A Brief Explanation

A friend and coworker of mine, Robert Taylor, recently recommended I take a look at OneNote for easy organization of notes. When OneNote first hit the streets years ago, I took a quick look at it and said, "Meh...another widget MS pumped out for me to waste my time with." However, I took Robert's advice and decided to take another look at it. All I can say is, "Wow!" I love it! I've now inserted it into my primary toolbelt with all the other tools & widgets I use on a regular basis as I develop software. I've also integrated it into my personal life and have my wife MaryAnn learning it as well so we can share notebooks (to be discussed more below).

For the purpose of this non-solicited review, I'm using OneNote 2007. So though I've no idea what features are different from earlier versions until now, I still believe it's a tool worth looking into.

So you may be saying, "Why on earth would I want to add another tool to my arsenal of geek tools that seem to grow by N = N₀e^kt every year as it is?" Please allow me this time to discuss some of what I've discovered in using OneNote that may very well convince you to take a good look at it.

We all know the keeping of notes for a software developer is essential. Even in a perfect shop where flawless requirements are handed down to us, we still have notes we take during meetings, we make notes when anomalies pop up in requirements and functional specs, scope-creep notes, etc. Then there are notes we take outside the scope of a specific project, perhaps regarding architecture or another way to resolve known issues in development. Then again, there's always just personal notes we have strewn all over the place. Obviously, notes are a part of our professional and personal lives.

So what do we "typically" use to take our notes?

• Word doc
• Spreadsheets
• Emails
• Notepad (the app, for really stubborn folks)
• Notepad (paper)
• Sticky-Notes (like cockroaches...the spawn of satan!)
• BizDev (my "other app" moniker/token for you to adjust accordingly...special thanks to Odd Todd)

And by what mediums do we "typically" store our notes?

• My Documents
• Desktop (both physical desk and PC)
• Some shared or personal Folder at \\RandomUNC
• Local External Drive
• Inbox or custom email folder repository
• Stuck all over one's monitors (see Sticky-Notes above)
• etc.

Note: I'm fully aware that the "perfect shop where flawless requirements are handed down to us" has never occurred in nature. {-o)

OneNote: Overview

To begin, as is typically the case in the virtual/electronic world, the paradigms within the OneNote software directly relate to objects in the physical world which makes the concept very easy to understand, especially to the n00b or eternally basic PC user. OneNote is basically a collection of virtual notebooks, complete with tabs & groupings of pages within the tabs. Here's a snip from the sample Guide Notebook that comes with OneNote:

So with the virtual "Notebook" as the core of OneNote, a person automatically has some basic knowledge of how to organize their stuff since most folks know how to use a physical notebook. As far as how the data equates to physical files:

• A "Notebook" equates to a physical folder on your storage device.
• A "Section" equates to a OneNote file underneath your Notebook path. IE (from the example above): "Business Trips.one"
• All "Pages" in each Section are embedded within the OneNote file from the previous bullet.

Here's a snip of an actual Notebook I've created for a project to refactor a database schema from last year's schema to this year's:

In this example, here are a few things to note:

• The Symbols in the Legend table are Tags. There's a sizable group of tags that come in the box for you, but they're customizable and can have keyboard shortcuts assigned
• The dates under Important dates are also regular text that have been modified with tags. In this case, I customized the tag with a calendar icon, red text and yellow highlighting
• The links under Task Pages point to other pages on other tabs in the notebook
• Each Page is completely free-form. Place your cursor anywhere you want on the page and start typing/pasting to place your entries right there
• Each area within the page can be moved around the page, grouped with other areas or removed from areas into their own areas or pages

Oh, BTW, the screenshots you're viewing were taking very handily using OneNote's Screen-Clipping functionality:  + S. Clipping this way automatically sends your clip into a brand new page underneath the "Unfiled Notes" section of OneNote.

Feature Blitz

Here's a quick overview of some of the other features available to you in OneNote: 

Tables

First, just type some text anywhere on your Page:

 Then hit Tab:

There you have it. A Table was automagically created for you. Continue to Tab to create new columns or hit Enter to add a new row.

Notebook Sharing 

Notebooks can also be shared, either across a network or even across the internet via Live Sharing, as long as you have access to the network. And since Notebooks can be shared, you can also password-protect sections of your notebooks for access restriction.

Built In Calculator 

Need to figure some quick math? Just type your equation anywhere in the page, end with an equal sign:

Then hit the spacebar to run the equation:

Audio & Video Recording

Capture audio notes in order to focus less on note taking and more on the meeting. You can even search your audio notes later with the Audio Search feature!

Also, capture your presentations using video notes via your webcam.

Templates

There are plenty of Notebook & Page templates available for you to initialize your Notebooks with to give you the jump on getting new Notebooks started. There's a decent handful of them that come with OneNote, but of course, there are many more you can download off the web.

Summary 

It wasn't my intention here to do an ultra-thorough review, but just to spoon you a few nybbles so-as to spark your interest in delving further into OneNote. I very highly recommend you take about 30 minutes to review the "OneNote 2007 Guide" notebook that comes with OneNote. It's basically the fast-track to get you using OneNote.

Special thanks to Robert for turning me onto what has become an invaluable tool in my arsenal. His blog is here.

In closing, here are a few more screenshots of Notebook Pages I've created an am actively working on: