Maintaining Notes categories on Pocket PC

[LenEdgerly]

My Pocket PC works well with Outlook and the GTD Add-in, except that when Notes come over from my PC they don't get arranged by categories or folders. Is there a way to do this? Thanks. Len, from Denver.

 

[chefz]

Notes on PPC

Hi Len -

I recently joined this forum and saw your post - it's been awhile, but as a fellow PocketPC user I thought I would post my thoughts anyway. :smile:

As far as I know, the default Notes program does not display notes by category, even though you can do so on the desktop PC. To get around this, there are lots of 3rd-party programs you can use that do display notes by category - here are some I have tried:

PhatNotes (www.phatware.com)
PocketInformant (www.pocketinformant.com)
PocketBreeze (www.sbsh.net)

I currently use PocketBreeze, and really like how it displays my calendar, task and notes information.

Chefz :grin:

 

[emuelle1]

For some reason, Outlook won't sync note categories. I sync my Pocket PC at work and at home. I found this out the hard way after I spent a decent amount of time at work organizing all of my notes into categories, then syncing at home and finding that the categories don't transfer. I'm finally happy just to settle for alphabetical order.

 

[dbobfish]

Hi Len -

You took the words right out of my mouth.

I've just started using GTD and the whole Desktop Pc and Pocket Pc setup and have found the same problem when syncronising notes.

I think I've come to find, just like emuelle1 - the Ppc notes prog just doesn't categorise your notes as Outlook does on the desktop Pc.

And as chefz suggested, there are plenty of 3rd party notes applications and I've been trying these out myself.

The Phatpad and Phatnotes ddon't appear to sort by categories either, and besides this they appear to syncronise with Phatnose or Phatpad programme on the Desktop instead of Microsoft Outlook.

I've found Phatpad very nice for making quick scribbled notes - the ink flow works really nice, perfect for making notes on the fly. And then at least you do have the note stored digitally. It's then just a matter of rewriting the note in an outlook note so that you can categorise it on desktop outlook if that helps any.

I'm also using Pocket Informant. I like this application, it suits my needs. But once again, although it will display a list of all your notes on your Ppc, it wont display them in the same categories you may have set on your desktop outlook.

I haven't tried PocketBreeze though - maybe chefz or someone who currently uses this could tell us if this programme displays notes in categories chosen in outlook.

I'm happy with Pocket Informant though - and will accept notes as they are in the default Ppc application for now.

Ttfn.

 

[mramm]

I currently use PI 2005 and PB v 5 and both of these keep the catagories that I assign tasks in Outlook. I have not tried to mess with notes to much.

I try to put everything in Tasks so that it will appear in my listing in PB.

Michael

 

[markmat]

Sorry, this is an old thread, but has anybody found a work around for the problem with notes categories?

I assume that this is an Activesync problem rather than an issue with Pocket Informant, but the categories do not appear to Sync as has been posted before. If I assign the notes to categories on the PPC then Pocket Informant will display these in the notes list. The problem is that although it wil then order them by category it doesn't seem to allow them to be grouped and expanded by category.

Also, I can't see a way of doing this in Pocket Breeze either. It only seems to be able to show notes by folder.

Any ideas?

thanks
Mark

 

[whitesco]

I'm using PhatNotes...handles the categories with no problem. I was disappointed that PB and PI didn't sync, either when I moved from a Tungsten E to the Treo 700w. But it still beats carrying a phone AND a pda.

 

[markmat]

I need Phatnotes Pro to do this though don't I?

 

[bvkeen]

You can use Folders under My Documents to "sort of" implement categories with the PPC Notes app. If you write the Note on your device, you first have to save it to My Documents. Then, use File Manager to move to a Folder, such as the existing Business or Personal folders, or create your own folders as desired (such as Lists, Projects, ...).

The downside is that the list view of the Notes app shows all the Notes without making it obvious which folder they are in. But, using File Manager (or a decent replacement like TotalCommander or Resco File Explorer), you can view the contents of each folder, sort of giving you a by-category way of looking at the Notes. HOWEVER, Pocket Informant does let you view the Notes by Folder. So, as long as you stay within PI, you can have a Notes-by-category view.

On the Outlook side of the house, the notes will look something like this:
Business/NoteName 1
Business/NoteName 2
Lists/NoteName 1
Lists/NoteName 2
Personal/NoteName 1
etc.

This is not the neatest way in the world to organize Notes by category, but it works. ActiveSync and the Pocket Outlook Object Model do not support categories for Notes.

I personally prefer PhatNotes. Downside is that it doesn't sync with Outlook (although you can supposedly export notes from it into Outlook, and I know you can import Notes to it From Outlook). It supports categories (user definable plus some standard ones it comes with) and even separate databases if desired. Plus it lets you link one PhatNote to others and even to documents.

Hopefully I haven't confused the point too much.

Edit:
One other way of maintaining some sort of "categorization" of Notes on the Pocket PC is to start the name of each Note with a Category Name (or abbreviation). For example, for all Notes that you wanted to "categorize" as "Reference," you could start the name of the note with Ref_ Then you would have Ref_NoteName1, Ref_NoteName2, and so on. You have to rename all of your notes to do this, but at least it works.

 

[whitesco]

I personally prefer PhatNotes. Downside is that it doesn't sync with Outlook (although you can supposedly export notes from it into Outlook, and I know you can import Notes to it From Outlook). It supports categories (user definable plus some standard ones it comes with) and even separate databases if desired. Plus it lets you link one PhatNote to others and even to documents.
QUOTE]

Maybe it's a version thing, but I'm using PhatNotes Standard and it syncs directly with Outlook, provided you don't use any of the extra features that PhatNotes provides (I don't, just the Outlook note meets my needs).

 

[bvkeen]

I personally prefer PhatNotes. Downside is that it doesn't sync with Outlook (although you can supposedly export notes from it into Outlook, and I know you can import Notes to it From Outlook). It supports categories (user definable plus some standard ones it comes with) and even separate databases if desired. Plus it lets you link one PhatNote to others and even to documents.
QUOTE]

Maybe it's a version thing, but I'm using PhatNotes Standard and it syncs directly with Outlook, provided you don't use any of the extra features that PhatNotes provides (I don't, just the Outlook note meets my needs).

I use PhatNotes Pro, and had forgotten that PhatNotes Standard does actually sync with Outlook. Not sure why a "pro version" won't do something a "standard version" will. Odd. Nonetheless, glad you made the clarification about the Standard version.

 

[tarheel810]

I know that I am coming into this discussion late but ppc will sync notes categories with Outlook. I use Phatnotes Standard (had the pro version but downgraded to be able to sync with Outlook rather than use the standalone desktop version). When I create a note in Outlook and assign a category, it syncs to my ppc with the category where I can view it in Pocketbreeze, Pocket Informant, and Phatnotes grouped by category.

 

[bvkeen]

Yes, PhatNotes syncs categories nicely. The regular built-in Notes application does not sync the categories, however.