Quick note or clipping capture feature

I would love to see a feature similar that which exists in a number of GTD applications, which is floating, transclucent note/cature field with tagging/folder options. Things (a GTD app) currently has something like this with a simple ctrl+alt+space invocation. I know that the new widgets are supposed to offer some kind of quick capture function, but ‘cutting’ to the Dashboard can be disruptive. Attached is a capture of the aforementioned app’s quick note pane.

I would like to see something like this also. As another option, similar functionality could be added to the Sorter. The Shelf in Together (similar to the Sorter) has a Quick Note feature.

By the way, very nice wallpaper-can you share where it came from?

For quick notes, I use the folowing script:

display dialog "Title of note:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
set theTitle to the text returned of the result
set theText to ""
tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro2"
	activate
	set theNote to create record with {name:theTitle, type:txt, plain text:theText} in incoming group
	open window for record theNote
end tell

(I’d do it as a rich text note, but for the life of me I can’t get the script right for this.)

For an even quicker note:

activate
display dialog "Title of note:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
set theTitle to the text returned of the result
display dialog "Text of note:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
set theText to the text returned of the result

tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro2"	
	set theNote to create record with {name:theTitle, type:txt, plain text:theText & return} in incoming group
	
end tell

Put these in the general scripts folder. Using Red Sweater Software’s FastScripts utility, you can attach hot keys to them, meaning you’re only a couple of keystrokes away from creating and entering text in a new note at all times.

@Greg_Jones: The wallpaper is the Leopard Server default–there is a hi-res version here flickr.com/photos/oskarkrawczyk/ … 0/sizes/l/

I, too, would like this feature: either implemented in a way similar to Together or perhaps in a way similar to Things where you have a hotkey that brings up a note window whether you have an active DTPro window open or not. Using the widget is much too cumbersome for quick note entry. This feature is essential for my work since it allows me to quickly notate something I want to follow up on at a later date, explore in greater depth, etc.

Yep. Widgets aren’t much more than a cute curiosity.

++ to the quick note window function request.

Oh NO!!! I guess this means this feature does not already exist. Now I am depressed…

Please add it soon. It would be best if DevonThink didn’t have to be open and running.

I’ve always got DTPO2 running.

But if not, a simple workaround is to type a note in TextEdit, select it and drag the text into the Sorter. As for clippings in general, that’s what the Sorter does, also. Just select and drag to the Sorter. If the clipping is from a Services-aware browser, the source URL is also captured.

Thanks for the tip. But I like the hot-key-to-bring-up-a-window scheme. It is far less disruptive to my work flow, and has become the industry standard way of doing things over the past few years. Seems like DevonThink is getting hit pretty hard for the feature, and seems to be trying to update itself to be less disruptive, friendlier to use and a better part of the flow, so I guess the feature will be ‘coming soon’.

I am reading the Scripting Forum right now maybe somebody there has a way to add notes to the Sorter. That really is the right place for this functionality, that way DevonThink can be left unopened and the machine can be kept light and responsive for other things.

please add my vote to this request.
the possibility to rapidly add quick notes to DT also when the program is not running would make it much better for me.
I tend to add notes to Things instead beacuse it’s so much easier and faster. But ten they are not in DT.
marco