rjbs hates software: sticking it to stickies

• From: Ricardo SIGNES
  Date: 00:22 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: sticking it to stickies
  
  
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  I want a way to take really quick notes. I want to scribble down a to-do, w=
  rite
  down a MySQL log position, write down the length of time it took to build t=
  he
  CPANTS database, or whatever.
  
  Using Vim is annoying: I have to have an open screen, I have to run Vim, I =
  have
  to give it a filename, and save it. The up side is that it's a very good
  editor, I end up with a plaintext file, and if I do it on a screen session =
  on
  cheshirecat, I can pick that note up anywhere.
  
  Apple has two distinct Stickies programs, which blows my mind. What blows it
  more is that they have different good and bad points.
  
  Stickies.app has resizeable windows. It supports real Cocoa text editing, l=
  ets
  me use any font (even monospace), lets me create a new note with Cmd-N, let=
  s me
  print my notes, and can save notes as plaintext if I ask.
  
  Stickets.wdgt can't resize windows, but will automatically resize the font =
  to
  fit the window size. It's on Dashboard, so I can hide and display all my
  stickies anywhere with a single keypress.
  
  The font resizing in Stickies is neat, but mostly I want the easy hide/disp=
  lay.
  I thought I'd have a look at Konfabulator, but its note-taking widgets were
  either roughly identical to Stickies.wdgt (except requiring 80% of my CPU) =
  or
  wildly overengineered. One of them, THnotes, does multipage notes that are
  actually editors for plain text files anywhere on your filesystem. That's g=
  reat
  except that you can only have one note window and you can't create an anony=
  mous
  note. When I need to scribble a note, I want to hit Cmd-N, not click the li=
  ttle
  "new note" button followed by navigation around my filesystem.
  
  The Dashbaord widget is hardly better, as far as new note creation goes. I =
  have
  to click the "plus" button to bring up a bar from which I can click the
  "Stickies" icon -- assuming that it's on the current page of widgets. I may
  have to scroll around, nine widgets at a time.
  
  "Well," I thought, "this isn't going to be that hard to fix. I'll tell Desk=
  top
  Manager to display Stickies on every Desktop, I'll write a little AppleScri=
  pt
  to hide or display the Stickies application, and then I'll bind F12 to that
  script. I can eliminate my use of Dashboard entirely!"
  
  Now I find out that there is no (or is no documented) way to hide an
  application from AppleScript. (By hide, I mean what happens when you hit
  Cmd-H.) Fine! I can always "repeat with w in (get every window) set w's vis=
  ible
  to false" -- except that Stickies.app isn't scriptable. Neither is Desktop
  Manager, so I can't quietly change display settings for that app, either.=
  =20
  
  Maybe I can just tell it to quit if it's not running! Well, actually, I don=
  't
  see a simple way to ask whether a named application is running. Maybe once =
  I'm
  online again I'll find something on Google, but my on-disk copy of the enti=
  re
  ADC Reference Library isn't helping, despite Spotlight's best efforts. Maybe
  it's because the AppleScript reference documentation hasn't been updated si=
  nce
  1999. Even if the language is stable, shouldn't the documentation be getting
  better?
  
  Finally, I end up with this. I cannot express my exasperation sufficiently,=
   so
  I will leave it to your imagination:
  
    set StickiesRunning to
      (do shell script "ps ax | grep Stickies.app | grep -v grep | wc -l") + 0
  
    if StickiesRunning > 0 then
      tell application "Stickies" to quit
    else
      tell application "Stickies" to activate
    end if
  
  -- Bonus Hate!
  
  If you use Spotlight to search and select "Show All" you get a window from
  which you can launch anything you've found. If you then open any of those
  documents and thereby create a window that hides Spotlight, you can't cmd-t=
  ab
  back to it. You have to use Expose or close/move/hide the windows that got =
  in
  the way.
  
  -- Bonus Bonus Hate!
  
  When viewing the ADC Reference Library in Safari, there are two frames: an
  index on the left and content on the right. The frame size can be changed by
  dragging the divider, but the cursor does not indicate this when hovering o=
  ver
  the divider. (In every other "reasonable" Mac OS X application, it would tu=
  rn
  into the little <-|-> curosr.)
  
  --=20
  rjbs
  
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• From: peter (Peter da Silva)
  Date: 01:35 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  > Using Vim is annoying: I have to have an open screen, I have to run Vim, I have
  > to give it a filename, and save it. The up side is that it's a very good
  > editor, I end up with a plaintext file, and if I do it on a screen session on
  > cheshirecat, I can pick that note up anywhere.
  
  I use TextForge. I used to use TextEdit in plain text mode, but
  sometimes it doesn't behave well when I drop HTML into it.
  
  Spotlight looks more and more like they've taken something that
  does almost everything I want from a search tool, and implemented
  it in an application that does just about everything I hate. AND
  as a bonus, they've taken stuff that works and replaced it with
  inappropriate hooks in to this app.
  
  Which is why I'm still using Panther.
  
  
  

• From: Ricardo SIGNES
  Date: 02:13 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  
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  * Peter da Silva <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> [2005-11-14T20:35:42]
  > Spotlight looks more and more like they've taken something that
  > does almost everything I want from a search tool, and implemented
  > it in an application that does just about everything I hate. AND
  > as a bonus, they've taken stuff that works and replaced it with
  > inappropriate hooks in to this app.
  
  I am definitely waiting for the real, useful interface to Spotlight.
  
  --=20
  rjbs
  
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• From: Ricardo SIGNES
  Date: 02:12 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  
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  * Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs-hates@xxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx> [2005-11-14T19:22:19]
  >   set StickiesRunning to
  >     (do shell script "ps ax | grep Stickies.app | grep -v grep | wc -l") =
  + 0
  
  Aristotle replied to me privately, presumably to save me a public
  shaming.  I will make my shame public because it led to more hate.
  
  He said, correctly, that I should have run this:
  	ps ax | grep -c '[S]tickies.app'
  
  I thanked him, smacked my forehead, and implemented it.  When run,
  however, I get the following error:
  
  	AppleScript Error
  	0
  
  Thanks, AppleScript!
  
  --=20
  rjbs
  
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• From: Jeremy Weathers
  Date: 02:19 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  > Maybe I can just tell it to quit if it's not running! Well, actually,
  > I don't see a simple way to ask whether a named application is
  > running.
  
  tell application "System Events"
      if (exists process "Stickies") then
          tell application "Stickies"
              try
                  quit
              end try
          end tell
      end if
  end tell
  
  --=20
  
  Jeremy Weathers
  
  
  Sony-Ericsson: We put the "slow" in
  "Damn, this crappy phone is slow!"
      - Wil Shipley
  
  

• From: Chris Devers
  Date: 04:15 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
    This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
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  On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, Ricardo SIGNES wrote:
  
  > I want a way to take really quick notes. I want to scribble down a=20
  > to-do, write down a MySQL log position, write down the length of time=20
  > it took to build the CPANTS database, or whatever.
  
  It probably counts as Massively Overengineered, but I've always liked=20
  MacJournal (http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/). Recent versions of it=20
  are payware, but the last free version is still available, and it does a=20
  perfectly reasonable job of managing the things you're describing.=20
  
  Evidence of Overengineering, exhibit A:
  
      I had originally intended to tackle audio recording for 4.0d4. I=20
      decided on that because I was avoiding the new blogging architecture
      [...]
  
  http://danschimpf.blogspot.com/2005/10/avoiding-work-with-more-work-that-i.=
  html
  
  Yes, a note-taking application that [a] seems to be sprouting the=20
  ability to record audio, and [b] has not just "blog support", as=20
  everything seems to have that these days, but, yes, a full-blown=20
  "blogging architecture". While I can see where each of these could be=20
  useful, they go waaaaaay beyond what you're asking for here...
  
  But I digress.=20
  
  
  
  --=20
  Chris Devers
  
  A10=B4f=0BhU]=95YA
  --0-900980470-1132028129=:5295--
  
  

• From: Darrell Fuhriman
  Date: 05:09 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  > It probably counts as Massively Overengineered, but I've always liked 
  > MacJournal (http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/). Recent versions of it 
  
  You might also consider Voodoo Pad.  I haven't played with it
  enought to know if it supports the hide/un-hide behavior you're
  looking for, but..
  
  http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/
  
  Darrell
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 05:25 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  * Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs-hates@xxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx> [2005-11-15 01:30]:
  > I want a way to take really quick notes.
  
  A possible solution from a slightly different angle might be to
  use one of those desktop wikis. I hear there are some very neat
  ones for MacOS X, incl. ones that support the modus operandi you
  want from your note-taking app (ie. disappear but be available at
  a key's touch).
  
  (Was it on 43folders where I read about it?)
  
  I have no idea whether/how hateful they are.
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Chris Cantrall
  Date: 17:32 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  On 11/14/05, A. Pagaltzis <pagaltzis@xxx.xx> wrote:
  > A possible solution from a slightly different angle might be to
  > use one of those desktop wikis.
  ...
  > (Was it on 43folders where I read about it?)
  
  I found TiddlyWiki and GTD-TiddlyWiki on 43folders, so that might be
  what you're thinking of.  A one-file wiki which lets you write stuff
  down.  Keep a tiddler open so that you don't need to mouse over the
  Edit button.  I've got mine on my usb flash-drive.
  
  http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
  http://shared.snapgrid.com/gtd_tiddlywiki.html
  
  Hmm, no hate here, I must be sick or something.
  
  --
  Chris Cantrall
    chris.cantrall@xxxxx.xxx
    chris@xxxxxxxx.xxx
  
  

• From: Mike Macgirvin
  Date: 05:31 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  > I want a way to take really quick notes. I want to scribble down a to-do, write
  > down a MySQL log position, write down the length of time it took to build the
  > CPANTS database, or whatever.
  
  This is what got me started in computers. I just wanted to jot something 
  down - in colors, and save it. I tried to implement it on a TI 99-4A. 
  Several months later I got tired of the cassette tape data interface and 
  got a brand new Commodore 64 with a floppy disk. ColorFile was the 
  program name. It actually worked. But after a year of development and 
  software and hardware that grew rapidly obsolete I discovered that I 
  already had the perfect ColorFile. To this day I keep a stack of 3x5 
  cards and a set of magic markers near my desk.
  
  So I'm starting to see a common thread. This list tends to be populated 
  primarily by geeks who primarily use PERL, primarily on Macs. Dang - no 
  freaking wonder y'all hates software.
  
  

• From: Ricardo SIGNES
  Date: 13:16 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  
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  * Mike Macgirvin <mike@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> [2005-11-15T00:31:26]
  > program name. It actually worked. But after a year of development and=20
  > software and hardware that grew rapidly obsolete I discovered that I=20
  > already had the perfect ColorFile. To this day I keep a stack of 3x5=20
  > cards and a set of magic markers near my desk.
  
  To this day, I have done the same thing, but with a clipboard.  I just
  keep keep hoping that I can find a way to replace it.
  
  --=20
  rjbs
  
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• From: Peter da Silva
  Date: 14:04 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  I just keep an edit window open, or a shell, and mail notes back to 
  myself.
  
  Pieces of physical paper containing notes get lost.
  
  
  

• From: Adeola Awoyemi
  Date: 09:40 on 15 Nov 2005
  Subject: Re: sticking it to stickies
  
  
  On 15 Nov 2005, at 00:22, Ricardo SIGNES wrote:
  
  >
  > When viewing the ADC Reference Library in Safari, there are two  
  > frames: an
  > index on the left and content on the right. The frame size can be  
  > changed by
  > dragging the divider, but the cursor does not indicate this when  
  > hovering over
  > the divider. (In every other "reasonable" Mac OS X application, it  
  > would turn
  > into the little <-|-> curosr.)
  
  I found this very annoying too. I'm sure this used to work fine and i  
  think this was somehow broken by one of apple's software updates...
  
  {{{Venting more hate}}}
  
  --
  "When a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be  
  at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7 AMP)
  
  
  
  
  	
  	
  		
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