PhatWare's PhatNotes Standard - Windows Mobile Utility

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Kent Lanum

May 21, 2007

This month, my review focuses on another program that has a large following in the PDA community...PhatWare's PhatNotes.  In earlier reviews on note-taking programs, I mentioned that the PocketPC was made for note-taking.  Most note applications are singular in their focus of taking notes.  PhatWare took that one concept step further, really giant steps forward, in how notes are taken and organized.  The folks at PhatWare utilize the database approach to organizing data, syncing it to outside platforms and adding functionality within the "note" like voice or images.  All in all, PhatNotes sets the standard for note-taking and others to emulate.  Let me try to explain how I've come to this conclusion...

PhatWare has four flavors of PhatNotes, basically one for each type of user and user needs:

1. PhatNotes Professional ($39.95) - In my opinion, Professional is for those users that are heavy users of a note program, has needs to format them or even password protect them.  PhatWare provides a desktop version of the note software and of course, it syncs up with the PDA PhatNotes databases. It has a spell checker called PhatSpell both on the desktop and mobile device.

2. PhatNotes Standard ($29.95) - The Standard version is for the casual note user or ones that like to sync with Microsoft's Outlook's Notes yet still wants some organizing capabilities.  The program will sync up easily with Outlook and you will be able to view the PhatNotes within the Outlook program.  You still get the capability of setting up multiple note databases and the I preferred this version over another Professional since I didn't have to use another standalone program to view a note on the PC. 

3. PhatNotes Smartphone ($29.95) - The Smartphone version is just what it says it is for...Smartphones.  It is similar to PhatNotes Professional in that it also provides the user a desktop notes programs.  It too provides you the ability to format and protect the notes while being sync across platforms.

4. PhatNotes Lite ($19.95) - This is purely the PhatNotes version for your Windows Mobile device and is not syncable with any other device or program.  Other than that, it has everything else!

For a much clearer description on each version, be sure to check out the comparison table provided by PhatWare.

PhatNotes Standard's Description and Features

I've always been a believer in not reinventing the wheel (and being the son of a lawyer, I don't want to get a lawsuit from the developer for misrepresenting their product either) so here's a brief description of PhatNotes Standard and its features from PhatWare's web site...

Description

PhatNotes Standard Edition is an award-winning notes organizer for Microsoft Windows Powered Pocket PCs. You can create notes providing them with type, subject, creation and modification date, which helps to find required information quickly and easily. With PhatNotes you can search for specific text in a specific field and sort notes by type, date, or subject. You can protect notes from unauthorized access with a password and send e-mail messages directly from the Note Editor. Interface to the Contacts Database enables you to pick an e-mail address instead of typing it in. PhatNotes uses a compressed database, saving limited storage space. The intuitive, easy user interface lets you start using the program within minutes. PhatNotes Standard Edition allows to synchronize multiple Outlook folders with the mobile device. In addition, PhatNotes Lite Edition now includes PhatSpell spell checker.

PhatNotes also offers a number of advanced features, such as rich text editing, file attachments, hyperlinks between notes, multiple notes databases (folders) with tree-like view, hierarchical notes organizer, customizable views, transfer via infrared, backup and restore, advanced filtering and text search that supports regular expressions, and many others

Features

• Organize your notes - by clicking on the column header buttons you can sort notes by creation date, modification date, subject and type.
• Compatibility - export and import notes as text files or transfer data to and from other applications using copy and paste.
• Efficiency - small size of the program and compressed database leaves plenty of storage space.
• Privacy - protect notes from unauthorized access with a password.
• Simple User Interface - intuitive user interface allows you to start using PhatNotes right away.
• Email capability - send email messages directly from the Note Editor by clicking on the Send Mail button.
• Customizable Views - provides a wide range of modifiable look and feel settings.
• Advanced Filters and Text Search - allows a user to search one or more notes databases for a specific text or a regular expression, and filter by category, creation, modification, authoring dates, color, and priority.
• Spell Checker - now includes full version of PhatSpell Spell Checker with the English dictionary (dictionaries for other supported languages can be downloaded from PhatWare web site free of charge).
• Today screen add-on - provides an easy access to PhatNotes application recently modified notes directly from the Pocket PC today screen.
• Microsoft Outlook Support - allows a user to synchronize multiple Outlook folders with PhatNotes application on the mobile device. Outlook 2000/2002(XP)/2003 supported.
• Hierarchical Notes Organizer - allows a user to group notes by creation or modification dates, type, color, and priority.
• Hyperlinks between Notes - allows a user to create links and cross references notes.
• File Attachments - up to 32 files can be linked to a note.
• Database Tree View - optional database view provides easy access to multiple notes databases.
• Authoring date - a new editable date field.
• Customizable Toolbars - choose from the selection of over 30 buttons.
• Text Formatting - text formatting is now supported on Pocket PCs.
• Pocket PC 2003SE Compatible - supports full-VGA/screen rotation features.
• Windows Mobile 5.0 Compatible - supports Pocket PC 2005 devices screenshots
• PhatPad support - PhatNotes provides direct access to PhatPad, which allows a user to attach handwritten notes in just two taps.
   

PhatNotes Standard Screenshots:

PhatWare PhatNotes Standard from the start (when toggled) will provide you a view of the notes database or databases, the notes are shown by subject within that database and the actual text within that note.  This is something that I prefer and set up as soon as the program is loaded but you can choose whatever view you like.

As I noted above, this view is not the "default" view but using the toolbar, I select both the subject and the note views for a more complete look at one glance.


From this startup database view, you have the standard menu items.  Here's the "Edit" button view.

The next view of the "View" button.  It's here you can organize and filter the notes.  I don't have many here but you can see how this would be helpful with lots of notes!

This screenshot shows the categories that you can sort the notes in the subject window.

You can filter the notes by date, text or even color of the note themselves.


Under the "Tools" tab, you can send notes via email or IR, import/export, etc.

This screen shows you the database options like renaming, emptying, or even group the databases.
 

Notes Screenshots

Now lets look at the note-taking screen which is obviously as important as the whole database/subject/text views on the program startup page.

Here's your standard note page with toolbar that I have customized set via the options page.


The "Note" tab.  Your typical tab with the exception of the "Protect..." option at the bottom.  You can actually encrypt the note but with the Standard version of PhatNotes, you will get a warning about protecting a note.  That's because of the sync/conversion is not done between Outlook's Note and Phatnotes for protected notes.  Best off, leaving that one alone or buying Professional or Smartphone versions if you really need that feature.


Here's the "Edit" tab, again pretty standard with the exception of the spell checking option with PhatSpell which comes with the Standard version.


The "View" tab. Note that this is where you can modify the toolbar when in the note-taking portion of the application.

The last tab probably has the most functionality due to all the shortcuts it provides and demonstrate on the next screenshot.

Here's a note where I have inserted the Date & Time, a voice note as well as a Category and Subject line.  I could also insert an image, ink or URL.  Also note we can set alarms for notes on this page as well or do so via a shortcut on the toolbar if you so desire.


Showing the drop down box for the Category.


Here's the note properties tab when you hold down the stylus on a note.  You can change the color, author date, priority plus the reminder or protect.

Installation

The PhatWare PhatNotes Standard installation setup .exe file (8.8MB) is easy to use and they also have installation package via ZIP format (8.1MB).  The program will take up approximately 740KB in storage upon installation.  The running process RAM utilization for this program while in operation was REALLY small, only 35.8KB and starting a new file only bumped that up to 44KB.  I consider that very efficient use of my limited device memory and who hasn't struggled with that issue!  In my testing, PhatNotes was installed on both internal memory and on my 4GB SD card (my normal installation), neither setup presented any problems.

Conclusion

PhatWare's Standard Notes is probably one of the first 10 applications that I load on my PDA when I do a hard reset.  While I don't think I'd consider myself a notes "junkie" by any stretch, I like to have all my notes presented to me in an orderly fashion on my JasJar for easy lookup and review.  This application works very well in that respect and it also integrates well with Phatware's excellent PhatPad and CalliGrapher programs which you would expect but it also plays well with my all-time favorite PIM - Pocket Informant.  In the years that I have used this program or some version of it, there have been only a few times that the program has given me trouble and that is usually corrected by reloading the program, assuming some type of DB corruption during the sync process.

Overall there is nothing that I can really complain about with PhatNotes that would make me say, "don't buy this software."  On the contrary, I say if you need note software and are a serious note-taker with the need to keep your notes well organized, I would highly recommend the PhatNotes suite of programs as one will surely fit your specific needs.