Early Feedback OneNote 2010 Technical Preview

Daniel Escapa (OneNote Manager) Responding to my Feedback

What's New

Initial Thoughts

Thanks for the great feedback and please see inline below...it is so great to hear from you all!

> The left hand side list of Notebooks no longer shrinks the notebook > name. I believe that this is a regression. I know what notebook it > is based on the first few letters of the notebook or its position on > the list. I favor a fast access to my notebooks, using 1 > click.

This is by design, a lot of people had problems with how this worked in OneNote 2007 because the UI would just have these little icons without any text or information. A change was made to make the notebooks scale better and now there is a notebook overflow on the bottom of the navbar on the left. This way the most important notebooks are on up on top and you can still read the text.

> If I have both 2007 and 2010 installed, and create a screen clipping, > the screen clipping goes to 2007. Even if 2007 is not open, it will > open 2007 and paste the screen clipping in.

If you are on Click-2-Run then this is a known issue. Otherwise this is due to you have two items in the Startup folder one for 2007 & another for 2010. Remove the 2007 one and you should be all set. This happens because Windows starts both of these and the first one wins which in your case is for 2007.

> Emailing seems to be different in that it will now open an new email > window. Also a .one file is no longer attached. It also seems that > the email format changed for the better.

Yay!

> There seems to be no support for publishing a whole notebook PDF. I > do not like this. I believe that publishing a notebook PDF should be > allowed. Furthermore, I believe that you should also recreate a > notebook page structure using PDF bookmarks.

You can still do this, just look in the Backstack menu, this didn't change. Also you can still choose to Save As a notebook and do the same thing you could in 2007.

> One of the challenges I have with 2007 is how can I publish or share > OneNote notebooks for people who do not have OneNote. PDF currently > is OK, but the bookmark support would make it very good. I also use > the web exporter posted on Codeplex. This publishes a IE/Opera only > (because it uses MHT) browsable notebook. I am looking forward to > your web support, but I really hope there will be an option to export > a web read-only version which works in all browsers and provides a > mirror of the notebook's structure.

Agreed : )

> Creating a new notebook should use the normal folder location > Documents/OneNote Notebooks as a default.

I think it defaults there the first time and then remembers where you chose in the past. Thanks for the feedback.

> As I mentioned in different posts (under old handle michael180): Pen > support is not working on my Fujitsu T4220 tablet; I wish that you > used the radial menus of Inkseine for change pens; and something > needs to be done similar to the QAT in full screen mode that > maximizes document space and minimizes pen taps. > > Changing a UI of a well-known program is always hard for a user. But > the new versions must be better for people to want to upgrade. > Subpage nesting and search really look good! But for me to really > want to use 2010, I need fast access, with minimum screen usage, for > my common tasks (changing pen colors, pages, etc) while in full > screen mode when using a tablet. In particular I think your > interface is best aligned for keyboard and mouse OneNote users. > While this may be the majority of the users, I think that you should > provide a fast interface for pen users. I think full screen mode > should be "tablet" mode. In my experience, I only use full screen > mode when using a pen, never when using a keyboard and mouse (which I > do a lot in OneNote). The full screen tablet mode should bypass the > ribbon by default, use radial menus, and provide fast access to > common tasks similar to 2007 full screen toolbar or the 2010 QAT > except bigger and optimized for pen.

Yup we are aware of this and working to make it better.

Printing

So back to this contentious issue....

What is the state of the 64bit virtual printer for 2010? I am running Win7 RC 64 bit with the C2R OneNote. I don't see a onenote printer or even a OneNote printer port. I also have OneNote 2007 installed.

I'm betting this has to do with C2R!!!

-Michael Plasmeier http://theplaz.com

Daniel: Correct, we *do* support the 64bit Send to OneNote Print driver!

However in the TP we have some known issues: - Doesn't work in C2R at all, 32bit or 64bit, both are broken - Doesn't work in XP

In the very current builds we have the first issue fixed and I am not sure of the status of the XP bug. In any event at RTM we will support 32 bit, 64 bit, XP w/XPS Essentials, Vista & Win7 as well as Click-2-Run builds.

This was the biggest single point of feedback and I am very pleased that it is fixed : )

Someone else: Works just fine on my Win 7 64-bit.

Oh, and by the way, the new printer is genius. It pops up a dialog box that asks where you want to put it- current page, unfiled notes, etc. You can even search by page title right from that box if you want to put it in a different page entirely. Very slick.

If you always want it printed one place in particular, you can even choose that in the options. Nice work, Onenote team.

Daniel:

)

Success! This makes me very happy and I forwarded to the people that worked on this feature they will get a kick out of this. Thanks for sharing, we are a bunch of 'real' people trying to make your lives better and reading comments like this helps encourage us.

And we thank you for testing all Office products : )

Thank You for a Great Product

I look forward to trying it out.

OneNote is really great because it keeps me organized. I used it all year during my senior year of high school.

Last year, I wrote about my experiences with OneNote and Tablet PCs as my college essay http://wiki.theplaz.com/w/images/The_Quest_for_the_Perfect_Notetaking_Medium.pdf It was successful at getting me into MIT; I move in next month and will be looking to work in the Media Lab.

However, a year later looking back, the essay is perhaps too positive. In 12th Grade, I used my tablet in every class. I wrote in Physics and Calculus. I don't know if I will do it again; it's certainly not for everyone. It's handy to have everything (notebook, textbook, calculator) in one; as well as the ability to make everything look perfect (rearrange, add space, erase perfectly), and the limited ability to share http://minisites.theplaz.com/apphysics. But it's slowish to boot up (the tablet), expensive, needs power, distracting (web, im), and the screen glare and eye strain are the worst of all. It's not robust. That's not OneNote's fault; that's the nature of tablet pcs. I still want a tablet to make the occasional drawling, but I would not use it as a total pen and paper replacement.

However, using OneNote in keyboard mode in Government class was perfect. Having a computer when no one else did was very empowering since government is very online and current events are online. It was less of a distraction - perhaps because the class was very easy for me. But being online was extremely powerful. As for the OneNote part, the typing shortcuts are genius! Every time I use a online document program that starts with a G, I cringe when they keyboard shortcuts don't work!!!

The ability to bring documents in by printing and screenshots is so good. It's hard to describe how helpful this program is to people, but I do not want to live without it. It's very handy when I am doing pre-development. I can just type my thoughts and print in API docs, etc. Good thing that MS is giving you exposure and putting you in every product! Thanks Daniel and the entire team!

PS: I look forward to the web access, public sharing (PDF bookmarks or read-only web), and faster pen support (radial menus, radial menus, radial menus!!!!)

-Michael Plasmeier http://theplaz.com

BTW - Thanks!

Full Screen Tablet

Putting the QAT below the ribbon is a good idea. That's a lot more like full screen mode before. All that's missing is individual pen buttons.

My Ways to Fix (from easiest to best) 1. Move dropdown to the left like Hil suggested so your hand is not covering it up. 2. Allow me to add to the QAT the 12 static pen colors from 2007 toolbar. Bad because your stuck with the colors it ships with. 3. Individual Pen Buttons can be added to QAT where pens are taken from the fav pens drop down. You could add the button: Fav Pen 1 which would take the first fav pen color from the drop down (currently .35 mm black). Fav Pen 2 would be the second in the fav pen color area (currently .35mm red) This is a bit of a "hack" but you would only have 1 area to define fav pen colors. The more the better (include 20 - if people don't use them!) 4. Individual Pen Buttons separate. Have pen buttons 1-20 and a new dialog for configuring each of them. Independent from pens dropdown. (Keep the drop down QAT button for people who like it) 5. Make a special QAT-like toolbar below the ribbon that only appears in full screen mode when the ribbon is minimized (ribbon minimized by default). Prepopulate similar to 07 full screen. In conjunction with parts 3 or 4. This would be best for non-power users because no config is needed. 6. Radial menus only for tablets. I agree with Hil that they are not a good idea for mouse users. Make them only appear for tablet users (by default, let me enable on a non-tablet if I want to). Make them both in normal and full screen. I think that you could do this special tablet-only UI, by branding it as a touch and tablet special feature. Let me move the tools around. [Note to Hil: I was suggesting that MS take the radial menus from Inkseine, not that you should switch to it] Not included: Axing the ribbon

Daniel, hopefully you will like one of the options. Again, the options go from easiest to best solution. Basically if you are not going to do radial menus, you got to let me have individual pen colors on the QAT and I really want to custom define them. As a bonus, do Option 5 for the non-power users. Radial menus = best case solution, but I can understand how they might be too different (would make a good 2010 screenshot and press headline)

-Michael Plasmeier http://theplaz.com