14 DAY TRIAL // GumNotes is an annotation tool that works with just about any program you open. It works as a reminder by attaching notes to programs, emails, websites or documents. Whenever you open up a program that has a note attached GumNotes will pop up the annotation.
The functionality of this contraption resides in the fact that it eliminates all the sticky notes on your desktop, or browsing or them, and instead offers the information the moment you access the document, email, website or program. What if you don’t open the window that triggers the message? GumNotes has this covered and allows you to create reminders when you access the desktop space.
Currently the application is in beta stage and does not cost a thing. However, the developer may make it shareware once the final release kicks off.
Update: GumNotes will continue to be free of charge in the final version, for home use only.
We had no trouble during installation and when this procedure completes you’ll have to go through a brief tutorial that explains how you can use the application. As soon as you start a program you can attach a note that pops up at the next launch.
Linking comments to an opened window is pretty easy as GumNotes automatically detects the active window and shows it in its title bar. Basically all you have to do is start punching in the notification string in GumNotes as soon as you have selected the desired window. It‘s as simple as that.
By default, all the notifications are saved in an XML file in C:/Users/UserName/AppData/Roaming/GumNotes. However, you can create multiple annotation stores and switch between them at your convenience. They are available in the lower part of the main application screen, together with the amount of notes they hold.
You can also share all the annotations with other users or view what they have to say about a document or web page. Despite the lack of documentation in this sense, all there really is to it is for all the users to connect to the same annotation store (you can save the XML file to a folder on the network). For “chatnotes” on websites all the users have to agree to use the same web browser.
Also, just like in the case of Outlook messages (described below), documents having the same name as one with annotation attached will trigger the pop up note.
Even if in early development stage GumNotes does an amazing job with all the programs we’ve tried. With Outlook its functionality expands to the extent of adding per email notifications. This means that it is able to discern between the various messages in your Inbox and show a different notification for each of them. We can’t say the same thing about Thunderbird.
On the downside, the subject of the emails is paramount in allowing GumNotes to distinguish between the messages and pop the note for the right one. If you have multiple emails with the same subject and attach a note only to one of them, that note will pop up when you click on each email with the same subject.
On the bright side, the program lets you create alerts for the websites you visit. As long as you open the website in the same browser as when you made the annotation, GumNotes will have no objection and will trigger the notification.
Setting everything up to work just the way you want it is a piece of cake. Options panel lets you manage the annotation stores (add new ones, delete them, rename them) as well as the username you want to associate with the note. The rest of the choices permit you to add a WAV file which can be played automatically whenever a notification is available. The application can also be brought to full view on the screen in case annotations are detected.
The current version of GumNotes is still a work in progress and snags are bound to be unveiled. In our case we had trouble opening the main application window from the system tray. There were moments when double clicking its icon or trying to enable it from the context menu would not work.
A workaround for this extremely annoying action is to activate a notification. Clicking on the balloon will bring back the main application window.
Also, in Thunderbird you will not be able to link a note to a specific message. The app will only append the note to the entire Inbox folder, which is not of much use. Still on the downside, clicking outside the application window in Windows 7 sends the program straight to system tray. We also witnessed reminders triggered by wrong windows.
The Good
GumNotes is quite a useful reminder. It has an intuitive interface, little configuration to attend to and can annotations can be shared between multiple users.
You can use it on any program you want and it’ll prompt each time there is an annotation available, thus relating all the notes to the currently opened window.
The Bad
The Truth
This article is also available in Spanish: Añade notas a los correos electrónicos, páginas web o documentos
