TealNotes User's Manual

Program Version 1.20

Last Updated: July 19, 2001

Table of Contents


Description
Contents
Installing
Overview
Activation
Using the Program
Creating a Note
Editing a Note
   Color selection
Deleting/Modifying a Note
Setting Options
   TealNotes Activation Options
Notes Management
   How it works
   Managing Notes
APPENDIX A – Troubleshooting
APPENDIX B - Compatibility
APPENDIX C - Revision History
APPENDIX D - Credits
APPENDIX E - Products
APPENDIX F - Contact Info
APPENDIX F - Registering
   Disclaimer

Description

Thank you for trying TealNotes. This system extension gives you digital "sticky notes" for the Palm. It allows you to insert handwritten text, pictures, maps, and more into memos, to-do lists, address book entries ¾ almost anywhere you currently have editable text.

Contents

This archive contains the following files:

Program files:

TEALNOTE.PRC The TealNotes program file

TEALMSTR.PRC TealMaster System Extensions Manager (trial)

SETUP.EXE Windows easy-installer program

Document files:

TEALNOTE.PDF This document in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format

TEALNOTE.HTM This document in HTML format

NOTEDOC.PRC This document in TealDoc format

REGISTER.HTM TealPoint Registration form in HTML format

REGISTER.TXT TealPoint Registration form in text format

Installing

Important note: Before updating or deleting any active system extension like TealNotes, you must to disable the extension first in the TealMaster (or HackMaster) control screen. Failing to do so may result in a system crash, though data loss or any permanent effects are unlikely.

TealNotes is a system extension, and is intended to run with a system extensions manager, like TealMaster or Hackmaster. This program is a safe and standard way to add and manage extended system functionality on the Palm Computing Platform. If you are not currently running an extensions manager, a trial version of TealMaster has been included for your convenience.


Use the Palm Install Tool that comes with your organizer to install the program file TEALNOTE.PRC and TEALMSTR.PRC if no system extensions manager is currently installed on your organizer. The Palm Install tool appears as an icon on the Palm Desktop program on your PC or Mac. Instructions on how to use the Palm Install Tool are in the Palm Handbook that came with your Pilot, PalmPilot, or WorkPad.


Overview

This manual uses the term button to describe the tappable rounded rectangular areas on the Palm display screen. Hardware buttons refer to the four standard application buttons at the bottom of the organizer: the up and down buttons, power button, and contrast button on the

Palm V. Lastly, silkscreen buttons refer to the four round Applications, Menu, Calculator, and Find tappable areas printed below the Palm display screen on either side of the graffiti writing area. A text field refers to a region of word-wrapped text displayed by a program. Text fields are typically editable and underlined, but may be non-editable or not underlined as well.

Activation


TealNotes will not appear by itself in the system launcher screen. Instead, it will appear in the list of system extensions within the TealMaster or Hackmaster application.

To activate TealNotes, start the TealMaster application and check the checkbox next to TealNotes in the list of installed system extensions.

WARNING

Once you enable TealNotes, before updating or deleting the program in the future, you must disable the program or your PalmPilot will crash during or soon after HotSync. TealMaster has an option to keep this from happening, but Hackmaster does not.

Using the Program

TealNotes allows you to insert a rectangular drawing area, or "note" anywhere an application has a text writing area, or text field, that supports multiple lines of text. This includes memos, to-do items, datebook entries, address book entries, and more. Notes can contain pictures and text, and supports colors on a color Palm device.


A note cannot be inserted into single line text fields if they cannot expand to hold multiple lines of text. Also, where non-editable text is drawn manually by a program, notes will appear as TealNotes icons to indicate the presence of a note. An example is the first, non-editable window put up to view entries in the address book. You can view and edit notes in the editable window, but they will appear as icons in the non-editable window.

Creating a Note

By default, TealNotes supports a number of different ways to trigger the creation of a new note. You begin the same way as you would to add text to a valid text field. Click in the field to move flashing cursor where you would like to add the note, and do one of the following.

Make sure that TealNotes has been previously activated in TealMaster, of course.

Enter the TealNotes activation shortcut

By default, you can insert a note by entering the shortcut graffiti stroke followed by the letter 'i'. You can change the letter or disable this activation method entirely in TealNotes Options Screen. (see section below)

Enter the TealNotes activation word

You can insert a note by writing the sequence ".tn" (one period, letter 't', then letter 'n'). This is the standard activation word, and will always work. You can also set your own alternate word in the Options screen.


Press the TealNotes button on the keyboard dialog

TealNotes adds a TN button to the keyboard dialog window. To create a note, first bring up the keyboard window by tapping either the ABC or 123 corner of the graffiti area. Then press the button with TN to create a note.


When you activate a note, you may be asked to choose a note size, depending on your options settings. Choose the Small size to create a short, 2-line note, or a larger size up to the Jumbo 10-line note. Maximum note size is governed by the available space in the current text field. If too large of a size is requested, the maximum size will be created.


Editing a Note


Once the note is created, you will be presented with the drawing area and a small set of useful drawing tools and options. At the bottom of the window, from left to right are:

Grid Snap

This option, shaped like a small four-pane window, helps you draw ordered notes by confining the pen to intersections of an invisible grid of graph paper. Tap on the grid snap icon to activate it; tap again to turn it off. Use it to make sure your straight lines stay lined up or to keep text lined up in orderly rows.

Drawing Tools

TealNotes supports 5 simple but useful drawing tools. From left to right, they are:

Free Draw

Draw freehand lines in the drawing area using the current brush

Line

Tap and drag the pen to draw a straight line from where you press down the pen to where you release it

Text

Tap in the note to move the insertion cursor. Then enter graffiti to insert text

Lasso

Tap and drag the pen to define a rectangular area. Drag the area with the pen to move the graphics in that area to another location on the note

Erase

Tap and drag the pen in the drawing area to erase

Brush Sizes

Three dots represent the drawing brush sizes that are supported. Tap on one to select it.

Drawing Pattern

Three drawing patterns are supported: Black, white, and checkerboard

When you have completed editing a note, press the Done button to close the editing window. You note will appear mixed in with the other text in the text field.

Color selection


On a color device, you can set the current foreground and background colors by clicking on either the top (background) or bottom (foreground) halves of the color-picker square in the upper right hand corner of the edit window. This control has no effect on a monochrome organizer.


Deleting/Modifying a Note

A number of tools exist to allow you to modify a note. These are accessible from buttons at the top of the edit window.

TPnt

Launches the program TealPaint to be used as an editor for the current note. This requires TealPaint version 4.0 or newer. The note will appear in the upper portion of the screen. Any drawing you do beyond the initial size of the note will be ignored. When you click 'done' in TealPaint, control returns to the current app.

Del

Deletes the current note and removes it from the current text field.

Edit

Brings up this list of choices for modifying the current note:

Resize

Allows you to expand or shrink the size of the current editing window. If you choose a smaller size, note that only the top part of the current note that fits within the new size will be saved.

Copy to clipboard

Makes a duplicate of the current note and places it in the system clipboard, where you can paste it into a text field using the standard 'paste' menu supported by most applications. Note that if you use this option to copy an image, you should be sure to paste the note somewhere else to prevent creating an orphan note in the TealNotes note database.

Cut to clipboard

Removes the current note and places it in the system clipboard, where you can paste it into a text field using the standard 'paste' menu supported by most applications. Note that if you do not intend to paste the note somewhere else, use the "Delete" option instead.

Abandon Changes

Ignore all edits in the current session and close the edit window.

Clear

Blanks the current note, erasing its contents.

Undo

Undoes the last drawing operation.

OK

Closes the note-editing window, saving any changes that have been made.


Setting Options


The TealNotes configure window can be found inside the application TealMaster. Open it by starting TealMaster and tapping on the '+' (plus) button next to the TealNotes' entry in the list of system extensions.

At the top of the window are the activation options for TealNotes. Here, you can change the activation word (text) and shortcuts, or disable them altogether. You can also set up TealNotes to automatically default to a note size when you create a new note.

TealNotes Activation Options

Text

Sets the text sequence that will trigger creation of a new note. Make sure any sequence you enter is unique enough never to be entered in normal operation of your organizer.

Shortcut

Sets a one-letter graffiti shortcut that can be used to create a new note if entered after a graffiti stroke.

Keybd Butn

Creates a "TN" button on the system popup keyboard that can be pressed to create a note.

Prefix line

Adds a blank line if a TealNote is created at the top of a text field to leave space for adding text above the note.

As supplements to the current activation methods, you may also wish to set up a system graffiti shortcut or TealScript activation stroke to create a new note. Do the former if you want a multi-letter macro rather than the single-letter one TealNotes supports. To enter one, go to the system Preferences application, choose the 'shortcut' option from the drop down menu, and create a new shortcut. Call it whatever you wish, and set it's macro text to '.tn'. TealNotes knows not to try to create a new note when running in the shortcut creation screen, so it’s safe to write the tag there when defining the new macro.

If you are running TealScript, you can insert notes with a single graffiti stroke by setting up a custom multi-character macro to output the letters '.tn'. To make one, go into the Profile Editing screen and create a new macro entry for '.tn'. Try a simple but unique stroke, like writing a square box or triangle.


Notes Management

The remainder of the TealNotes TealMaster options screen is devoted to managing notes for TealNotes. In general, you may rarely need to use the notes manager if you use TealNotes properly, but it's very useful to know how TealNotes works in case you do.

How it works

Most Palm apps are designed primarily to display, edit, and store text, not the graphical information TealNotes supports. To work, TealNotes hooks itself into some of the Palm OS text routines to give this functionality universally.

Since most programs aren't designed to support the large storage needs required by graphics, TealNotes stores all the graphics you draw in a separate TealPaint-format note database. Instead, only a special text marker is stored in the memo, to-do list entry, etc. When the system tries to display text containing one of these special markers, TealNotes steps in instead and shows the graphics instead.

The benefit of this is that the text-based applications all run normally. As far as they know, they are dealing with text, not graphics. Yet, the apps can all support graphics with no graphic code of their own.

A side effect, however, is that they programs do not know of the existence of the graphics. If you delete records in one of the text-based applications, the note will still remain in the TealNotes note database, which hasn't been told to free the note as well.

The easy solution is to simply remember to delete notes in a record before deleting the whole memo, to-do list entry, etc. Even if you don't however, you can use the Notes Manager to find and free up unreferenced notes in the database.

Managing Notes

The TealNotes Manager screen shows a list of all the notes in the database on the left and the note of the current note on the right. To browse the notes, just scroll up and down the list and select a note number to see it.

Beneath the notes, the status of the current selection is shown, including its state ( 0=unused, 1=used, ?=unknown ) and the time and app in which it was last edited.

You can modify the state of notes using one of the following tools, available either as buttons at the bottom of the screen or from choices in the drop-down menu:

Del/Undel button

Press this button to change the state of the current note from used to unused. Press it again if you make a mistake and wish to bring it back.

Find All button/menu

Choose this option to automatically check the state of all notes in the database. TealNotes will call each of the applications associated with each note, searching for markers indicating if the note is used. If the note was added in an app that doesn't support the global find command, its status will be left unchanged.

Delete Orphan Notes menu

After a 'Find All', TealNotes will mark any notes it cannot find, but whose apps do support a global find operation. These notes are likely left as unused records because the original records referencing them have since been deleted. Use this option to free up those notes for reuse in the future.

Find Selected Note menu

Use this option to locate a specific note in the list. If found, you can jump directly there to modify or edit the note.

APPENDIX A – Troubleshooting

Installing and Running

If you are having problems getting the program to run, be sure that you have installed both files: TealMaster and TealNotes. Refer to the PalmPilot manual that came with your unit if you are unsure how to do this.

Afterwards, be sure to activate TealNotes by running TealMaster and selecting the checkmark next to TealNotes. If it still does not work, and you are instead using Hackmaster, try unselecting and reselecting the checkmark. If HackMaster has gotten confused because you either updated or deleted TealNotes without first deselecting it in HackMaster, HackMaster will likely crash, but with no lingering side effects afterwards. TealMaster does not have this problem.

Lastly, check the TealNotes options in TealMaster/HackMaster ('+' key) to insure it is set up to activate by your desired choices.

APPENDIX B - Compatibility

As we cannot control the style and robustness of other products, we cannot guarantee compatibility with PalmPilot applications beyond those included from Palm Computing. However, we try to resolve compatibility issues as best we can.

TealNotes, like all TealMaster applications, hooks into the PalmPilot operating system in a way that may not be compatible with all other programs of this type, often due to the fact that all system extensions run simultaneously and need to share limited system resources and special runtime memory. If you are running into problems, always first try running with all other extensions disabled to see if there may be a conflict.

TealPaint

TealNotes stores its imagery in a TealPaint-format image database. Consequently, it's possible to edit TealNotes in TealPaint. If you do, remember not to change the data in the names of the images, and don't move, add, or delete any images, or it can mess up the ordering TealNotes uses to locate and maintain the images.

Note that if you increase the size of the image in TealPaint, only the original portion of the image in TealNotes will be used. Also, if you delete TealPaint at any time in the future that the Palm OS will remove the TealNotes image database at the same time.

Fitaly Keyboard

Fitaly seems to trap the shortcut strokes for its own activation, disabling TealNotes' shortcut function. The standard graffiti shortcuts still work, however, so you can create the same functionality by creating a system shortcut stroke and setting its text to the universal TealNotes activation tag ".tn". Note that you'll need to either temporarily disable TealNotes or enter the tag characters out of sequence to prevent TealNotes from coming up when creating the tag in the Prefs app.

Japanese OS

If the Japanese OS interferes with activation under of the text-entry keyboard, disable the 'Keybd Butn' option in the "TealNotes" configuration screen in TealMaster.

T9 Keyboard

If you are running the T9 Keyboard or any other 'keyboard' replacement, disable the 'Keybd Butn' option in the TealNotes configuration screen in TealMaster, as the TealNotes keyboard function is designed to work specifically with the standard Palm keyboard only. Also, turn off T9 before turning on TealNotes and turn on T9 afterwards.

Hebrew Support

TealNotes currently doesn't work with Hebrew Support, probably because both need to modify the standard text rendering routines with our own custom code. Thus, installing one currently precludes the other from functioning properly.

ClearHack

We've gotten reports that ClearHack is not currently compatible with TealNotes. We may be adding optional ClearHack functionality to TealNotes as a workaround to this problem in an upcoming update.

APPENDIX C - Revision History

Version 1.16: June 6, 2001

ž Added support for OS 4.0

ž Added support for Handera 330

ž Fixed image-resizing in character-limited text fields

ž Increased maximum image size in character-limited text fields

ž Added auto-sizing image tags to adjust for odd-width text fields

Version 1.14: 3/22/00

ž Added support for OS 3.5

ž Added support for color images

ž Added color selection tool

ž Added selection in Edit menu to allow calling TealPaint to edit notes

ž Added support for PalmTheme display mode

ž Moved 'delete' option to menu bar

ž Fixed update after cut, and paste operations

Version 1.07C: 1/31/00

ž Added auto-disable for keyboard replacement programs

ž Added support for EVPlugBase

Version 1.07: 1/27/00

ž Initial release.

APPENDIX D - Credits

Manual by Vince Lee, Tex Tennison, and Diane Dybalski

APPENDIX E - Products

Visit us online for our complete product line, including:

TEALAGENT

A Palm data converter, installer, and web clipper, TealAgent intelligently formats local, network, and web-resident data for the Palm handhelds, converting them to standard TealDoc, TealMeal, and TealInfo files.

TEALDOC

A Doc format text reader that's nice... without the price! TealDoc reads thousands of free docs and ebooks on the web, and hasexclusive support for images, link buttons, protected documents, and more.

TEALECHO

Palm text entry as it always should have been. Real-time preview in digital ink lets you see what you're writing, increasing speed and accuracy

TEALGLANCE

Keep the info you need the most at your fingertips. Shows date, time, upcoming appointments, and to-do items at power up.

TEALINFO

The reference library at your fingertips; TealInfo lets you make or browse from hundreds of free interactive TealInfo Folio files, which are mini information applets with lists, tables, popup windows, and more.

TEALLAUNCH

Lets you quickly launch your favorite apps and useful system and editing functions. Powerful button-programming features map functions and apps to hundreds of keypresses and keypress combos.

TEALLOCK

What the security app should have been: custom text and images, graffiti shortcuts for hide privates, show privates, and lock, and automatic locking when turned off or by time.

TEALMAGNIFY

Never squint at a phone number again. An ever-ready magnifying glass compatible with most any program.

TEALMASTER

A hackmaster-compatible system extensions manager with advanced features such as multiple profiles, hack priorities, delete-protection, and automatic timed reenable after system reset.

TEALMEAL

Answer the day's biggest question... where to go for lunch! A Restaurant chooser and editable database.

TEALMOVER

A file manager for the Palm, TealMover is the application Palm Computing forgot to include. Use TealMover to inspect, rename, and delete files, and move and manage files in external media cards.

TEALMOVIE

Play movies and videos on your Palm with sound! Amazing system supports smooth video, sound playback, and full screen display. Includes windows encoder for making your own movies.

TEALNOTES

Sticky notes for your PalmPilot! Draw freehand notes, maps and doodles directly into your Memos, To-do entries, datebook entries--almost anywhere.

TEALPAINT

The most full-featured paint and sketch program on the Pilot. Includes 16 patterns, 12 brushes, paint bucket, magnified mode, text tool, lasso tool, screen-grabber, color and grayscale support and much more.

TEALPHONE

The better Address book app, with large, easy-to-see numbers, viewing by first, last, or company name, advanced searching, and more!

TEALPRINT

The all-in-one PalmPilot printing solution. Print both text and graphics to Infared, Serial, and Parallel Printers (with adapter), and even any Windows printer with exclusive 'HotSync' printing!

TEALSCRIPT

Graffiti reinvented; a replacement for the system text recognition system that allows you to tune, modify, and add your own strokes

TEALTOOLS

An invaluable collection of pop-up Palm Desk Accessories, including a pop- up calculator, lock/stopwatch, preferences panel, editing panel, memopad, and a file and backup manager.Visit us online for our complete product line, including:

APPENDIX F - Contact Info

TealNotes by TealPoint Software

©1999-2001 All Rights Reserved.

TealPoint Software

454 Las Gallinas Ave #318

San Rafael, CA 94903-3618

We look forward to hearing from you.

Please visit us at www.tealpoint.com, or email us at contact@tealpoint.com.


APPENDIX G - Registering

Currently, you may register by snail mail, electronically through our website at www.tealpoint.com, with a credit card and a secured server, or through PalmGear HQ at 1-800-741-9070. For the first option, the enclosed registration form is provided for your convenience. You may use this form or simply send the following to the address above.

§ Product Name

§ E-Mail Address

§ HotSync User ID (Pilot Name Required for Passkey generation. It can be found on the main screen of the HotSync application on the Pilot as "Welcome ________" or in the corner on a PalmIII or newer)

§ Check (on US Bank paper) or Money Order for ($13.95 US) to TealPoint Software

Disclaimer

We at TealPoint Software are committed to providing quality, easy-to-use software. However, this product is provided without warranty and the user accepts full responsibility for any damages, consequential or otherwise, resulting from its use.

This archive is freely redistributable, provided it is made available only in its complete, unmodified form with no additional files and for noncommercial purposes only. Any other use must have prior written authorization from TealPoint Software.

Unauthorized commercial use includes, but is not limited to:

§ A product for sale.

§ Accompanying a product for sale.

§ Accompanying a magazine, book or other publication for sale.

§ Distribution with "Media", "Copying" or other incidental costs.

§ Available for download with access or download fees.

This program may be used on a trial basis for 30 days. The program will continue to function afterwards. However, if after this time you wish to continue using it, please register with us for the nominal fee listed in the program.

Thank you.