Best Note Taking Software for Ubuntu Linux: Xournal!

When it comes to taking notes under Ubuntu (or GNU/Linux in general) both Qt/KDE and the Gnome desktops come with built in applications of their own. For instance, Gnome desktop has a very simple, yet elegant note taking application called Tomboy, recently they even introduced a version for the Android users too!.

But if you're looking for a really (I mean really!) powerful, one of the best note taking open-source software that can be used in Ubuntu, then Xournal is one heck of an app!. 

I mean, to begin with, Xournal looks like an actual note-book. It actually reminded of my childhood thus I felt really familiar and got a felling of secureness straightaway (not kidding dudes!). As said this is a very powerful, dedicated note taking application thus comes with a huge list of very useful,

features such as ...

*. Awesome tool-bar with tools like: Text, eraser, pen, highlighter!, vertical space and rectangle select tool, etc.

*. Change color, font, size, etc.

*. Change "pen/eraser" thickness.

*. A Ruler and a hand-tool.

*. Enhanced support for touch-screen users.

*. Change paper size and four built themes/templates.

*. Add/Edit pages (after or before your current page).

*. It even has the ability to view PDF files and you can save your notes in PDF format too.

*. Edit individual layers.

*. Zoom in/out. 

*. Sent your notes directly to Printer.

*. Undo/Redo. 

*. Save files (saves all the changes such as text highlighter, font, ruler, etc).

*. Full Screen mode... are just a few to mention.

You can install Xournal in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install xournal

Remember, Xournal is only a note taking software and cannot edit text files thus it's not a text editor. But the rest assured, this is probably one of the best (although the developers could invent the ability to share notes online which seems to be missing at the moment) that I've come up with without a doubt.

So, if you're searching for a Note taking app for Ubuntu that needs very little space (below 500Kb of size) + that has a beautiful looking GUI and lots of tools, then I highly recommend that you take a look at Xournal, because it's totally worth it!.

How to Install "The Board" in Ubuntu? (GTK+ written dedicated Digital Diary)

If you frequently use your computer for hours and hours daily... then even after installing cool theme and other stuff to make the desktop look beautiful but as time goes on the desktop itself can get quite booooring ;-). So for a change, whenever you want to take a note or creating "robotic" daily tasks such as taking pic, video, etc wouldn't it be nice if there was dedicated app for creating a bit of a digital diary "work-space".

I'm talking about an application that once launched completely replace your desktop and consume the whole display screen with a "skin" of its own + giving you the ability to completely forget the daily hassle and get-los... you know something beautiful, damn it! :P. If you like the idea then you and me are not certainly along 'cause a developer called Lucas Rocha had been thinking about something similar and he calls it The Board and is for GNU/Linux geeks (Gnomes :D).

As said... although it runs on top of your current desktop, the GUI written in both GTK+ and Clutter and once run, it occupies the whole computer screen thus taking you into a digital-diary "world" of its own. You can change the background, add notes, remove notes (+ text files), add pages or photos or videos with ease.

A Picture loaded into "the board"

You can either use the keyboard shortcuts or use your mouse to add new notes, etc. And the cool thing about it... if you're familiar with the whole "widget" thing, then think of "The Board" as a small virtual desktop space that runs on your actual desktop with Notes, Text, pictures (can even add using you web-cam) and video widgets.

Yes!, it even works on Unity ... but there are few issues such as blurred icons and stuff :/...

I know it's a bit tricky to get the whole idea (even after looking at screenshots). In that case just have a look at the below official introduction video from the developer himself which pretty much explains everything.




You can install The Board 0.1.3 (current upto date version) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal by using the below command in your GNU/Linux Terminal (we're using the official PPA for that).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:the-board-team/dev-snapshots
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install the-board

It also works on the never Gnome3 desktop too. But at the moment only supports Ubuntu 11.04 version only and even in the classic Gnome desktop, all I got after installing was a "blank" screen. This is the reason why I couldn't give a "real" screenshot :/.

I guess Compiz also had something to do with that, but again the project itself is still in its early stages thus bugs should be expected. Yep, that's it. Good luck and I hope it works out for you :).

Install Tomboy-Pastebinit in Ubuntu - Sharing "e-notes" Made Easy for GNU/Linux!

Tomboy is an outstanding note taking application written in C# (+ the GUI is designed using the GTK+ toolkit) which is available for GNU/Linux, MS Windows, Mac OSX, etc. It's part of the Gnome desktop and as a result if you use Gnome as your primary desktop on your GNU/Linux PC or Laptop, then it should be installed by default.

Although I won't be going into details about Tomboy but since I "created" few words already... this is actually a pretty impressive little utility. For instance, we can create unlimited titles (new notes) for taking notes and while typing a new one, if one of the words happened to be an exact match for the already existing "title", then Tomboy will automatically create a click-able link! (URL) which makes finding "related" information easy. 

When I typed "Ubuntu One", Tomboy automatically linked it to the already existing Note (Title) that goes by that name...

You can highlight content, change the text size, italic/bold, search for words, etc... and using its plug-in (they call it "Addins") API, we can expand the features by adding new add-ons as well.

So, applications like these are very useful while taking quick notes before you forget 'em (especially dudes like me with dull brains :) ).

Anyhow, if you use Tomboy quite heavily and also want to share those notes with others often, then there's nothing much Tomboy can do for you. Although you can use Ubuntu One, the free "cloud" account and sync your data to it but within the cloud, you cannot share the information easily like in a network.


So what can be done here?

Well, you can use free online pastebin services which let you upload Text files (somewhat related to Cloud computing, don't you think) and give you a URL back for the location of that stored Text file so others can access it via that URL.

But, wouldn't it be really nice if we could just use one of those Tomboy add-ins that would let use easily sync our notes into those online pastebin services within its GUI so we don't have to open up the web browser and enter the URL, etc...

Well the problem was that there wasn't none. But thanks to the developer Michael Hall, now we have "that" addin!.

He calls it Tomboy-pastebinit. You can easily install this add-on for Tomby in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (may work on other Ubuntu Linux versions, I guess).

First we have to install the command-line tool (which this addin is based on) called "pastebinit". To do that, open your Terminal and enter the below commands.

sudo apt-get install pastebinit

Then download this DLL file and simply copy the file to the folder (as in below screenshot) in your :

"Home" -> ".config" -> "tomboy" -> "addins"

Now, you have to exit Tomboy, completely (from the notification area) and restart it to work. But that didn't work for me. I had to enable it from the Tomboy "preference" window.

To do that, open Tomboy and from the Menu choose: "Edit" - "Preference" and from the window that opens up, click on the "Add-ins" tab and then click on "Tools" and choose "Paste Bin It 0.1" and click on the "Enable" button as shown in the below screenshot.

Finally, something worth taking a "note" :)...

Now whenever you want to use the pastebin service in Tomboy GUI, click on the "Tools" icon and from the menu, to the end, you'll see that which says "Paste Bin It!". That's it. Oh, btw, it uses the Ubuntu Paste-bin service (update:- actually it seems that this addin by default uses the "assigned" service by that command line tool, so depending on your distribution... the pastbin service might change) .

And again, big thanks to Michael who made this possible.