has been using, just start it once again, open its preferences and check which folder is set as “Notebooks Folder”. Then in Notebooks 1.0.1, select the same folder.
Notebooks stores its document on your hard drive, and all books are basically just folders. So there is no need to worry that you might lose your “old” data or that you need to “migrate” them to Notebooks 1.0; they are always stored on your hard drive and you can even access them from Finder.
I’ve found this app very valuable for several years on my ipod and more recently been using the beta (for 10.6) on my macbook air. I am keen to get v 1.0.1 but note the mac app store only states compatibility with OS10.7 upwards. I want to avoid an upgrade of the OS until I upgrade the mac; can it not be used for OS10.6.8?
Hi Gavin,
for Mac OS 10.6 we need to provide an alternative app. We are currently waiting for user feedback to see if we should (need to) offer an extra 10.6 version through the App Store or not. – For now, you can continue to use beta 15 until end of June. By then we will have an alternative.
Hallo!
Bin heute über diese Software gestolpert und bin sehr begeistert.
Leider gehen alle Fotos, die ich auf meinem Mac in meine Notizen einbaue, bei dem Sync via Dropbox verloren und es erscheint in der Ipad Version nur ein leeres Quadrat. Ich habe alle Dateiformate ausprobiert und bekomme es nicht ans Laufen.
Viele Grüße
Hallo Niklas.
es tut mir leid zu hören, dass du Probleme bei der Synchronisation hast! – Hast du einmal versucht, in Notebooks am iPad die Synchronisation “manuell” zu starten (mit der Funktion “Sync Dropbox” aus dem Aktionsmenü eines Buches)? Damit synct Notebooks die gesamte Hierarchie unterhalb des aktuellen Buches, und damit sollte auch der Sync der Bilder erzwungen werden. – Werden die Bilder jetzt importiert?
Schöne Grüße,
Alfons
So geht es! Vielen Dank!
Could you please add highlighting the search term to the search function? Right now it seems that a search will only result in displaying the documents that contain the search term, which is not helpful at all if I am looking for that particular search term in a long document.
Also, please add tagging function as well. Thanks!
Hello Hank,
the terms actually should be highlighted; we’ll take a look at this again and make sure that really happens (at least for editable documents).
We will add context tags and many more features available in Notebooks/iOS to Notebooks for Mac over the next couple of weeks and months.