Yes another Google Gadget, a nice and simple one this time.
It’s a notepad/sticky note/post-it/jotter gadget, yes there are already several of these available but this one is different. It allows you to store several pages of notes all in one place. You simply pick the page you want to edit from the drop-down combo list.
Download – Multi Note v1.0
Features
- Create, rename & delete note pages
- All notes are stored as text files (behind the scenes)
- Change the background note colour
- Change the font size and font face
- Secret feature; press the F12 key to cycle through the pages
Support
This requires Google Desktop to be installed, and it will only work on Windows systems.
Change Log
| Version | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0.0 | 16-March-2008 | First release |
ben
i love this gadget. i work on the desktop team. i’ll email you with some ideas, but i’m really interested in doing even more with this gadget. great stuff!
ps the F12 thing is awesome, but it doesn’t change the name of the notes in the top textbox.. anyway i think i’m going to use this instead of my scratchpad!
Hi Ben
Finally – I found a good notepad for Google Desktop. Thank you for that. Only thing I would like to know is where the texts are saved – for backup purposes.
The notes are stored in %APPDATA%\Mutli-Note\\AppData\Roaming”
The location of %APPDATA% varies from system to system, on Vista it’s located in “C:\Users\
This Gadget is absolutely, 100% fantastic. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!
Hi Ben,
Great gadget! I’ve got a few suggestions for improvements on the next version:
1: I use the gadgets from within the sidebar and the Google Desktop drop downs (Toggle Expanded View, Menu and X) get in the way of your page drop down and save button. Anyway you can offer the option to reposition them on the left or elsewhere?
2: I don’t think ‘refresh pages’ is the correct phrase to use for a function that seems to delete the contents of a single page as well as the saved data associated with that page. This option only seems to affect the page the user is viewing rather than all of the pages.
I assumed that ‘refresh pages’ would clear the pages and reload all the saved data.
Wonderful app though!
Cheers,
Jid
There seems to be a low limit on the size of the page.
I copied over old notes from scratchpad, tried to save and got a “Failed to save page”.
What’s worse, this page is now empty (file size 0) and will not save anymore even when I have tried saving it with only a one liner.
There is no limit on page size as far as I know as I store the data in flat text files on disk. I just created a note with 27000 lines (about 600Kb of data) and it was fine, perhaps it was the content?
Unless Google impose a limit on the amount that can be held in a gadget element. If so there is nothing I can do about it…
Hi Ben.
The gadget is great, simple and useful. BUT if I could suggest something – consider auto-save (like a scratch pad). And what is annoying – Multi Note does not remember its “expanded” size after being collapsed. Those two things, and it will be ideal. ;] (Well… ok, I can think about storing notes online… ;] )
Regards,
Michal
I figured out it was not a limit on the note but a unicode character that caused the note to fail.
What’s weird is I can copy and paste the character and it will show on the gadget.
But when I try to save it, it fails and kill the whole note.
Love this gadget! One problem, though: I’m working on a notebook computer that moves between my office and home. When at the office (pc is docked), Multi-Note opens when the Google sidebar opens. But, if I undock and work from home (where my networked Home directory isn’t available), Multi-Note doesn’t open — I have to Add it again. Then, when back at the office (and docked) Multi-Note also won’t load until I Add it again.
How can I get Multi-Note to load on every boot, whether connected to my office network, or not? Thanks.
Ben,
Thanks so much for this note pad. I had one years ago and could not ever find it again. This is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for and MORE!!! Love all the options one can do also like font, color, size, and the F12 is also an unexpected helper when I get several notes. : )
Kathy
PS Let me know when there may be any updates unless they happen automatically. BTW are you from Canada? the way you spelled color (colour) in the options gave you away. ; )
Congratulations for Multi Note. There is nothing similar for google gadgets. But are you doing a version for google gadgets for linux? I will really appreciate that.
I am trying to copy and paste text which I often use into Multi Note, for convenience of having it on my Sidebar. But, I can’t seem to copy and paste. Do I have to type in lengthy text..?
This is a great application. Congratulations. It is far superior to the extremely basic Google-app “To Do”. Do you think they will let you team up with them (Google) and add the “Share settings” option to Multi-Note, which allows sharing notes on different machines? This is the main advantage that the Google “To Do” notes still has over Multi-Note.
Tried Multi Note for the first time. It is a good idea yet there are some problems that can be quite annoying. For example, when I tried to add another new page (after adding about 5 pages) the software allows me to name a new page but it is not included in the drop-down list. If I try to reinsert the same title for “new page,” I get a notation that that page already exists. But where is it? It is not listed anywhere. Secondly the drop-down list is too close to the “close” icon and shuts down the Multi-Note feature and I have to reinstall it to the sidebar.
I downloaded google multinote today, took lots of important notes at a meeting, and now I can’t access them. I can see the little disk icon and title of the notes i took, but I cannot click into the note itself. It is blank. PLEASE help me access this note. I am not sure where it could have been saved. Thanks!!
I’ve searched a lot for a simple but powerful way to keep some informations on my desktop, and this note gadget is really great, even if… it doesn’t saves the text i write, probably because I’m using it with Linux (Ubuntu). Are you planning to release a Linux compatible version? Or, can i ask you the code so I can do it myself? thanks for the great job!
You really need to explain this better.
Are these exe files taking advantage of hidden extensions to fool naive users? I didn’t think so but many people are assuming that’s what’s going on here and consequently assuming they can detect these if they have their extensions showing.
Or Is this just a WMP vulnerability? If someone uses Winamp or some other non-WMP player can this affect them? I suspect not.
nice gadget, IM using it on a netbook, are there magnification shortcuts?
great gadget.thanks.
make one for ubuntu! (ok ok linux)
Hi Ben,
Thanks for making Multi Note! This is a useful gadget. I have one suggestion:
In addition to the drop down to access the different notes, how about a tab bar? A row of tabs along the top or bottom or either side I think would be useful. Tabs could be set to different colors too. What do you think? Thanks!
Lane
what happened?
suddenly, maybe since yesterday, your gadget began to not work.
I stored a lot of my precious ideas and informations in the noted provided by your gadget.
I hope that I can at least restore my data.
please, tell me a way to restore it.
This is my e-mail address: fallsmal@cs.yonsei.ac.kr
Hi there! I lovelovelove your gadget and have been using it for quite a while, but like the poster before me, suddenly it stopped working. I can’t edit a note and can’t access the dropdown menu. Do you have any idea why?
Thanks for making this wonderful tool available!
Hi,
This gadget was awful and helpful a lot. But, recently I cannot resize this and unable to see all notes I wrote down in that. There are a lot of important and useful info inside there. I suppose other people also have same problem. Appreciate if you can tell me how to solve this problem. Pls post the solution here if you know how to. Thanks.
Guys,
Same here. There is some problem with this superb gadget.
We have to wait till Ben releases a new version with the fix.
But, if you want to recover data that you have stored then simply got to (for windows XP)
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Multi-Note
All the pages are stored here as different files.
Ben has already mentioned this above.
~Manish
Very nice.
Just downloaded this and replaced a similar gadget, which lacked the pages feature.
Improvements:- How about an Add Date function, to save entering it manually, and an Add Time. Then we can see when we said what.
Little bug I just found.
I added a couple of urls to test if links work – they do! – but the entire area below the last item added is now an active link and I can’t add anything below it as any click immediately takes me to that URL. Didn’t happen first time I tried it though, so not sure what’s going on.
Could do with a Copy/Paste option to avoid releasing the mouse and going to keyboard shortcuts.
Agree with the earlier comment that the google desktop dropdowns get in the way – perhaps make your page selection dropdown taller so it extends below the google bit
Hope these ideas help.
This would seem to offer some very useful improvements on Scratchpad, although I’m actually having quite a few issues controlling MultiNote. For example (running XP) I’ve created three “notes” – can see a list of their names by right clicking the down arrow, but nothing I do seems to change the currently selected note, the name of which is displayed across the top of the Note POP-out window. Also, when typing within a note, the “enter” key doesn’t seem to produce a carriage return. I’ll re-install from time to time, hoping this bug is either rectified, or turns out to be peculiar to my installation.
Anyway thanks for putting in the effort to create this.