MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iPad Looking for an app to organize personal projects

FlorenceArt · 12-02-2011, 04:32 AM

Turns out that the solution to my need may come from a completely unexpected corner: handwritten notes! I would never have thought to try that, but last week-end as I was searching for productivity apps, I chanced on a Thanksgiving promotion for an app called Noteshelf. It looked neat and was cheap with the Thanksgiving discount, so I bought it out of curiosity, never thinking I would use it for anything useful.

It's probably a bit too soon to tell if it will become of my indispensable apps, but so far I like it very much. It doesn't do any of the things I would expect a note or to-do app to do, but if you look at it another way, it does all of those things and more. You can create as many notebooks as you want, write in them (of course, that's the main point), copy photos in them (which is a substitute for the attachment function I was looking for, in fact this could work on other apps too: just make a screen copy of your file and import it in the notebook). You can reorder your pages, move them from one notebook to another, duplicate them, delete them. You can also group your notebooks (only one level of grouping is allowed).

Obviously there is no text search function, no reminders for late tasks, none of the "smart" functions all those real notes/to-do apps offer. But I am starting to realize that maybe I don't need those. Maybe what I was really looking for was a way to organize my thoughts and remember them, and maybe the best way to do that, in my case, is to simply scribble in a notebook.

I have been using notebooks for years. I have a big one for work where I write several pages a day. I have another one at home where I write much less often. I have long carried a small leather organizer thingie with loose leafs and note pages and scraps of paper in it. I gave it up a few months ago after getting the iPad, but I sometimes miss it when I want to look up a note I've been carrying with me for years, or write down a thought or a shopping list.

Can Noteshelf replace all of these? Not all, but maybe some, maybe even most. Time will tell.

12-02-2011, 04:32 AM	#7
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	Turns out that the solution to my need may come from a completely unexpected corner: handwritten notes! I would never have thought to try that, but last week-end as I was searching for productivity apps, I chanced on a Thanksgiving promotion for an app called Noteshelf. It looked neat and was cheap with the Thanksgiving discount, so I bought it out of curiosity, never thinking I would use it for anything useful. It's probably a bit too soon to tell if it will become of my indispensable apps, but so far I like it very much. It doesn't do any of the things I would expect a note or to-do app to do, but if you look at it another way, it does all of those things and more. You can create as many notebooks as you want, write in them (of course, that's the main point), copy photos in them (which is a substitute for the attachment function I was looking for, in fact this could work on other apps too: just make a screen copy of your file and import it in the notebook). You can reorder your pages, move them from one notebook to another, duplicate them, delete them. You can also group your notebooks (only one level of grouping is allowed). Obviously there is no text search function, no reminders for late tasks, none of the "smart" functions all those real notes/to-do apps offer. But I am starting to realize that maybe I don't need those. Maybe what I was really looking for was a way to organize my thoughts and remember them, and maybe the best way to do that, in my case, is to simply scribble in a notebook. I have been using notebooks for years. I have a big one for work where I write several pages a day. I have another one at home where I write much less often. I have long carried a small leather organizer thingie with loose leafs and note pages and scraps of paper in it. I gave it up a few months ago after getting the iPad, but I sometimes miss it when I want to look up a note I've been carrying with me for years, or write down a thought or a shopping list. Can Noteshelf replace all of these? Not all, but maybe some, maybe even most. Time will tell.