DROE Tool now supports EverNote, and much more!
I just released a new version of the Daily Record of Events (DROE) note taking tool. This release adds support for EverNote and text-based DROE files, as well as enhancements for the OneNote DROE.
From the README file, here is a summary of what changed in v0.4 (Beta). For complete details, download the README file. To get your own copy of the tool, see the Downloads page.
- NEW FEATURE: Added support for a completely text-based DROE without the need for OneNote. This includes a quick edit window.
- NEW FEATURE: Added support for EverNote… DROE Tool can send text notes to EverNote using EverNote’s auto-import feature
- NEW FEATURE: The amount of white space between notes is now configurable in the INI file.
- NEW FEATURE: “Clip Mode” causes any selected text to be clipped and included in the DROE entry. For OneNote DROE files, selected images are also sent to the DROE.
- NEW FEATURE: WIN+LeftArrow now summons a new control panel that makes it easy to update settings in the INI file and reload the tool.
- Bug fix: Fixed issue with cursor being stranded 3-4 lines below the date stamp.
- Bug fix: The CTRL-SHIFT-K and CTRL-SHIFT-M shortcuts were not working when the Outlook window was active. This is fixed.
- Updated and re-organized this README file. Switched to PDF format to significantly reduce the download size.
- Daily Record of Events Makes Ubiquitous Capture a Snap [Downloads] « Topsongs
- Mash123 » Daily Record of Events Makes Ubiquitous Capture a Snap
- Kikil News » Blog Archive » Daily Record of Events Makes Ubiquitous Capture a Snap [Downloads]
- Daily Record Of Events Makes Ubiquitous Capture A Snap | Lifehacker Australia
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Posted in Productivity | 7 comments
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The options panel is accessed from the “Tools” menu [...]
July 21, 2008 - 11:14 am
I found your DROE tool via your post on the EN forum. Very cool. I’m already looking forward to you releasing the source (so I can change the shortcuts
).
Two things I’ve noticed…I’m playing with it to put quick notes into EN3b.
(1) I can’t get the date format to change – I just get a date like “DROE 2008-07-21 (Mon)”, and that’s even with your default format.
(2) I’m having a heck of a time with the shortcuts using the Win key, e.g., Win+. and Win+right arrow. Sometimes I can get something pasted into the box (bullets/date), but more often, it just seems like the Win key is being pressed, i.e., I get the menu of the box, e.g. Restore/Move/close, etc.
Any ideas?
By the way – awesome tool!
July 21, 2008 - 10:56 pm
GTD Wannabe – Thanks for your comments! To answer your questions:
(1) The DROE date format is fixed for EverNote in the current version. In the next release I’ll have it tied to the INI file. Sorry, I should have made that more clear. I’m just getting started on EverNote support for the DROE Tool, more to follow.
(2) I have not heard of that happening before… It could be a timing issue in my script that didn’t show up on my machine. I’ll poke at it a little more. Some general tips on WIN+. and WIN+RightArrow… If you want text bullets, set Bullets_Enable=1 in the INI file, otherwise it will transmit control characters that are specific to OneNote. These may have unpredictable results outside of OneNote. Note that the shortcuts in OneNote are slightly different than Word and other Office applications (c’mon Redmond, get it together!). In the future I may add support for Word, etc. As you probably know, if you are editing a note in EverNote, you can just use CTRL-SHIFT-b.
One other thing to check, if you are trying to send bullets to the quick note box, make sure that box still has focus by either clicking on it or pressing WIN+n again. If those characters get sent to the desktop or some other application, it may cause strange things to happen.
Hope that helps!
Carl
July 22, 2008 - 5:33 am
One additional tip… In EverNote mode, the first line in the quick note box ends up as the title in the EverNote note (that’s why the date stamp has a slightly different form). The intended use was to type a brief title, then hit enter and continue the note. I’ll look to make the date stamp more configurable (and completely optional) in the next release.
July 22, 2008 - 6:54 pm
Cool. I’ve figured out that I can get the –> (only two though) with the following sequence:
alt+. esc alt+. esc
Similarly, I can get the timestamp with the same alt esc x 2 sequence. Bizarre.
Don’t worry about it too much – I’m not going to use this all the time; I just think it’s a cool idea
July 23, 2008 - 9:27 pm
GTD Wannabe – Thanks for the additional details. It sounds like the text is fighting to get out
Probably a timing issue, I think I can fix it in the next revision.
Thanks,
Carl
July 28, 2008 - 2:49 pm
Great work Carl, I have implemented it.
However, can we make the Outlook Categories dialog box working with Outlook 2007?
July 28, 2008 - 10:38 pm
Eric –
As far as I know, the Categories dialog box should pop up for new tasks in either OL2003 or OL2007. You have to edit your INI file and set QuickCAT_Enable = 1.
This opens the category assignment dialog by transmitting an ALT+G key sequence. From there, you can use the Up & Down arrow keys to select your context (category), press the Space Bar to assign it, then press the Enter key to save and dismiss the dialog box. No mouse required.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you still have issues in OL2007.
-Carl
August 11, 2008 - 8:33 am
I’m also having problems with OL2007 and the ALT+G. I think it has been changed around as I can’t find a reference anywhere to using a shortcut key for categories.
What I did notice that would provide a work-around, although it would be unique for each person, is to add categories to the Quick Access Toolbar. Then when you hit ALT it gets a number. Mine for example has six items in the Quick Access Toolbar and the categories is number 6. From there I can move around and select the categories.
Possibly an entry in the ini field to let people specify their shortcut key for categories would work?
And by the way, I really like your DROE tool. It looks like something I’ll be using in conjunction with OneNote and Outlook every day.
Thanks.
August 22, 2008 - 6:20 am
Jeff -
Thanks for the clarification & suggestion, I’ll consider it for a future version. Unfortunately I still don’t have access to OL2007, so I’m not able to properly test the tool with the that client. Maybe my IT dept will get on board soon
Carl
August 31, 2008 - 7:21 pm
Hey Carl,
would just like to thank you for both the DROE tool and your posts one Onenote. Absolutely love reading about Onenote. It has been very helpful in tweaking and experimenting with my own system.
Is there an elegant solution to having multiple shortcuts directing the tool to different Onenote pages? Like a separate DROE & Ideas page, using for instance Win+N for DROE and Win+I for Ideas.
Cheers!
Peter
August 31, 2008 - 10:11 pm
Peter – Thanks for your comments! I have had several requests to support links/hotkeys to multiple pages in OneNote. I’ll make sure it gets into the next version of the DROE Tool (no planned release date yet).
-Carl
September 1, 2008 - 4:32 am
Hi, and thanks for this great tool. One request for the next version: separate shortcuts for opening outlook tasks. One shortcut for a pigpog task, another for a regular task. btw, no troubles so far with Outlook 2007.
September 1, 2008 - 7:14 am
Steve – Good suggestion… I was thinking of changing to CTRL-SHIFT-k for a regular task (accessible from anywhere), and CTRL-SHIFT-p for a PigPog/Project task. What do you think?
-Carl
September 17, 2008 - 10:57 am
Hi Carl,
I would like to make the row with date/time stamp with bold font in OneNote. Is there any way how to do it using INI file of DROE Tool? Thank you.
September 17, 2008 - 8:11 pm
Marekl -
Thanks for the suggestion. Just before the last release, I experimented with this a little bit. I did not have enough time to get it working reliably, so I removed it from the release. I will have to work on it some more for the next release. My plan would be to add a variable to the INI file to enable/disable the bold stamp.
- Carl
October 9, 2008 - 10:43 am
When I have Bullets_Enable = 2 and key (WIN + .) it locks my computer (i.e. the same thing if I key (WIN + L)
However, when Bullets_Enable = 1 is set and I key (WIN + .) I get the “–>” as expected.
All the other settings work great
October 9, 2008 - 10:54 am
Additional info to my post above:
I’m using Office and OneNote 2007. Also, I don’t get any result having QuickCat_Enable = 1. Looks like the change from OL2003 to 2007 disabled the functionality.
October 9, 2008 - 9:01 pm
Todd -
Thanks for your comments… With Bullets_Enable = 2, the tool sends some control characters that are unique to OneNote to create the bulleted list. There may be some sort of timing issue, maybe I’m streaming the control characters too fast. I’ll have a look.
Regarding the QuickCat feature, it transmits ALT+G to open the category box, which was apparently disabled in OL 2007
Some other users reported this as well (see comments above). There may be some work-arounds I could try for the next release, as Jeff suggests above.
-Carl
November 7, 2008 - 8:53 am
Hi there. First of all, great tool and great site. I’m getting ready to implement your OneNote system to see if I can get used to it.
I just have one request regarding the DROE Tool.
I have setup the Win+left, right, top and down arrows to switch between virtual desktops using VirtuaWin. I’ve already got very used to these shortcuts to switch between desktops so it would be great if the shortcuts would be configurable via the ini file.
November 7, 2008 - 9:43 pm
Hi Steven – Thanks for your comments! I’ll take a look at that when I start working on the next version.
-Carl
November 17, 2008 - 12:53 pm
I am also beginning to use this tool and would find the other Outlook shortcuts helpful as well so that I do not need two tools to make those shortcuts available.
November 17, 2008 - 9:07 pm
David -
Please clarify… Which shortcuts would you like to see added?
-Carl
December 26, 2008 - 4:41 am
Hello Carl – I have been using GTD for the past couple of months and stumbled upon your web site. I installed DROE today and it sounds very cool. I am having a couple of issues:
a) One Note doesn’t launch automatically when DROE tool is launched
b) When I start typing on the DROE page in One Note, I am not seeing the time stamps
My outlook short cuts from One Note are working correctly.
I have checked the ON_Path and it is correct. DROE_Enable is set to 1 since I am using One Note. Any idea what I may be missing ?
Thanks!
January 8, 2009 - 1:46 am
subbu – Sorry for the slow reply (just getting caught up after the holidays). To answer your questions:
a) It may be an issue with the link to your DROE page in OneNote. In addition to the ON_Path (which just tells the the DROE tool how to launch OneNote) you also need to make sure that the hyperlink to the page is correct. There are some suggestions in the ReadMe file on how to test this.
b) The time stamp does not appear whenever you type… It is added only once when you launch your DROE page using the shortcut key. You can add another time stamp at any time by using the date stamp shortcut key (which can be enabled in the INI).
Hope that helps!
Carl
January 17, 2009 - 9:13 pm
Hi! I installed your tool after reading your post on the Evernote forum. It is wonderful, and I plan to use it as my main note capturing utility because it is lightweight and unobtrusive, and does a very nice job of integrating with Evernote.
I have two requests, though…
1. Please allow for the editing or omission of the timestamp in the note title. As you know, this doesn’t work with Evernote.
2. Can you make it so that the notes will appear in Evernote in the default font? Right now all the DROE notes appear in what looks like Courier though I have my default font set to something quite different.
Thanks for this wonderful little program!
January 17, 2009 - 10:37 pm
Hi Rachel -
Thanks for your comments! I do plan to fix the time stamp & note title and add some more options for Evernote users, especially since I personally am using Evernote exclusively now
The fonts may take a little longer to fix… Right now the tool writes a plain text file to the Evernote AutoImport folder with no formatting. I could probably write an HTML file instead and include some formatting. I’ll add that one to my list.
-Carl
February 24, 2009 - 2:10 am
Hi,
tried your tool. Thanks, looks good.
However I have the problem that I always get an Outlook timeout message in case I start a task or message via the shortcuts.
Path to Outlook checked several times.
Any hint?
Thomas
February 24, 2009 - 8:02 am
Thomas – A few questions…
1. What is the text of the message you’re seeing?
2. Do you get a timeout message AND the new task/email window appears? or just the timeout message?
3. Is the message different with Outlook running vs. Outlook shut down?
4. What version of Outlook and WIN OS are you running?
-Carl
February 24, 2009 - 9:57 am
1. DROE: “Timed out waiting for Outlook”
2. Task/email window and timeout message
3. Outlook running otherwise DROE: “Outlook not running.
4. Outlook 2003 & win2k
February 25, 2009 - 8:35 pm
Thomas – Thanks for the details. I think I may know the cause of the problem. My guess is that you are running Outlook in a language other than English. Is that correct? When opening certain windows such as tasks and messages, the DROE Tool checks for the window title to make sure it was opened properly.
This is something I will have to address in a future release. In the mean time, you can ignore the timeout messages. The only side effect is that for the task window, you will not get the “pigpog” text and you will not get the automatic category window popup. The basic Outlook function of creating tasks and messages is unaffected.
-Carl
March 4, 2009 - 1:14 am
Hi Carl,
Thanks. Think you are right. Is there a chance to use a reduced window title for matching? Looking forward to your solution.
Br,
Thomas
March 31, 2009 - 1:10 pm
Any chance you’d make the AHK “source” available? I’m very interested in AHK scripting, and of course I’d like to modify yours ever so slightly to match my needs
Also – is it possible to have the new notes created by Win-N in the DROE page to create a new “container” just for whatever you type/paste at this time? Moving the content to the other tabs/pages is much easier when you can cut the whole container instead of having to select appropriately within a possibly huge container…
Thanks!
April 4, 2009 - 5:26 pm
Travis – The DROE Tool will is free, but I have no plans to make it open source at this time. Regarding the containers, if you play with the spacing in the note, you can probably get the entries to appear in separate containers. It’s not 100% reliable, but can be done by increasing the spacing between the top of the page (title) and the first container. If you read section 2.1 of the README file, under heading the “Things to Avoid in Your DROE Page”, you’ll find some suggestions to avoid having separate containers. If you do the opposite of what this suggests, you’ll probably end up with separate containers.
-Carl
April 21, 2009 - 7:41 pm
I LOVE the concept of this, but I’m having some trouble with the DROE tool and EN. I can create a note and hit CTRL + Enter to save the note, but EN will not always pick up the contents of the saved text file. I have not been able to find a pattern here, but it more often than not, a new BLANK note with in the title will appear in EN. Other times, my typed note will appear in EN. I get the feeling it’s a timing issue, but I’m not sure. Has anyone seen this? Any pointers?
Thanks for your time!
-Brian
April 23, 2009 - 9:21 pm
Brian – I haven’t heard of this issue before, but it may be a timing problem as you said. It could be that Evernote is grabbing the file before the note contents can even be written into it. If that’s the case, I might need to have the tool write the file to a temporary location then move it to the import directory. Are you seeing any error messages when this happens?
Some things you could check… (1) Can you see the file get added to the Evernote auto-import directory before it disappears? (2) Probably a long shot, but sometimes Evernote is not ready to accept notes, such as right after booting up. You need to open the main window once and let it index the database.
I’ll have to look into this for the next version (no date planned yet). Any additional info would be appreciated.
-Carl
April 29, 2009 - 6:05 pm
Carl, thanks so much for your response. Unfortunately, I have nothing solid to report. It’s hit and miss for me as to whether or not I see the file being created before EN deletes it. I’ve got two accounts logged in on this XP machine right now with several programs running on both accounts and I have not had a single DROE note missed by EN. I have no proof, but it looks like if my computer is running more slowly, EN is able to pick up the DROE note. With regards to (2), I have tried that in the past and had mixed success.
July 29, 2009 - 11:55 am
Carl:
Just gave DROE a try this morning and I love it! Great job. To suggestions for future versions:
1. The ability to customize the bullet and bullet indentation. I prefer using an asterisk over “–>” as I sometimes post my notes into a TWiki.
2. A way to autoroll the DROE.txt file based on the date. I’d like to keep my worklogs by filenames such as week29.txt, and having the ability to autoroll to a new file based on teh date would be awesome.
Thanks for putting such a great tool out there for us to use.
Tim
July 29, 2009 - 12:32 pm
I’m having the same problem as Brian with Evernote. In my last four tries, I got the note I typed once; the other three were blank, untitled notes.
July 29, 2009 - 1:32 pm
Great tool. I implemented a similar, but very crude method to capture event data to a text file or to Evernote using batch files from Launchy. This is much better.
I, too, am having the problem with the categories not showing up in Outlook 2007. I believe that this is because OL2007 no longer supports Alt-G to bring up the category list. To bring up the Category list in OL2007, you need to now enter an ‘Alt-h’, followed by a ‘g’. This would probably be a simple fix in your code by adding another ini parameter for OL2007 vs OL2003.
July 29, 2009 - 4:28 pm
Any chance this will work with WriteMonkey?
July 29, 2009 - 9:11 pm
Tim D – Thanks for your comments. I’ll take a look at both of those for the next version.
Paul – I’m pretty sure that this is a timing issue where Evernote is grabbing the file before I get a chance to write the contents into it. Should be an easy fix for the next release. Please check back, or maybe use it in text mode until I can get the next version out.
-Carl
July 29, 2009 - 9:12 pm
Dennis K – Thanks for the OL2007 tip! I’ll pick that up in the next version.
Matt – From what I can tell, WriteMonkey uses plain text files. If that’s the case, then yes, they are compatible. You can use the DROE Tool in text mode (option in the INI file) to make quick notes on the fly. You can then open the text file using the editor of your choice, such as Notepad, Notepad++, or WriteMonkey.
-Carl
July 29, 2009 - 9:23 pm
Thank you for DROE tool. It’s useful for me. I love AutoHotKey too. AHK is a very powerful programming tool. ^_^
August 8, 2009 - 9:04 am
Zop – thanks for your comments… I agree, how did we all get by before AHK came along?
August 10, 2009 - 8:58 am
Should DROE work with OneNote 2003?
August 11, 2009 - 5:08 pm
Fred – I have only tested this with OneNote 2007, but I don’t know of any reasons why it wouldn’t work. If you do try it with OneNote 2003, I would be interested in hearing how well it works and what issues you have (if any).
-Carl
August 17, 2009 - 6:53 am
Carl,
I cannot find the “Copy Hyperlink to this Page” functionality in OneNote2003. So I am not sure how to link DROE to OneNote2003
August 18, 2009 - 6:33 am
Fred – Sorry to hear that, thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure if there is another way to create a hyperlink to a page in OneNote 2003. I did a quick web search, but didn’t find a way to do it
-Carl
October 15, 2009 - 3:41 pm
Carl, thanks for sharing DROE. I have been using it with OneNote for a few weeks now and find it very useful.
Now if you could just extend DROE to work with MindManager I would be even happier
October 16, 2009 - 11:29 am
Hi Nic – Glad it’s useful. I’m not real familiar with MindManager, but my understanding is it’s a graphical mind-mapping tool. If you are looking for a way to automate tasks and create shortcuts, there are probably some things you could do directly with AutoHotkey.
-Carl