I’m going to try something that I probably should have tried a while back (for more that just the 1.0 version). While I’m wrapping up Notae 2.0, I’d like to get some people that would be willing to spend a little time running over some beta versions of it and help out a little with identifying bugs and quirks.

Now that Notae is a bit ahead of all the other notepads I was looking at ages ago when I started, I want to bring it ahead of the current crop of note-takers and light scrapbooks. No, I’m not talking about adding the kitchen sink to it and making it yet another scrapbooking application, but I do think that in the process of developing notes it does often come to the point where one would want to keep another document handy, be it a PDF or web page, and that Notae can handle that as well.

The trick is making it seamless. Right now, my little hack to get PDFs and WebArchives working is pretty seamless, and I’m quite happy with that. You don’t even know it can do it until you try, and then it just works as you’d expect. I’d like to get that for the rest of the features I want to add. For that, I’d like some eyes.

The first posted download wouldn’t start for some folks because of a changed framework. Just redownload and it should work.

Details

I plan on wrapping up 2.0 over the next couple of weeks, as I have time, so some patience would be required of anyone that wanted to help. Also, the file format has changed (but it will migrate them to 2.0 for you, and allow the same kinds of exports) so you’ll need to be amenable to exporting/importing your data and losing your tags in the process should you want to go back to 1.2 (as well as backups, etc.). There’s nothing stopping you from using 1.2.2 for your daily use, but you’d have to set some time aside to play with 2.0 as releases come out if you did so.

That said, I’m using it daily now and it appears stable. Some quirks here and there, but that, of course, is what I’m working on. :) Save often, use backups, export now and again, and you should be fine.

Now, as it’s a public test, it will have a private software update feed to keep it up to date within the beta version range. This way I can issue updates to the testing crowd without interfering with the mainstream users. The final update on the beta feed will be the release version that puts it back on the main update feed.

If you plan on actually testing the product versus just getting a feature preview, please create an account on the development site and then email me (codepoet at this domain) with the account name you created so I can enable it for creating bugs (otherwise the spam bots take over the site). With just a registered user you can search bugs and timetables and so on, but with an account you can create issues and comment on others.

I’m going to take the top group of folks that helped who do not already have a license and give ‘em one for their troubles.

To Do

Once this is done and all generally-annoying bugs have been squished I’ll generate the language files and start begging for localization. If you speak another language well and wish to help out, send me a note at codepoet at this domain. Compensation for this ranges from a license code to small sums of cash, depending on how much I already have for than language.

When the program is entirely done, I’ll also update the Notae pages here with screen shots of 2.0. If you’re doing something cool with Notae, I’d love a shot of how you’re using it for inclusion on that page (use notes you don’t care about, don’t blur the shot).

Participate

Head on over to the development site and get a copy of the program. If you want to file bugs, the instructions are on the front page of that site. If you just want to see what’s changed, there’s a change log available as well.