A new OneNote Favorites Powertoy
Shu Chen, a tester working on OneNote, created an alternate Favorites addin for OneNote. It works much like the IE favorites model. You click the star icon with a green plus sign to add a page, section or notebook to the favorites list, and click the bare star to open the favorites list or navigate back to it. Pretty simple!
The surprise I mentioned last week is an online video demo created by Matt over at www.gottabemobile.com. I'll follow up with the link to it as soon as we get it nailed down.
The video is now available at https://www.gottabemobile.com/GBM+InkShow+OneNote+Favorites+Powertoy.aspx
Here's the basic UI to add a page to the favorites list:
Page is the default choice, but you can choose the section or notebook as well.
Once added, it looks like this when you open the favorites list:
This view is still modeled after the OneNote notebook structure. You can also click the "List view" button near the bottom right to make it a little more "table-ish":
(updated) Download it below my signature below as an attachment to this article. here (https://johnguin.members.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/ON_Favorites_Page.zip) and give it a try!
And if you want the source code, just email me using the link at the upper right. I'll add it back here or link to it once I figure out if 2 attachments per posting is possible (which it doesn't seem to be).
Get the source code (C++) at https://johnguin.members.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/ON_Favorites_Page_Source.zip
Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,
John
Comments
Anonymous
March 03, 2008
I just tried it out and its awesome :) ... Just one thing though, if the powertoy didn't close on it's own, it would be even better. While reviewing notes I go back and forth a lot and relaunching it every time is a little irritating. I know it's a favorites powertoy, and technically not meant for a lot of navigation but it has a really nice interface and I prefer it over the existing navigation structure.Anonymous
March 03, 2008
Shu Chen, great job on this one. I believe it's only natural to see a more robust form of Favorites Management for the next OneNote version, right? What I miss now are keyboard shortcuts:
- 1 keyb. shortcut to call the Favorites Center without touching the mouse
- the option to set for each favorite a shorcut; I can see it's possible now by using the properties on the shortcut, but I also want to be able to look at the list of shorctus, next to the favorites, or else I will forget the keys. Thanks and keep up the good work. I'm a fan of OneNote.
Anonymous
March 04, 2008
Very nice plugin. Is it possible to display the bookmarks within a toolbar? Like the favorites toolbar in safari/firefox? Jeremy Horn The Product Guy http://tpgblog.comAnonymous
March 04, 2008
Shu Chen -- just watched the Ink Show on Gottabemobile.com...excellent work. About to download it now and give it a spin. Thanks.Anonymous
March 04, 2008
Glad to know you guys like it. To Anirudh, I was planning to make the favorites center window as top most in the next version. To Daniel, OneNote 2007 add-in framework doesn't support shortcuts but I will see what I can do by system hotkeys. As for the shortcuts in the favorites center window, the alternative solution could be: open the favorites center, press down key, and type the favorite's name, then the favorite will be selected. To Jeremy, OneNote 2007 add-in framework doesn't support display anything(including menu or other windows) in its toolbar.Anonymous
March 04, 2008
Glad to know you guys like it. To Anirudh, I was planning to make the favorites center window as top most in the next version. To Daniel, OneNote 2007 add-in framework doesn't support shortcuts but I will see what I can do by system hotkeys. As for the shortcuts in the favorites center window, the alternative solution could be: open the favorites center, press down key, and type the favorite's name, then the favorite will be selected. To Jeremy, OneNote 2007 add-in framework doesn't support display anything(including menu or other windows) in its toolbar.
- Shu
Anonymous
March 04, 2008
too bad I can't have it in any toolbar of the full page view mode :-(Anonymous
March 04, 2008
Funny, I already had a "OneNote" favorites folder in IE. So when I pulled this up the first time it listed out my existing OneNote Web links. I thought it was a strage coincidence, until I figured out it was just recylcing the favorites folder name I had already been using. Nice addition.Anonymous
March 05, 2008
To Seth, the addin was designed to use OneNote folder in IE favorites as its storage. So in the OneNote Favorites Center you can access the IE favorites which would be shown as the type of Page and listed under Wild Favorites in the TreeView.Anonymous
March 06, 2008
I guess we need to bug Micrososft to add some display capabilities. ;-) This feature has been on the top of my MOST WANTED list for a long time. I used to use the agilix product for my note-taking. I keep hoping that someday their tab concept finds its way into onenote. This is the best onenote powertoy I have seen, to date. Keep up the good work -- and we all should be petitioning the OneNote team for a more powerful API. Jeremy Horn The Product Guy http://tpgblog.comAnonymous
March 06, 2008
Wonderful addition! I found it also can work with Firefox, if you are using the PlainOldFavorites Addon (since the ON Favorites Powertoy bookmarks are also pushed to the IE Favorites). https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/668Anonymous
March 06, 2008
Jeremy, what specifically do you mean by "display capabilities?" Do you mean to the toolbar addin display capability, or something more general? And Michael T, thanks for the Firefox tip!Anonymous
March 08, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
March 08, 2008
Sorry I didn't do much test for installation. Please have a try to uninstall the add-in first and install it under the user instead of Administrator. You can right click the msi file and select "Run as Administrator". I will fix it in the next version, which is coming soon.Anonymous
March 10, 2008
excellent work - thanks! a minuscule suggestion: why segregate the different types (section, page) in the display, I'd prefer a single display that branches off more for pages, less for sections, even less for notebooks. I believe this is the view that I would be using the most.Anonymous
March 11, 2008
Alceste, I believe you would like the list view which is a single display of all the favorites. But if display all the favorites in a single display in the tree view, there would be some design challenges when you add the section and the page under the section as your favorites. (and if you change the title of the section, which title should be displayed in the tree view? and what if you close the notebook and reopen it and save the page as favorite and overwrite the existing favorite? and if you can click all the tree node in the tree view to do the navigation (page/section/notebook levels), there would be no way to expand/collapse a single tree node. What do you expect on this?)Anonymous
March 11, 2008
"there would be no way to expand/collapse a single tree node", I meant there would be no way to expand/collapse a single tree node by mouse.Anonymous
March 11, 2008
Excellent Powertoy!! One question...after I have added favorites my tablet "beeps" each time I choose the favorites I've added to the list. My Vista sound scheme is set to "No Sounds." Is there a setting in OneNote I have to change or something else obvious that I'm missing? Thanks.Anonymous
March 14, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
March 17, 2008
Good idea, Mary - I'll pass it on to the design team. Thanks for using OneNote! JohnAnonymous
March 19, 2008
Like Julie, I am having problems installing the OneNotes Favorites Powertoy. The account from which I use OneNote does not have administrative privs. When I try to install the powertoy, I get a UAC dialog. When I give the UAC dialog an administrative account and its password, the powertoy does not get installed for my account (even if I choose the install for "everybody" option instead of "just me"). I'd love it if the next version's install works for folks who are trying to use Vista properly - i.e. from an account without Administrative privs.Anonymous
March 19, 2008
I couldn't agree more. This (how to build setup programs in Visual Studio) is being looked at - we need to hammer out these frustrating setup problems. JohnAnonymous
March 23, 2008
Great, practical tool! thank you. I'm not sure I understood all the preceding comments... I use one note with ink on a tablet PC a lot! It would be very handy to have the Favorites Center available in full screen mode. Then I can easily jump around in my Favorite notebooks using The Favorite center. Now, I have to switch out of full screen mode, navigate to the page & then go back to full Screen.Anonymous
April 02, 2008
The new version support shortcut keys. http://blogs.msdn.com/johnguin/archive/2008/03/20/favorites-powertoy-for-onenote-update-and-developing-a-test-matrix.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage But if you only use pen without keyboard, unfortunetely there would be no way to access the OneNote Favorites Center in the full screen mode.Anonymous
July 10, 2008
Love this add-on... We have alot of shared notebooks in our school so this will come in handy for teachers and students. One feature I would suggest is the ability to organize favourites into folders like you can do in IE. Currently, if you try to put your OneNote favourites into subfolders, they just disappear from the OneNote Favourites Center altogether.Anonymous
September 04, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
September 04, 2008
I spoke too soon. Actually MOVING the OneNote Folder from its position in IE Favorites into Links stops it working properly because the program seems to lose track of its path. If you go to OneNote itself and go to Favorites it tells you that it is empty. I have now (temporarily I hope) taken it out of Links and back where it wants to be and it likes that. I would love to have my OneNotes Favorites folder on my IE toolbar. Must be solvable - can you help!Anonymous
September 07, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
January 13, 2009
The end of the year means it is time to recap the powertoys the test team created during 2008. WhileAnonymous
January 13, 2009
How do I get it to work? Sounds like a great tool, butI have no "favorites" on either the menu bar or standard toolbar in onenote 2007 and it is driving me to distraction! I have tried to add "favorites" to menubar or toolbar, but I cannot add the command.............Anonymous
January 13, 2009
Just in case you want to reply, if not, i will search on a bit longer. Thanks, MargarethaAnonymous
January 14, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 08, 2009
Love it, thank you so much. I teach so many classes and when students call I need to be right there in sections. This helps wonderfully. Thank you for your creativeness!!!Anonymous
August 17, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
August 18, 2009
What is the error? And you do get it each time, or only the one time? JohnAnonymous
August 18, 2009
There are no errors when adding a link. If a favourite is selected within OneNote then it works but it also gets an error everytime: AppName: onaddinfavcenter.exe AppVer: 1.6.2.1 ModName: onaddinfavcenter.exe ModVer: 1.6.2.1 Offset: 00003080 If I do the same thing using favourites from within IE then it works a number of times without a problem then it starts to crash and causes OneNote to restart: AppName: onenote.exe AppVer: 12.0.6415.1000 AppStamp:492b2527 ModName: unknown ModVer: 0.0.0.0 ModStamp:00000000 fDebug: 0 Offset: 00000000Anonymous
December 17, 2009
Wow! Excellent idea. OneNote is a powerful tool but it's missing some really key features. A Favorites button should really help increase productivity.