After a few months of using Notenik I’ve finally got to the point at which I’m doing more than note taking and note organisation.
I have two very active collections at the moment. One is a policy document I’m writing for The Soup, a discourse forum for FileMaker users. The other is a notes / task list for a software project. They are very different jobs and Notenik is flexible enough to handle both of them.
In my team at work we use a dedicated, job tracking tool (based on FileMaker platform) for generating, tracking, and responding to software enhancements. However, that tool is designed for team work. For keeping track of the messy business of turning job requests into working code our job tracking system requires too much input and involves too many others. Notenik provides the perfect amount of structure, simplicity, and ease of use for me to keep notes and turn them into my work record, and document my progress.
I’m able to outline the tasks and issues that I have with a broad brush, or with any level of detail. I’m using the Query tool to generate a To Do list which can be arranged by priority, rank, status, and sequence. In addition I can filter on booleans that I define as and when I need them. The query tool makes it really easy for me to produce reports at a moment’s notice. It’s so productive.
I love the fact that the Query tool report create links that take me back into Notenik. It allows me to link back into quite a large collection of notes effortlessly. This really is replacing my note book.
Is it possible to craft a URL to open notes in edit mode? That would save a lot of wear and tear on my ⌘-E keys.
The policy document could have been written in Word, or any other word processor. However, we’re a small NFP with a minimal budget (which we use to cover our hosting costs). I’m very comfortable with my decision to use markdown formatted text files as the primary format for this job. It is universally accessible, which is important as we are BYOD and x-platform. And with a markdown editor/reader the document becomes aesthetically pleasant. What’s more, the lack of options frees me up. I concentrate on the content more than on the font-family and the document styling.
I’m even more pleased by the ability of Notenik to produce output via scripts and templates. The policy document is well suited to being published as a web site. I used the basic web document template and tweaked it for my needs. In addition I was able to re-use the Query report script and tweaked that template to generate an excellent index based on note titles and teasers for the policy document.
Thanks again.