Review: TopXNotes update offers substantial improvements

Posted by Don Foy Oct 3, 2006 at 4:31am

By Don Foy & Dennis Sellers

Tropical Software has updated TopXNotes, the note pad for Mac OS X, to version 1.2, which adds new import and export options. The enhancements offers some substantial improvements to an already solid product.

Remember back in Mac OS 9 (and 8, and 7, and 6) there were these little programs called DAs. I forgot what DAs stood for (I think it was desk accessories or something like that.), but they lived in the Apple Menu and were originally developed before the Multifinder, back when only one program ran at a time. But DAs got around that. The calculator was one of them. So was Notepad. You could cheat the system and run those little programs even when another program was open.

Notepad lived in the Apple Menu for many years. But when Mac OS X made the scene a few years ago, Notepad went away. I’m not sure folks missed it, but if you did, you can get it back, with a lot more capability.

TopXNotes brings back the notepad. But unlike the old Mac version, you aren’t limited to just a few pages. In fact, with TopXNotes, you aren’t limited by much of anything. Notes can be as long as you need them to be, and you can customize the style, size, color and highlight color. And with version 1.2, the software gets even better. In addition to the new import and export options, TopXNotes 1.2 also adds: optional date and time columns in the NoteOrganizer; Preferences control NoteOrganizer columns; more Category icon choices; an improved Note and View button icons; and a cmd+M to minimize the app. Also, the Note number now reflects the note and the total number of notes.

TopXNotes is still just a collection place, where you can put all sorts of stuff you need to remember, but can’t. Its best feature is the QuickNotes, where you can tag any note as a QuickNote and have it accessible from a small, square floating window and not have to bring the whole program to the front and have it in the way of what you may be working on.

The customization options for your notes, categories and groups are extensive, and you can set your own groups and categories. If you’re unsure how to enter some information, there are templates for common, basic types of info to get you started.

The latest version sports a MultiView feature that can display more than one note at once. You can display only one note (if you wish), the NoteOrganizer (sort of an advanced table of contents), both, or as many notes as will fit on your display.

You can have as many notes on screen as you have screen for. A button at the bottom of the notes window will widen the window by the width of the next note. We ran the program on a 12-inch PowerBook, so that feature wasn’t that important. But on one of Apple’s big Cinema Displays or wide-screen iMacs might make that feature more inviting

Color text, style, font and font size are all now user selectable. You can cut, copy, paste and drag and drop to and from external apps. Version 1.2 also provides a unique note pad for each system user.

In our original review, we had this concern about TopXNotes: “The whole program can be protected by a password, but individual notes cannot. If the program has been opened with the password, all notes are available. I guess that wouldn’t bother me as much if there was a timeout feature. You see, I tend to open programs and leave them open until I run Yasu weekly. (Yasu cleans out logs, runs crons and such that don’t get maintained because the machine is usually asleep when those are set to run.) With the program open and running, anyone can pop the lid and copy off credit card numbers and other personal information. I’d like to see a user-selectable time limit for the notes to be accessible when a password is set. Also, I’d like to see the notes inaccessible if the machine goes to sleep. That would be true security.”

That’s no longer an issue. Via the Note Menu Item “Note password,” you can now set individual passwords on notes, password the entire notepad, or even both.

TopXNotes has all the features you need to keep track of, organize and access all sorts of notes. And the ability to password protect, a feature missing from many other note products, is icing on the cake. What’s more, “according to Tropical’s web site the Universal Binary version (which will natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs) is in final testing and will be released shortly.”

Macsimum rating: 9 out of 10

TopXNotes requires a PowerPC Mac running Mac OS X 10.2 or higher. It costs US$25.

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