14 DAY TRIAL // There is a lot to be said about keeping your information together and having it - at the same time - readily accessible. Over the course of a day's work you can come across things that you cannot deal with at the moment, but that you may want to set aside for a later time, take personal notes, go through 'to do' items or jot down quick pieces of information such as a phone number or e-mail address. One way to go about things is to keep a text document, which you can use just as you would use that piece of paper you often see around a desk and which is full of notes and scribbles and written in all directions and sizes. While this approach is definitely the easiest one, and the most familiar, it is also the least organized because you dump everything in that text document. On the other hand, this is not the most accessible thing around.
Another alternative is a dedicated note keeping application, such as Sidenote.
What it does
Sidenote is a small application that keeps your notes in a convenient little drawer that hides and appears on the side of the screen. In a way, it is similar to Stickies, except that all the notes occupy the same amount of space and the drawer shows and hides so that you can keep it open all the time.
The application is nice and the implementation of the note drawer concept has some advantages and certain disadvantages.
Keep everything in it
Sidenote lets you keep very many notes, without sacrificing any screen space or accessibility. Much like Stickies, these notes can have various colors, which change their background and make it easier for you to differentiate between them. Everything is kept inside the small drawer that can stick to either side of the screen, it can have any size and can be positioned anywhere.
The notes themselves can have just about any content, from text to images and even files from the finder, which act as links when clicked. It also has full drag and drop support and you can drag anything from an application that supports dragging or, if you are not much of a mouse fan, you can simply copy-paste content inside.
Due to the way in which you can keep as many notes as you want, and have them color coded for the content type, you can keep the content quite organized, and there is no space or management problem as we have when we use multiple text documents for instance.
Almost Invisible
Sidenote is a discrete application, it is there when you want it and it's hidden when you don't want it to be seen. It does not have a menu system, or a dock icon, everything being contained in the drawer itself.
Accessing the drawer can be done either by using the mouse or via keyboard shortcuts, and the application itself can be configured to accept both or only one of the two. It can even be set up so as not to take the focus, until the drawer is open and you click on it, making it very easy to simply open it up to take a quick peek inside, and then return to what you were doing right away. However, if you need it open, it can easily be toggled to stay open all of the time, and it will not close, even when you are working with other applications.
Strange phenomena
There are some very strange things about Sidenote, some of which can be bothersome if not downright annoying. The first is the lack of a proper search function.
The application uses the default OS X find system, through which a find window opens; however, there are a few small problems. First of all, typing in the search text and pressing Enter produces no result, and all the buttons are grayed out as if there were no text there. If you then move the mouse outside of the Sidenote drawer, it will automatically close as usual, taking the find window with it. You then have to go through a complex hand-eye coordination test to manage to close the find window in the second one you have available after the mouse leaves the Sidenote drawer, before the application hides itself, taking the find window along with it. After all this, I managed to get the find function working by typing in the search text in the useless window and then using the find next and find previous functions? A very non intuitive and non-functional system at best. However, even so, there is no way to search in all existing notes, and you have to go through them one at a time.
The second major issue is that of saving. Saving is done automatically every time the drawer hides or when you change the current note. While this is great for people who do not make mistakes or are used with similar workflows, it is a liability for anyone that is used to anything different. Being used to the power of the computer I often use cut instead of copy, and make all kinds of modifications to documents, because I know that as long as I don't save them, I still have the original document, and I make heavy use of the "Save As" function. Sidenote is a real nightmare to work in because I have to make sure that whatever changes I make, I also undo before changing to another note, or else, they will become permanent. The most frustrating thing is that, while there is a button you can use to issue a hard save command, there is no way to disable the automatic saving, and since due to the very nature of the program you are constantly changing between notes, you have to tread like in a minefield.
The Good
A nice way to keep many different notes tucked away out of sight until you need them. Easy to use and quite powerful.
The Bad
Find-impaired and save trigger happy, working with lots of data can quickly become more trouble than it's worth, if your workflow is not in line with the design of the program.
The Truth
While a very nice little application, it is definitely not something for everyone to enjoy equally. For some users it can end up causing more headaches than it saves.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
