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Office OneNote - one of the best code development tools around

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I use a pretty extensive suite of tools as a developer - two IDEs, debuggers, code analysis tools, profilers, etc.  But one tool stands out as the glue between all of my tools - OneNote 2007.

Here's a rundown of a few of the tasks where Outlook is invaluable to me:

  1. As my short-term memory.  I paste output from my debuggers and other tools, to keep track of them.  Many tools I use are GUI and don't have a built-in "scrollback" mechanism where I can see previous state.  For example, when I debug, I often want to see the contents of the memory window from some point in the past, not the current contents of that memory.  OneNote is a quick and easy place to group together this "short term" content in a single page.
  2. As long-term memory.  It seems I'm always doing code-reviews of unfamiliar code, looking for bugs, or to understand how a subsystem works.  OneNote's free-form note-taking and rich copy/paste let me quickly jot down what I learn about the codebase, and keep the notes with me at all times.
  3. As a research tool.  If I copy/paste content from my web browser into OneNote, the new content is automatically tagged with the page URL.  So it's easy to return to the content later, and revisit the URL.
  4. New in 2007:  Content syncs between my many machines.  My Windows Vista laptop and Windows XP 64-bit desktop sync their OneNote content automatically and transparently.  So notes I make on my desktop are available when I bring my laptop home at night.  OneNote Mobile on my PocketPC device also syncs a subset of my OneNote content.
  5. As a bug reporting tool.  It's easy to log repro steps for a bug as I create them, then I can use OneNote's screen capture to record precisely what I saw on my screen.
  6. As a note taker during meetings.  Notes are automatically data and time stamped.  Outlook and OneNote have some great interactions, where OneNote can create new Tasks, and Outlook can associate OneNote content with contacts and calendar items.

OneNote's UI seems to work exactly the way I work - I almost never use the menus or toolbars, as it's in the right state already.  Just right-click on the right part of my notebook, pick "New Page" or "New Subpage" and start typing.  It doesn't interrupt my train of thought with modal dialogs or any other up-front decision-making. 

It's also very easy to reorganize content - since it all sits in OneNote, it's easy to drag pages and subpages around, shuffle portions of pages around, etc.  When I kept notes with notepad, I had content scattered across many files in many directories and bookkeeping had gotten out of control.

I'm still exploring OneNote.  I haven't had a chance yet to look at:

  • Live sharing - several people can work simultaneously on a shared page
  • Hyperlinks to OneNote notebooks, sections, pages or paragraphs, to link content together
  • Annotate PowerPoint slides - use "Insert slides as printouts" then annotate overtop of the slides in OneNote
  • Audio and video recording (you can even search the audio recording!)

If you're interested in experimenting with OneNote 2007, a trial edition is free to download, from https://us1.trymicrosoftoffice.com/product.aspx?family=onenote&culture=en-US.  There is also an online test drive at https://www.microsoft.com/testdrive  if your browser supports the Citrix Web Client control and you have a Passport account.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2007
    Mike sent out the following set of blog posts and I thought I would pass them on to everyone. " Office
  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2007
    Here's a rundown of a few of the tasks where "Outlook" is invaluable to meYou meant OneNote, rt? ;)The only glitch with OneNote and its not a OneNote glitch per se, is the location where it stores the file. It is very, very easy to not remember that you have truckloads of notes on your machine and forget to take a backup. Been bitten by this a couple of times and now I try and save the files in a known folder.Have you tried the audio recording features of OneNote, that is the icing on the cake, simply fantabulous! They (the oneNote team) have configured the recording settings to the most optimal for voice recording. And, when you see the audio files measuring kBs w/o loss of clarity, you really, truly feel that OneNote is indeed a labour of love.And for those troubled by the 1 minute limit on recording of sndrec32 on pre-Vista OSs (you have to keep on pressing the record button at the end of every minute), the sound recorder of OneNote is a welcome relief :)
  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2007
    vinil, yes.. typo "Outlook" vs OneNote.In Tools/Options/Save, you'll find the configuration setting for "Backup Folder" - you might wish to move that backup to a remote machine.  I lost my notes once, when I forgot to back up my *.one files.I have also been using shared notes alot recently, hosted on a network file share.  My personal notes are stored on a share, so that my dev machine and laptop stay in sync.  My dev team (3 people) have also been experimenting with a shared .one file to serve as a wiki plus work-item list.