Notes

Text editing, among chatting and keeping notes, can also be used for programming. Regardless of the requirement, an application is required for this to be possible. There are various third-party alternatives to what Windows offers by default, and Notes is a suitable example of what it’s like to have a text editor at hand at all times.

On the one hand, the application skips you the effort of going through a setup process, and so you can easily carry it around on a thumb drive along with other documents of interest. Registry entries are not modified in the process either. On the other hand, you do need to make sure that .NET Framework is on the computer you use in on.

The visual design comes in two fixed size specifications. This may seem like an inconvenience, but the maximized mode does offer some comfort. Moreover, it’s easy to change the background color of the edit area, but there’s no option to add a custom picture instead.

When it comes to file support, Notes can only process RTF files, and the browse dialogs can’t be tweaked to select all file types for TXT support, which may come as a disadvantage. Drag and drop is not a supported operation.

However, this does mean you benefit from a decent set of font customization options such as changing the style, type, attribute, size, and even color. On the downside, these visual style is applied to the entire text, with no option to highlight any text string.

Direct text editing is limited to undo and redo operations, selection, copy, cut and paste. Search is thus excluded from the set, making it rather difficult to identify any particular strings, let alone replace. Export too is limited to RTF, with no flexibility for a connected printer either.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Notes is only at the beginning of a long road to even competing with what Windows already provides by default. Ranging from edit area size adjustment, to even basic edit operations like the lack of a search engine, or the odd affinity for RTF files, you are easily tempted to look for alternatives.