jonathan@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jonathan Altman) (05/09/89)
I had requested several weeks ago suggestions on some kind of a "memo board" utility that I could use to display non-time-constrained tasks I might need to do. I thank you all for your responses-they were very helpful. Here is a summary of the various options suggested to me. 1. Add some rudimentary drawing facilities to the finder. This was one of the options I proposed. Only one other person voiced their support for this (I believe in a post). Thank you, Scott Bayes (sorry, lost your address). He wrote: >I love this!!! Why not? Hell, I don't want to pop up a DA or launch an >application just to see simple jottings (e.g. notepad). Just give me a >pencil, eraser, box tool, text tool, and I'm in great shape. Apple, >please do this!! I will repeat. This seems to be a relatively powerful addition to the Finder. The Finder's screen is called the DESKTOP, isn't it. I'd like to extend the concept of this metaphor. 2. Use the Notepad DA. This was the most popular suggestion offered. It's system software, and it's a DA. Setting it as startup under multifinder does pretty much what I want. It comes up when I turn on the machine, and if I don't close the window, it keeps its window open. So, this was the solution I adopted. Boy, I'm glad I kept the original system disks from when my office machine was a Mac 512KE. I had to dig all the way back to that disk to FIND the notepad DA. 3. Hypercard. Someobody suggested that I put a "memo" type card as the startup in a (probably) home stack, and set this as startup. This would be nice except that I don't use hypercard in any regular way , and a 1-megabyte utility to remind me of my appointments seems gross overkill. It's a free program, though. 4. Various commercial products. People suggested various commercial packages to use. They included: Comment 2.0: I believe billed as an electronic "post-it." Costs about $60. Didn't feel like spending the money to check it out, so I don't know if you can attach things to, say, the Finder. Focal Point: This sounded interesting, but not cheap. It's a scheduling package, as best I could tell from the description. It's also a Hypercard stack. I'm sorry, wasting 1MB to keep the stack around is a bit much. Acta Advantage (or other outlining package): Acta is about $60. I suppose an outliner would do the trick. Anyway, that's the list of suggestions I received. Thank you all for responding. Hope my summary does not slight anybody's contribution. I will reiterate at the risk of being strident about it, that I think a bunch of simple drawing tools in the Finder is the best answer. I DO scratch things on my blotter, paper scraps, etc. If I could just do this on my computer screen, I'd be more likely not to lose the various pieces of information (as long as my hard disk doesn't crash un-backed up). I also find it hard to believe others don't scribble notes, too. Therefore, I think I nice, consistent way to accomodate this would be wonderful. Apple, are you there? Jonathan Altman jonathan@eleazar.Dartmouth.edu Database Administrator jonathan.altman@Dartmouth.edu Dartmouth Dante Project voice: 603-646-2633 301 Bartlett Hall HB 6087 Hanover, NH 03755