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Hello,
I am in the midst of reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo where the NotePad program is mentioned. I looked it up, and then found an article you wrote about version 2.1, which is where I also found your email.
I once was able to use Appleworks for all my database needs and loved it for a wide variety of reasons. Still can't understand why the program was dropped, because I've never found another suitable database to use.
What it says on the Ibrium web page is that in 2005, there was an update to NotePad for OS.10.4 but I can't seem to find anything that talks about an update since. Do you know if this version will work with Snow Leopard / OS 10.6.4 without glitches?
I'm interested in trying the program out, based on your article, but am rather hesitant to load the program if I'm going to have difficulties with it working. I've spent way too much time on a few others that seem to work when I upgraded to 10.6 and would prefer not to spend the time if someone else knows the answer.
Thanks.
Aldean
Hi Aldean;
Yes, it's unfortunate that Apple terminated development of AppleWorks, although I suppose they make a lot more money selling iWorks applications. No iWorks database, though.
The nearest currently supported analog to the erstwhile Appleworks database is probably FileMaker's Bento, which is very popular these days, and shares some of the same lineage being as FileMaker is an Apple subsidiary. You can read my extended comments and observations on Bento here:
http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/2009/more/20290/
Gary Coyne's more recent Applelinks review of Bento 3 is here:
http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/2009/more/25518/
NotePad Deluxe development ceased woth version 2.3.5 in 2005, and it is not a happy camper on OS 10.5 Leopard or OS 10.6 Snow Leopard.
For a dozen years or so I had used Notepad Deluxe as a place to park and organize transient research data for work-in-progress articles and news stories and other odds and sods.
As a replacement I've settled for now on Peter Borg's freeware text editor Smultron, which find is standing in for NotePad Deluxe quite agreeably. There are literally dozens of small text editing, data-parking, and snippet-collecting solutions available for OS X, but what commends Smultron for my particular requirements is that it displays all open Smultron documents (the program can edit and save many different file types as well as popular programming languages including C, C++, LISP, Java, Python, Ruby, HTML, XML, CSS, and D) in a list with Quick Look icons in a sidebar to the left of the main window, similar to the iTunes interface, so you can easily switch between documents (you can also choose to display them as tabs if you prefer), and its user interface can be shrunk down to a scale that makes it usable on my MacBook's 13.3" display with text wrapping, thus without cramping functionality. The user interface window is clean and functional and the button selections useful. The little wild strawberry application icon is whimsically attractive as well!
I do miss NotePad Deluxe's database-type storage of notes. With Smultron, each item is saved to the hard drive as a separate document, which is more cluttered, but I can live with it.
Because Smultron is a full-fledged text editor, it has more comprehensive and powerful word crunching capabilities than NotePad Deluxe. You can also preview HTML files directly in Smultron and save snippets of text and insert them simply with a shortcut. And if you don't want to be disturbed by other applications or the desktop you can let Smultron cover the whole screen to let you concentrate on your work, although that's the diametrical opposite of the way I use Smultron in a minimized window.
Unfortunately, Peter Borg has announced that he no longer has the time to devote to Smultron development, although he did release an updated version for Snow Leopard compatibility. Both the Leopard and Snow Leopard compatible versions of Smultron can be downloaded for free from Sourchforge:
Smultron 3.5.1 for OS X 10.5
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smultron/files/smultron/3.5.1/Smultron-3.5.1.zip/download
Smultron 3.6b1 for OS X 10.6:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smultron/files/smultron/3.6b1/Smultron-3.6b1.zip/download
A closer analog in terms of being a lightweight database program would be Tropical Software's $39.95 TopXNotes.
TopXNotes is pitched as a full-featured personal information manager for Mac OS X, providing complete control over the look of your notes, including font, size, style, alignment, color, and text background color. TopXNotes organizes information into database-like Groups (like folders) and Categories (similar to tags) to make them easy to find when you need them. The program's QuickNote feature makes your most frequently used notes available no matter what application you are using.
TopXNotes supports easy to use templates. Drag & Drop, Import & Export, or jsut typing input. Over 100 templates and samples are available for organizing financial information, shopping lists, software serial numbers, and so forth.
TopXNotes gives you extensive control over how your notes look. Change fonts, style, or color to make your notes stand out. Note text dragged to the desktop is automatically exported in Rich Text Format (RTF), which can be read by most text editors and word processors such as TextEdit, Microsoft Word, or Pages.
Drag or copy a URL into TopXNotes and it will automatically turn it into a clickable link, making it a useful place to store and organize your bookmarks, and its auto-save feature protects your information. You can have TopXNotes save automatically on every page turn, or at specific time intervals.
For more information on TopXNotes, or to download a demo, visit:
http://www.tropic4.com/
I hope this is helpful,
Charles
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