Need a better alarm notepad

RoofRat · 03-03-06, 07:19 PM

Seems like I've tried out at least 15 different notepad products trying to find one with decent alarm capabilities. Those of you former (or current) Palm users may recall a simple freeware program called DiddleBug. What I liked about it was that once you hand-wrote your note, you could set the alarm using a very nice interface for either amount of time (5 min, 10 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, etc) or specific time (2:15 pm today, 6 am tomorrow, etc). Once the time was set, it would display it on your note, and you could toggle between specific time and remaining time (with running countdown). The best thing was that the alarm was fully configurable and would always wake up the display, show your note and sound your chosen sound when the alarm went off. Then, you could tap anywhere on the screen for preset snooze, or hit a button for specific snooze time, or to turn off the alarm. And it would always stay on top until dismissed. If I could start with something like this and be able add recorded notes as well, that would be optimum. Please, give me some thoughts on programs I haven't tried out yet. But please, no programs that give you the standard pop-up reminder with a one-time little beep that you don't ever see or hear.

AKAJohnDoe · 03-03-06, 07:28 PM

You might like either PhatNotes (several varieties) or a feature of PocketInformant called PIAlarmNotes. But if you have been through 15 or so of these, you probably have already tried both. PhatNotes Lite came with PI. I prefer PIAlarmNotes myself. There's also ways to get repeating and ascending alarms.

RoofRat · 03-03-06, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by AKAJohnDoe

You're probably going to like either PhatNotes (several varieties) or a feature of PocketInformant called PIAlarmNotes. PhatNotes Lite came with PI, but I prefer PIAlarmNotes myself. There's also ways to get repeating and ascending alarms.

Thanks for the input, JD. I have not tried PhatNotes, although I did try PhatPad. PP does not display the full note on alarm, just a small text pop-up and brief tone. I'll have to give PhatNotes a try.

I have PI, so PIAlarmNotes is integrated. Only things I don't like (and it may be I just haven't figured them out yet), is that I can't choose the alarm tone or adjust the pen settings. I also need to get used to the raster (I think that's what it is) drawing format and wish there was an eraser to delete portions of a drawing element. Editing is very limited. But I agree, this is the best I've found so far. Again, I'll take a look at PhatNotes as well. Thanks.

AKAJohnDoe · 03-03-06, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by RoofRat

I can't choose the alarm tone

I know. Annoying, isn't it? I posted a thread a few days ago asking about ways to get different alarms for different entries or categories and got no repsonses. The one software product I did find had some requirements I did not like and some deficiencies that made it unsuitable for my purposes. I used a different alarm for each category on my Palm, so I could generally tell what I was being reminded of without looking at the screen. No so with PPC. On the other hand, I can assign any entry to multiple categories and have a lot more than 16 categories, too!