Filed under: Freeware
Scribblet: menubar scratchpad
I often find myself in need of a the digital equivalent of a scratch pad: just an open text-field to jot down a phone number, save some text for a blog comment, etc. These are not really things I want to save, so I don't want to open a word processor or even use the snippet manager of my choice (Yojimbo). So Scribblet appeals to me in its focus on one basic task. (I've never been a fan of Stickies.)
It's a menubar application that does one simple thing: pop up a small notepad; that's it. It doesn't allow for multiple notes or snippet management. It's simply a scratch pad that pops up with a simple click on the menubar or by hitting a user-definable hotkey. Despite, or rather because of, its simplicity I find it quite handy and it has earned a spot on my menubar.
Scribblet is a free download from not salad.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
mcdj said 12:18PM on 7-03-2008
Seems like a useful app, but it would be even more useful (to me anyway) if you could get the note window open by just clicking the icon on the menu bar. Not sure why there's another click required...if I didn't want to open the note window, I wouldn't have clicked the icon to begin with. Settings could be assigned a separate button on the menu bar of the app itself.
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Mat Lu said 2:13PM on 7-03-2008
Yeah, I noticed that too, which is annoying. However, you can do it without clicking again by holding the mouse button down and selecting Open Scribblet.
jsbpepe said 2:42PM on 7-03-2008
I will be using this app for sure. Man you're right tough. I figured that it would work that way. Maybe in 1.1 ;-)
Scott said 12:25PM on 7-03-2008
I just use the Leopard mail note feature to do the same thing. Now if only they would sync with the iPhone.
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mark said 12:51PM on 7-03-2008
"I just use the Leopard mail note feature to do the same thing."
It's the same thing in the same way that using yojimbo does the same thing. In other words, it's not the same thing at all.
Also, I agree with the poster that said it should open with a click of the menu icon.
karl said 12:26PM on 7-03-2008
I just want someone to make a nice port of Tomboy notes (which is similar but more powerful) - I use it constantly in Linux, but so far haven't found a mac equivalent. http://www.gnome.org/projects/tomboy/
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tom said 12:39PM on 7-03-2008
Sounds good, but does anyone know of a similar application that will allow me to scribble notes in with my Wacom tablet? I'm not looking for handwriting recognition (I've never got on with the 'ink' application), but a direct replacement for real sticky notes and a pen.
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Metryq said 12:43PM on 7-03-2008
Tom, try Cocopad, which also includes a very cool transparency feature.
George said 12:49PM on 7-03-2008
Sketchbox: http://www.omz-software.de/sketchbox_index.html
and CocoPad: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26614/cocopad
Sketchbox is more of a "Stickies on steroids" app, CocoPad is just a scratch pad for Wacom users - and probably the one you're looking for.
tom said 1:04PM on 7-03-2008
Thanks for the suggestions. Both apps look good, I'll try them out.
James said 12:54PM on 7-03-2008
What's wrong with cmd-space, tex, return. I get Textedit up in about a second, and never have to take my hands of the keyboard.
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mark said 1:33PM on 7-03-2008
Because you don't have to hit save? Because it doesn't keep multiple copies that you have to deal with?
Are you serious?
David Macdonald said 12:56PM on 7-03-2008
If you use the Dashboard you might want to look at SecretNotePadPlus. I use it to take littles notes when I'm on the phone, etc. It's also tied to KeyChain Access so you secure any notes if necessary.
See http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/secretnotepadplus.html
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jsbpepe said 2:42PM on 7-03-2008
You know, Dashboard just doesn't work for me. It (well some of the interneted apps in it) takes way too long to load.
Dusty said 1:09AM on 7-07-2008
For the Dashboard Problem consider Dashboard KickStart (http://www.alwintroost.nl/?id=40). I used to never use Dashboard for a similar reason but this will kind of curb the waiting time for me.
Cheers!
Kev Orng said 1:16PM on 7-03-2008
I'll give it a go but I'm not confident.
I've been looking for the perfect scratchpad app for ten years, but I always revert back to this: http://tinyurl.com/3m2xrc
Although lately, I've been leaving a new Mail composition open all day, into which I copy and paste URLS and more complex things. Then at the end of the day I hit send and it goes to my infinitely searchable gmail account which I only use for notes and for signing into blogs. Since I rarely use the gmail account for anything else, I don't feel my regular inbox is cluttered with notes from myself.
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julian said 1:28PM on 7-03-2008
uh... why not just use a widget all you do is go to a corner or push the dashboard key
then type away on a sticky? ... or the new islayer organizer bar?
complicating yourselves ... and cluttering the bar
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canelson said 1:35PM on 7-03-2008
Just add a "Sticky Note Widget" to the dashboard.
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Alex said 1:42PM on 7-03-2008
Nice. I use Sidenote, though. It's great, go check it out: http://www.chatelp.org/?page_id=5
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delight1 said 5:06PM on 7-03-2008
i tend to use Notational Velocity for my snippets.
http://notational.net/
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