OneNote DROE AutoHotkey Tool
As promised in my previous post on “Bending OneNote and Outlook to Fit my GTD System“, here is the tool I use to drive my DROE (Daily Record of Events) in OneNote. This is a configurable tool built using AutoHotkey. Note that the tool is a compiled executable, so you do not need AutoHotkey installed to use it.
What the DROE tool does is give you a handy shortcut to quickly open OneNote, jump to the top of your Daily Record of Events (DROE) page, insert a time stamp, and begin capturing thoughts before they slip out of your head. The tool replaces the standard Sidenote shortcut (Win-N) with the new function. You can still open OneNote in full/normal mode using Win-Shift-N.
There are also some additional features included in this tool: Ability to paste without formatting, ability to use the Mac-like shortcut (Alt-W) to close a window, and additional shortcuts for bullets and manual time stamps. Each of the features can be individually enabled or disabled through the INI file.
Version 0.1 (still Beta of course!) and the installation instructions can be found on my new Downloads page. Please try it out and let me know what you think.
-Carl
Configuring Google Voice as a Jott / reQall Replacement
July 23, 2009 - 11:17 pm
Tags: Google_Voice, Jott, Tips, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 16 comments
I’m a big fan of reQall, Jott, and the various other voice-to-text services out there. I currently have a reQall Pro account and use it on a daily basis. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind when I heard that Google Voice was going to have voice transcription capabilities was using it to augment [...]
Strip Outlook Attachments and Replace with Links
February 22, 2009 - 8:55 pm
Tags: Outlook, Productivity, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 70 comments
UPDATE OCT 2009: Reader jumpjack has created a Google Code project for this macro. You can download the latest source code on the project page.
_________________________________________
There are many good reasons to strip attachments from your email messages. The main reason for me is that I often embed email messages into my Outlook tasks for [...]
ClearContext and My Quest for an Empty Inbox
July 20, 2008 - 9:02 pm
Tags: ClearContext, GTD, Outlook, Productivity, Taglocity, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 9 comments
In a previous post I talked about my quest for an empty inbox and all the tools I tried along the way. Well, I’m at it again. My previous tool of choice, Taglocity, has taken a turn toward online social/collaborative email in their 2.0 release. I’m afraid that 99% of the email I [...]
DROE Tool now supports EverNote, and much more!
July 15, 2008 - 9:04 pm
Tags: DROE_Tool, EverNote, OneNote, Outlook, Productivity, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 66 comments
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 [...]
Handwriting Recognition in OneNote 2007? Well, kinda…
March 29, 2008 - 10:36 pm
Tags: OneNote, Tips, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 5 comments
In my post on EverNote vs. OneNote, I mentioned handwriting recognition as one of the shortcomings in OneNote. I also mentioned that the implementation in EverNote is a bit disappointing as well because it uses a “shotgun” word approach. By that I mean that EverNote sets up an XML database of sorts where [...]
Attach Notes to Outlook Messages
March 29, 2008 - 9:23 pm
Tags: Outlook, Productivity, Tips, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 17 comments
Here’s the scenario… You are quickly clearing your email inbox before going home. You open a rather lengthy message and start to read through it. A vague idea forms in your head about what your response will be, but you’ve been reading it for 5 minutes now and haven’t gotten through the [...]
Setting up OneNote 2007 for GTD
March 20, 2008 - 12:16 am
Tags: GTD, OneNote, Productivity, Tips, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 7 comments
As I promised earlier in my post on “Bending OneNote and Outlook to Fit my GTD System“, here are the setup details for OneNote 2007 along with some screen shots. For each of the screen shots, you can click on the image to open it full-size.
The options panel is accessed from the “Tools” menu [...]
DROE Tool Now Supports Outlook
January 21, 2008 - 1:41 am
Tags: AutoHotkey, DROE_Tool, OneNote, Outlook, Productivity, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 30 comments
I just posted an update to my Daily Record of Events (DROE) Tool, please check out the Downloads page. Version 0.3 adds some additional shortcuts for fast Outlook task and message creation, as well as easy creation of PigPog tasks. (Note that the Outlook shortcuts have only been tested on Outlook 2003). [...]
DROE Tool Update
December 28, 2007 - 10:18 pm
Tags: DROE_Tool, OneNote, Productivity, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 10 comments
I posted a minor update to the DROE Tool, now at version 0.2 (Beta). There are three changes in this release:
The download now includes a detailed README file with installation/upgrade instructions, screen shots, and troubleshooting tips.
The check to make sure that the OneNote DROE page successfully opened is now case insensitive, so it’s a [...]
A Better Calculator – Go RPN on Your PC
December 17, 2007 - 8:02 am
Tags: Tips, Tools
Posted in Productivity | 2 comments
For those of you that don’t enjoy RPN calculators, you can skip this post… Yes, RPN does stand for Reverse Polish Notation. It doesn’t mean it’s a backwards way of doing things. Actually, it’s a much smarter more compact way of doing things. It was originally just “Polish Notation”, invented [...]
December 26, 2007 - 11:48 pm
Here are some comments that were posted to another page that readers may find useful. I’m reposting them here for convenience only:
December 19th, 2007 at 3:55 pm – tripp castell Says:
I like the idea of the tool but unfortunately I am having difficulties with it. When I hit WIN N Onenote will come up to my DROE page I made but will just sit there without inputing the date time stamp. Then a few seconds later I will get an error box stating “Timed out waiting for Onenote”. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
December 19th, 2007 at 6:04 pm – carl Says:
Thanks Tripp, it’s either a bug in the tool or it’s a problem with your INI file. The good news is that it is still launching OneNote and finding your DROE page. From there, the tool looks for your DROE window to be active before inserting the time stamp at the top of the page. It uses a loose string match on the window title to do this (based on your inputs in the INI). I just sent you an email asking for more info. If there’s an issue with the tool I’ll get a new version posted. Thanks, Carl
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm – Steve B Says:
Carl, I’m getting the same issue (almost) as Tripp. I’m running Onenote 2007 and Vista 32 bit. I don’t get the time out error, but win n causes my DROE page to open, then the cursor jumps into the title bar of the page, with no date and time stamp I’ve double and triple checked the ini file and followed the steps exactly. If I’ve messed it up, I can’t see where. Any further suggestions? By the way, thanks for some fantastic help and advice on these pages.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm – tripp castell Says:
Steve, I had this same issue too. The problem is in onenote. Make sure your new page in onenote isn’t autostamped with the date. Look at your one note page just below the title box. Do you see a date? If so highlight it and delete it. Then rerun the tool and it should work or at least it did for me. Great tool. I will be getting a lot of use out of it! Tripp
December 24th, 2007 at 3:45 am – Steve B Says:
That’s exactly right, Tripp. Thanks for the info and a Merry Christmas to all!
May 4, 2010 - 8:07 am
Just ran across this, works well in windows 7 x64 with outlook 2007. Just one suggestion – the Win + left and right hotkeys are used in windows 7, and this takes them over. Might be something for a future release, if any are planned.
Thanks for the tool!
Josh
May 4, 2010 - 11:10 pm
Hi Josh – Thanks for your comment. No date set yet for the next release, but my plan is to make certain hotkey selections configurable in the INI file.
-Carl
December 26, 2007 - 11:52 pm
Tripp – Thank’s for sharing this. Based on your suggestions, I have a new version that attempts to handle multi-line titles and I will update the instructions with tips that include deleting that date/time field from the title. I also made the logic case insensitive so that it will find the window more easily and not time out. I’ll get the updates posted shortly.
-Carl
December 28, 2007 - 10:38 pm
The new version is now available – see this post.
-Carl
January 1, 2008 - 9:37 pm
Carl – I have downloaded the lastest version and followed the posted tips. I still do not get the date/time stamp. Outlook opens to my DROE page and does nothing. Also, none of the hotkeys work with the exception of Win-N and Win-LftArrow.
January 1, 2008 - 9:41 pm
Sorry, I typed Outlook in my previous comment, but meant OneNote.
January 2, 2008 - 10:39 pm
Sadi – Sorry to hear your having trouble with the tool. Do you get a pop-up dialog that says “Timed out waiting for OneNote”? If yes, then it may be an issue with either the Page_Title or DROE_Link parameter in your INI file. Please re-check these and also ensure that the names are not enclosed in quotes and that there are no hidden carriage returns. Sometimes these can sneak in there if you are editing in NotePad.
If you are not getting the “Timed out waiting for OneNote” message, then it may be an issue with the format/layout of your DROE page. Please see the recommendations in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the README file (green & red arrows).
If those suggestions don’t help, please email a screenshot of your OneNote DROE page and a copy of your INI file to c-a-r-l a-t Manage-This.com.
Thanks,
Carl
January 21, 2008 - 1:23 am
I just posted a new version of the tool (version 0.3). Please check out the Downloads page. There was an issue for Windows Vista users. I had to change the method used for sending text due to a difference in the keyboard hooks in Vista. (I only have WinXP, so thanks to Antonio for helping me troubleshoot this!) There are also some nice new shortcuts in there for Outlook task & email creation.
-Carl
April 9, 2008 - 8:15 am
Carl:
I’ve been using the DROE tool for a week. It’s a good way for me to capture the bits and pieces of the day that would ordinarily sit on a piece of paper. The next step is how to incorporate DROE with a Outlook Add-in called Clear Context (excellent product). I do have one question. I know that the date stamp can be modified to suit one’s needs. Can the color of the stamp be changed as well – it would allow for a quicker note v. datestamp recognition:
April 16, 2008 - 6:52 am
Keith – Thanks for the great suggestion. I’m finally working on a new version of the DROE tool. I’ll see if there is a way to make the time stamp more visible.
June 27, 2008 - 3:26 pm
Thanks for this great tool. BTW, ctrl-shift-K and ctrl-shift-M work fine with Outlook 2007.
At the risk of seeming greedy, here are 2 features that you might consider, don’t know how involved they are:
1)a hot key that would take any highlighted text in and open window, open up the DROE onenote page, then paste that text into page underneath the date/time stamp. This would approximate what the evernote clipper tool does so well.
2) the ability to set up two separate hot keys that would go to either of two pages.
But what you’ve done so far is just fantastic and I really appreciate it! Thanks again…
June 27, 2008 - 4:39 pm
Just found a glitch with Outlook 2007. this hotkey disables using ctr-shift-K/M from within Outlook. Nothing happens. Works fine from any other programs, though.
July 11, 2008 - 9:26 pm
Steve – Thanks for the feature suggestions, both would be reasonably easy to implement. I’ll consider those for a future version.
With regards to the CTRL-SHIFT-K/M when the Outlook window is open, it’s a bug in the DROE tool. It causes those hotkeys to be ignored both in Outlook 2003 & 2007. I plan to fix that in the next release. As a temporary work around, just click the desktop before you use the shortcut… I hope to have a new release out in a few days.
-Carl
July 22, 2008 - 9:36 am
Carl,
. I am still waiting for your final opinion about ClearContext and your “bendings” OneNote.
Great job. I devote two days (24 hours) of my holiday to find definitly a tool for GTD on NET. You are the the best
But even I download your latest (20 July) DROE tool I have same problems. e.g. ALT-RIGHT SHIFT blocked, close windows (vista+office 2007); alt k/m can not find the right path (it wants OUTLOOK in OFFICE11 but I it is in OFFICE 12).
And the most primitive question – how can I put “text separator bar” preparing DROE page. It alway apears in floating text body. Then your “cursor” insert next text in the same body. Pity.
I forgot – I installed on polish version of vista+office. So names of catalog structure in your .INI considerably differ.
Thank you for your job,
Jacek
July 23, 2008 - 9:25 pm
Jacek,
Thank you for your comments… Let me see if I can address some of your DROE_Tool issues:
1. With regard to “ALT-RIGHT SHIFT”, do you mean the WIN+Right_Arrow shortcut? There may be some timing issues with that shortcut, I’m looking into it.
2. For the path to Outlook, you must set the real path by editing the INI file. The values in there are only examples. If that’s not the issue then please provide some more details.
3. For the text separator bar, there is a really strange feature of OneNote… When you copy plain text and paste it back into OneNote or into another application, it usually wants to paste it as an image. I’m not sure why OneNote is set up that way. I would recommend using the WIN+V shortcut that is part of the DROE_Tool file to paste it as plain text. That way, the separator bar will be in line with your notes and everything will run smoothly.
Hope that helps!
Carl
July 24, 2008 - 8:53 am
Thank you for your suggestions. Everything works fine on my HOME computer (XP, 2007). Now I’ll check it again on my notebook (vista,2007). Do me a favor and give me an advice, problem: WORK, HOME, NOTEBOOK all of them”my” computers and necessity of synchronisation all of them – DROE files (@DOINGS, @PROJECTS, @FOLLOW)UP, @DONE). I don’t trust OneNote methods. Maybe I don’t understand it well. But what about Groove? I am using it strongly. BTW acording me, Groove is the second briliant application after NortonCommander in computer software history. But the 3.11 version not 2007
. Pitty.
Thanks again,
PS. Discount on ClearContext does not work
yet …
I’m extremely courious your opinion about coexistance new version of ClearContext and your DROE tools.
July 25, 2008 - 9:16 pm
Jacek,
Glad to hear everything is working. If synchronizing your lists across multiple computers is important, I would seriously consider the new EverNote 3. There is a free version that gives you a monthly storage limit of 40MB (which goes a long way). In addition to PC and Mac clients, you can also access everything on the web. I am trying it out now, it’s pretty slick.
I have also heard of people using Allway Sync (freeware) to sync OneNote and other application settings. I have not tried it myself, so I can’t really comment on that one.
Also, the discount on ClearContext seems to be working still – I tried it again after I saw your comment. If you enter managethis in the Coupon Code box then click the Recalculate button, it will update the total to show the discount.
Hope that helps!
-Carl
September 28, 2008 - 10:14 am
Carl,
Any chance we could have the plain vanilla AutoHotkey code for this, instead of the compiled exe? Would love to incorporate the relevant bits into my AutoHotkey script.
Many thanks,
Tom
January 26, 2009 - 9:35 pm
In the interest of giving back, after having taken a lot of good GTD info from this site, thought I’d pass along a tip for other users. Although I like the DROE Autohotkey tool’s date insert function, I use a pop-up calendar that others might find handy. Getting today’s date is only half the problem for me and I’m one of those poorly-made folks who can’t tell you what the date is for anything past a few days from now. Autohotkey can be programmed to launch the popup calendar with Win-C (or whatever) keystroke and then any date can be selected, placed into the clipboard, and then used in Onenote.
A link to the calendar I use is at: http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/win.htm
An additional bonus is that the app is standalone and does not have to be installed. The settings are saved in an INI file. This minimizes the impact of the app on your system.
Regards,
Wayne
January 27, 2009 - 8:19 am
Thanks Wayne! I’ll take a look.
-Carl
May 25, 2009 - 8:28 pm
Thank you for providing this great tool!
When I try CTRL-SHIFT-K (or M) I get a pop-up saying “Outlook not running”. Although Outlook is running, and correct path is set in the INI file.
Can you please help? Thank you.
May 26, 2009 - 10:41 am
Hi,
In addition of the above issue, the DROE tool makes a new time stamp (Win+n) below the previous one. I believe the intention was to have the newest time stamp at the top of the page. Only occasionally it behaves in this correct manner.
Regarding the post above, I’ve noticed that this happens if you have selected “hide when minimized” in Outlook. If you uncheck that, then it works okay.
Can you please help me with this? I’ll be very grateful. Thank you.
May 27, 2009 - 11:02 pm
Waseem -
Thanks for the feedback… On the first issue, it definitely sounds like it is related to the the “hide when minimized” option. When you trigger the CTRL-SHIFT-K (or M) shortcut, the tool looks for an open Outlook window to confirm that Outlook is running before trying to create a new task. If it can’t find an open Outlook window, it assumes Outlook is shut down and doesn’t try. It does not check the tray for a minimized/hidden application. I did this because I wanted to launch Outlook normally and not have the CTRL-SHIFT-K sequence launch Outlook. I suppose this is an arbitrary limitation, so in a future version I could add an option switch to “allow New Task and New Message shortcuts to launch Outlook if not already running”. This would solve your issue.
On the time stamp issue, the DROE is supposed to be in reverse chronological order, so the new time stamps should appear on top. I assume you are using the DROE with OneNote? If so, check section 2.1 of the README file for some tips. If your OneNote page is not formatted as described in section 2.1 it can cause this behavior.
-Carl
June 14, 2009 - 2:36 am
Hi Carl -Im a bit embarrassed even asking this question as all the bloggers who contact you seem to be so tech savvy and I am a complete tech nerd
I would really like to try out your system and have installed the software no problem and even got that text box to appear – believe me this is an achievement for me. But where I come to a grinding halt is when your PDF instructions tell me to write an INI file. HELP!
I googled for a template for the above so that I could just copy and paste the text for the INI file but could not find anything. Do you have a template file that I can use.
thanks a million
Paul Larkin
Dublin
ps
Also – what is a pigpog?
June 14, 2009 - 11:39 pm
Paul -
No worries, you’re almost there… No need to create your own INI file because there is one that comes with the DROE Tool installation. It will be named DROE_Tool.ini. Open that file in Notepad and make the appropriate edits (depending on how you want to use the tool) as described in the README file.
Regarding PigPog tasks, see IDEA #6 in this article. This option causes the tool to add some additional text to the task body in order to use the PigPog method mini projects within a task.
-Carl
June 16, 2009 - 3:03 am
Carl – thanks a million for gettting back to me so quickly – I’d say you are always up to your eyes in stuff. I’m on a deadline for tomorrow but have time at the back end of the week and lok forward to installing and using your proposed system.
best
Pablo
June 16, 2009 - 2:58 pm
Hi Carl – well I’m lot wiser now. Of course I found the INI file straight away and I can see what I have to do to configure the text.
Now, I need your help so that I can set the DROE tool properly as I downloaded the tool a couple of times and would like to get rid of the ones I have now so that I am absolutely clear which file I am working from. The only problem is that when I followed your suggestion to simply drag the file to the trash can, I got a message saying that I needed permission to do that (which is a bit worrying (<;).
please advise
best
Pablo
June 17, 2009 - 1:17 am
Hi Carl – did a reboot and files deleted no problem. I’ll try not to plague you again!
best
PL
June 17, 2009 - 11:01 am
Paul – Glad to hear you figured it out. Feel free to post more questions if you have them.
-Carl
June 19, 2009 - 6:07 pm
Hi Carl
Yes I’m slowly getting there. I feel like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable!
Next dumb point – I dont want to call my home page DROE – Id rather call it something else. Does this cause a problem?
The reason I ask is that I updated tge following from the tool:
“Update to match your exact path. Spaces are okay, but do not use quotes. Must end in a backslash.
and I am getting a message saying that the path could not be found and and a new DROE file was being started. What exactly is the “path”? I have obviously pasted the wrong file path.
please excuse my ignorance.
PL
June 21, 2009 - 5:32 pm
Hi Carl
I suppose I have progress of sorts as I have worked out where my lovely time stamped text notes are going. Unfortunately, they are not going to OneNote but rather the folder where my DROE tool is stored. Any advice would be appreciated. There’s no rush.
regards
Pablo
June 21, 2009 - 11:50 pm
Paul – It sounds like you are running the DROE Tool in text mode. This is for people that prefer to use Notepad instead of OneNote. In your INI file, change the “DROE_Enable = 2″ line to “DROE_Enable = 1″.
This may explain your other errors as well. It is probably trying to use the “DROE_Path” under the [TextOnly_DROE_Settings] heading in the INI file. Once you set the DROE_Enable variable to run with OneNote, it will ignore this path and start using the variables under the [OneNote_DROE_Settings] heading. In this section, be sure to set the path to the OneNote program exe as well as the hyperlink to your DROE page.
You can name your DROE page whatever you want, just be sure to update the “Page_Title” variable in that same section.
After saving your INI changes, reload the settings using the instructions in Section 2.5 of the README file.
Hope that helps!
-Carl
June 22, 2009 - 7:31 am
Carl you have the patience of a saint. To be honest I thought the tool was preselected for OneNote so I didnt even look at the Enable line. Now OneNote is appearing but I started getting a Time Out just like the others and after reading what they said I checked and saw that a time stamp had somehow reasserted itself in the page (I had deleted it). Now I am getting a timestamp and I am very close to full function, the only bad thing that is happening is that the tool is also inserting anything I happen to have in my clipboard once it has inserted the time stamp. I dont know why this is happening. I am sure it is something simple.
all the best and thanks once again
PL
June 22, 2009 - 1:08 pm
Paul – The behavior you describe is a feature that can be disabled via the INI file. See this section in the INI file:
;Setting this variable to 1 enables Clip Mode. In clip mode, any selected text is clipped and included in the DROE entry.
Clip_Mode = 1
Change the above line to Clip_Mode = 0
…and it sounds like you’re up and running!
-Carl
June 22, 2009 - 1:34 pm
Carl I just posted this
Mon 22-Jun-09 8:25 —————————————
Brilliant that works a treat
THANKS
Once I got more confident in editing the INI file, I actually enjoyed playing around with the whole thing. And I must say, my early trials of using this system as a GTD system are very promising. I like the way that you keep everything one page as far as the DROE goes.
I will now go back and review your comments (that I first came across in the lifehacker article to see how I can really make use of what you propose.
fair play to you (as we say in Ireland)
ps
Carl – will you mail privately as there is something I want to run past you (dont worry entirely innocent)
Oh and I forgot
would you give me the time configuration so that I can make it 24 hour clock
(that actually rhymes…..(<;)
June 22, 2009 - 9:50 pm
Paul –
Switching from h: to HH: in the INI time stamp format line will get you the 24-hour clock. For full details on all the possible formatting codes, see this article. Enjoy!
P.S. If you want to send a direct email, the address is on the “About” page of this blog.
-Carl
June 23, 2009 - 7:23 pm
Hi Carl – Well I created my first project using your project template tonight and I also have a 24hr clock – so maximum respect to me! (and you of course). I;ve a couple of things to report in passing. When I go Win-n, if the previous entry on my DROE page has tags and/or flags, the incoming entry snaffles them (sorry I rarely get a chance to use the word snaffle) so as the last entry gets pushed down it loses its tags. Linking a task to Outlook didn’t always work either (what a great yoke when it does work though!).
Is there a place where all the above coments are centrally stored, I did try getting the rss feed but got Manage This instead.
best regards
Paul Larkin
ps
I sent you a mail via gmail
June 28, 2009 - 12:01 pm
Paul-
I’ve also found it’s easy to have the tags moved around when editing a document in OneNote. There are some suggestions in Section 2.1 of the README file that might help you avoid some of this.
As far as the Outlook task synchronization, you will have to take that up with Microsoft. I did post an article here that describes how the synchronization works and provides some tips.
-Carl
September 10, 2009 - 1:58 pm
Paul,
Trying to get DROE to work here. I’m running into a problem because I use an older laptop that does not have a Win key, so I am unable to use most of the shortcuts/key combinations that drive your tool. Is there a way to change them? I didn’t see anything in the INI file that would help with that, I’ve played around with autohotkey for other scripts, but since you supply the exe file I can’t take a look there. Any ideas?
Thanks
Brian
September 10, 2009 - 1:59 pm
Sorry, Meant to address that to Carl
September 10, 2009 - 9:49 pm
Brian -
I agree, the hotkey assignments need to be configurable. I plan to add this feature in the next version, hopefully in a few months.
In the mean time, you could create a very small AHK script of your own that looks for your prefered hotkey, then transmits WIN+N to trigger the DROE tool. I know it sounds a little awkward, but AHK is pretty efficient and you would likely not see any performance issues.
-Carl
September 17, 2009 - 8:26 am
Thanks Carl. I did just that and now have it working. Again, appreciate you sharing your work with those of us just dipping our toes in the AHK pool.
Brian
September 17, 2009 - 11:19 am
Brian – No problem, glad to hear it’s working!
September 21, 2009 - 7:13 am
Carl,
I may have spoken too soon. I’m running into a problem when OneNote is not started. 2 things happen, first I get an error message from DROE that states it timed out waiting for OneNote, then OneNote opens and more curiously, IE opens and shows the following in the address bar: http://0/
If I have OneNote open and hit the hotkey (I have the CAPSLOCK mapped to the WIN key) WIN+N , it works fine.
Is it that my laptop is too slow, it probably takes 5-8 seconds for ON to load?
Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks
Brian
October 11, 2009 - 9:16 am
Brian – There is a timeout where the tool waits for OneNote to open and eventually gives up. I did this because I didn’t want to leave stray threads in memory if OneNote doesn’t launch for some reason. It seems like the timeout wasn’t generous enough for some systems. I can make that configurable or just longer in a future version. The part about IE opening is strange… I have not seen that behavior before. If I understand correctly, IE only opens when you get the timeout? Either way, I think a longer timeout would help your situation. I added that to my list.
-Carl
October 27, 2009 - 6:30 am
Carl,
Yes IE only opens when DROE times out waiting for ON. I have never seen it happen outside of that.
Thanks
Brian
November 4, 2009 - 8:53 pm
Brian – Thanks for the feedback. I hope to correct this in the next version.
-Carl
February 10, 2010 - 3:20 pm
Is there a way to redirect the Win – Left Arrow key function to another key combination? Those keys are used by Windows 7 to tile windows vertically the screen, especially if you are using multiple monitors (you want to tile a window to the left side of your right monitor – you use the Win – Left Arrow key). Overall it is a great tool! Thanks!
February 10, 2010 - 10:03 pm
Jim – Thanks for the feedback. I am finally working on a new version of the tool now. I’ll see if there is a sensible way to make the key combinations configurable.
April 26, 2010 - 4:11 pm
Carl,
Just wanted to jump in to say thanks in advance for your continued work on this. I really miss the usefulness after moving to OneNote 2010.
April 27, 2010 - 7:09 am
Normally I don’t reply to my own post, but I found this info on another blog and thought it might hel to get the AHK script working with ON 2010.
Original link here: http://it.knightnet.org.uk/2009/04/copy-and-paste-to-onenote-autohotkey.html#disqus_thread
To get this to work on my system (Windows 7, OneNote 2010) I had to make the following changes:
1. Window name match should be ” – Microsoft OneNote”
2. SendPlay should be Send
3. Put Sleep 50 after Send ^C (to wait for the operation to complete, since Send is asynchronous)
May 4, 2010 - 10:31 pm
Thanks Todd. I’m thinking of doing some sort of plug-in/API model for the various interfaces. That would give people access to that source code and allow modifications. I hope to have a new version out in a few months that allows this. Since I don’t have access to Office 2010 yet, this may be the only way to go.
By the way, I switched from SendPlay to Send a few versions ago (there is probably some discussion on the blog about it). There is still a debug switch to change it back. If you add a “DROE_Debug = 2″ line in the [General_DROE_Settings] section of the ini file it will revert back.
-Carl
May 6, 2010 - 5:00 pm
Hi Carl,
great tool – I have just set it up, and it is extremely handy!
I only have a small issue when hitting Win+n. I am using the tool with onenote which opens alright but asks me the following before it actually opens the right page: “Do you want to open the “ORG” notebook in OneNote (recommended) or just open the “Inbox” section from within it?”
When I hit the “Open Section” button, it works alright, but when I hit the “Open Notebook” button, a second link to the same notebook appears on the navigation bar.
Do you have any hints, what I might have setup wrongly?
Best regards
Filipe
May 6, 2010 - 10:13 pm
Filipe –
This is strange, I have never heard of this behavior before… Which version of OneNote are you using, 2007 or 2010?
-Carl
May 7, 2010 - 2:37 am
Carl,
thanks for the quick reply! I am using OneNote 2007 with Windows 7.
Best regards
Filipe
May 8, 2010 - 1:47 pm
Filipe – Maybe there are some extra characters (or some missing characters) in the hyperlink to your DROE page. Maybe try to re-capture the link and update it in your INI file. I can’t think of anything else that would cause this sort of behavior.
-Carl
July 12, 2010 - 1:45 pm
Carl –
Just checking in to see if you’ve created an update to the DROE tool that will allow the keystrokes of Windows+N to properly record a dated note in the designated DROE page – as opposed to the creation of a SideNote in OneNote 2010. Hate this new function after upgrading from ‘07 to ‘10. Miss the DROE tool! Regrets if you’ve already posted a solution … just haven’t seen it.
-B
July 15, 2010 - 1:22 am
Hi Carl – (I hope you are well my friend)
I mailed you privately via Gmail about this but got no reply so I am going to try this route
Long story short – ever since I upgraded to MS Office 2010 Pro (great move) my DROE short cut keys don’t work – the one I most use (the date/time stamp Wn – N) now opens a new section in OneNote and puts the time stamp in a page title.
Has the ever useful DROE tool ever been upgraded for MS Office 2010?
good luck from sunny Ireland
Pablo