LectureNotes app

[windracer]

Export to Evernote and tags

Hello (first post)!

After a recent update to LectureNotes I noticed that, when exporting to Evernote, tags are being created that match the folder hierarchy of the note I am exporting.

For example, in LectureNotes I have a Work folder, and then inside there a "System 1" notebook, a "System 2" notebook, a "Misc IT Notes" notebook, etc. If I export the System 1 notebook to Evernote, I get a "System 1" tag, and a "Work\System 1" tag in addition to the LectureNotes tag. Is there a way to customize/prevent this? In the previous version I think the export just ended up with the LectureNotes tag, so I would just move it out of there to the tag I wanted, but now I'm getting all of these redundant folder structure-related tags that I won't want cluttering up my Evernote organization.

Thanks for a fantastic app. I recently switched from the iPad to the Galaxy Note 10.1 and needed to find a replacement for NoteTaker HD and LectureNotes has easily taken its place as the top-used app on my tablet.

 

[pgibby081965]

Toolbar icon order

Hi.

Just wondering if it was possible to re-order the items on the top toolbar? There are some I use more than most and I'd like to move them about a bit.

Thanks,

Phil

---------- Post added at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

@pgibby081965: You can not directly color the box background when you use the text drawing tool. It is an interesting idea, however, it would require to have two active colors, the one for the background and the one of the foreground (text), and there is currently only one active color in LectureNotes. Let me think a moment about it.

Hi. Just wondering what the outcome of your cogitation was?

Thanks

Phil

 

[acadoid]

@windracer: I added notebook name and path as tags, several users suggested that. I did not expect users to get disturbed by additional tags, I thought the more the better... In any case, I plan to allow customization of tags, so that you can opt-out for the notebook name and path and add custom tags.
@pgibby081965: 1. This is currently not possible. If space is an issue, not that you can use smaller icons so that more icons fit without scrolling.

2. Still thinking. The problem is as described: LectureNotes has only one active color in any moment of time, and what you suggest requires two active colors, one for the background and one for the foreground. Allowing for a second color might look a minor change from user's perspective, but it is a big change from LectureNotes' perspective, so that such change requires quite some careful thinking.

One possible solution I am considering is to add an additional option to the cutter bucket fill. At present, you can recolor existing colors, I could add an option there to color non-existing color. This would allow to draw the text first with the first color, set the second color, select a rectangle with the cutter, click on the the `bucket´ icon, choose `color non-existing color´, and click `OK´.

In fact, if the background color has the `draw behind other colors´ set, you can draw the text first, select the background color, and draw a rectangle over the text; the text will stay `above´ the background color.

 

[windracer]

@windracer: I added notebook name and path as tags, several users suggested that. I did not expect users to get disturbed by additional tags, I thought the more the better... In any case, I plan to allow customization of tags, so that you can opt-out for the notebook name and path and add custom tags.

If I'm the only one disturbed by it, I can live with it ... don't change it just for me. But if you're already planning on adding customizable tabs, cool.

 

[Dazo5]

Cannot write; trouble ahead

Hey Acadoid,
Long time happy user. Just recently though, I started getting "Cannot write to '....', trouble ahead". I'm able to op;en my previous Notebooks, but I can't create any new ones, nor add pages, nor save any work that I do.

I checked the sd card and I'm still able to navigate through it and call files from it. I have about 30GB left on it too. I restarted the program and the Note 10.1 (2014) but it still doesn't work.

Any help on this? Thanks in advance.

 

[acadoid]

@Dazo5: Is the data on the internal or external SD card? Which Android version are you using?

 

[wingsandfloats]

KitKat issues

@Dazo5: Is the data on the internal or external SD card? Which Android version are you using?

Hi Acadoid, I first want to thank you. I've been a very happy user of LectureNotes since I decided to go paperless for school this fall.

Dazo5 must be using KitKat and an external SD card. I just upgraded my Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition to KitKat last night and have been fighting with this "Cannot write to..." issue ever since. My conclusion, unfortunately, is that KitKat broke LectureNote's ability to use external SD cards for storage.

Here's what I've discovered:

1) While my LectureNotes App directory was pointing to the original location (pre-KitKat) on my SD card, I was able to view my notebooks but unable to create new notebooks or modify old ones. This makes sense since KitKat's new SD card rules allow LectureNotes read access across the SD card, but constrains write access to /Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes.

2) After I decided to play by Google's new rules: I took my SD card out of the tablet (pain in the butt since it requires me to take the tablet out of its case), plugged it into my PC, and created the folder /Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes. I copied all of my notebooks to a subfolder I created (/my_data/AppStorage) under this folder and changed my LectureNotes setup to make this subfolder my new LectureNotes App directory. I relaunched LectureNotes and was now able to create new notebooks and modify old ones. I thought I was home free.

3) Unfortunately, where LectureNotes remains broken is that I'm still unable to import a PDF as a new notebook. I get an error stating "Cannot write PNG file". This is a big problem for me since I use LectureNotes to make annotations on school lecture powerpoints that I've converted to PDF (tangent feature request: direct import to LectureNotes from PPT would be amazing!). Anyway, I understand why this is happening: LectureNotes uses PDFView to do conversions, and since PDFView is a different application than LectureNotes, it does not have direct write access to the /Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes folder per the new KitKat rules. An idea: maybe you can modify the import process so that PDFView writes the .PNG files to a setup-defined shared folder on internal storage (I don't know what the future holds, but as of KitKat, internal storage isn't constrained the way external SD storage is) and LectureNotes could then copy the .PNG files to its own application directory and cleanup the temporary files when its done.

So, unless I'm missing something, it appears that the disconnect in folder security between PDFView and LectureNotes breaks the practical ability to use external SD cards with the current version of LectureNotes (at least the ability to annotate existing PDFs, which I think is the most important feature of the app). I have over 10gb of notebooks so far, so completely moving my current App directory to internal storage (I have a 16gb tablet) is not an option. For the time being, as a workaround, I'm going to point LectureNotes at internal storage and copy my most recent notebooks to that location. This is definitely not ideal as a long term solution as I won't easily have access to my older notebooks and I'll need to manually archive notebooks to the SD card as time goes by. I consider myself a power user and I'm not sure if your other LectureNotes users would be as comfortable navigating these types of workarounds.

Finally, I realize that I can root my device and make all of these problems go away. I'd prefer not to do so, because up until now there hasn't been a compelling reason to do so and I'd prefer to keep my tablet's warranty intact.

Thanks again for all of your efforts with LectureNotes. It really is a best in class app. Its unfortunate that Google changed the storage rules with KitKat and that this is having an impact on LectureNotes.

 

[acadoid]

@wingsandfloats: Google has revised its policy concerning external SD card in Android KITKAT, apps can no longer write on the external SD card as before (see for instance http://beranger.org/2014/01/30/how-kitkat-4-4-killed-android-and-google-keeps-screwing-things/). To create an app standard path on the external SD card might help for LectureNotes itself, but it seems that PDFView is not allowed to write there (which is not a problem on the internal SD card), which breaks PDF import.

To change PDF import such that PDFView writes into its own app directory and LectureNotes reads from there is an interesting idea. However, this requires a two-way communication, which is somewhat more complicated than the present arrangement. I anyway plan to revise the communication between LectureNotes and PDFView using AShMem (which will avoid writing files altogether) in mid-term, I will give that a higher priority.

In the meanwhile, the only working solution is to set LectureNotes' app directory to the internal SD card or root the device, I am sorry.

 

[beginner]

Back color when export to Evernote is missing

If I'm the only one disturbed by it, I can live with it ... don't change it just for me. But if you're already planning on adding customizable tabs, cool.

I have same issue.... I cannot read notes exported to Evernote...

 

[wingsandfloats]

Layers on import

@acadoid: Thanks for your reply. For now, I'll just manage by using internal storage and archiving when space is needed. Hopefully it won't take too long before external SD card storage becomes a practical option again.

Also, I just noticed the options for automatically creating new layers on importing PDFs. Thats really convenient. I did notice though that if I set the option to import into layer 1, create layer 2, and work in layer 2, that when I start to annotate in layer 2, my annotations "disappear" right after I make them. It turns out that "Display layer 2" isn't set by default even though work on layer 2 has been selected. Just wanted to bring that to your attention. Am I missing a setting?

 

[acadoid]

@beginner: If you do not include paper color into the Evernote export (cf. the app's export settings), the bitmaps are transparent. If you write in black and the bitmap gets display on a black background, you will not see your notes.
@wingsandfloats: You are right, many thanks for pointing out this problem to me. Starting with v2.4.10, LectureNotes remembers the visible layers when you close a notebook and restores this state when you open the notebook again; previously, all existing layers got displayed when opening a notebook. A manually added layer gets included into the set of display layers, but it seems that there are scenarios in which an automatically added working layer does not get included; I will fix that in the next update.

 

[beginner]

how to sync

@beginner: If you do not include paper color into the Evernote export (cf. the app's export settings), the bitmaps are transparent. If you write in black and the bitmap gets display on a black background, you will not see your notes.

@wingsandfloats: You are right, many thanks for pointing out this problem to me. Starting with v2.4.10, LectureNotes remembers the visible layers when you close a notebook and restores this state when you open the notebook again; previously, all existing layers got displayed when opening a notebook. A manually added layer gets included into the set of display layers, but it seems that there are scenarios in which an automatically added working layer does not get included; I will fix that in the next update.

Just other point, I am using Lecture Notes in 2 devices. Do you recomend some way to syncr between both without troubles? Certain times, if the document is not totally closed in one device, the sync cand destroy the last release -if you modificate both devices same document.
I am starting to use for that function Evernote but not really happy because introduce aditional complexity in the process.

 

[acadoid]

@beginner: I recommend to ensure that a given notebook is closed on one device before opening it on the other; not doing that will cause troubles however you perform the syncing.

 

[acadoid]

@wingsandfloats: Have you also tried to place LectureNotes' app directory on the external SD card on ${EXTSDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes/files/ (note the folder `files´ at the end)? I am asking this since the standard path on the internal SD card is ${SDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes/files/, and I am wondering whether the inability of PDFView writing the PNG files is due to the missing folder `files´.

 

[Chinaboy5216]

Removed, problem solved

Sent from my SM-N9008V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

 

[wingsandfloats]

@wingsandfloats: Have you also tried to place LectureNotes' app directory on the external SD card on ${EXTSDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes/files/ (note the folder `files´ at the end)? I am asking this since the standard path on the internal SD card is ${SDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.lecturenotes/files/, and I am wondering whether the inability of PDFView writing the PNG files is due to the missing folder `files´.

@acadoid: I just tried moving the app directory to subdirectory /files and that didn't work either. I think the problem is that PDFView and LectureNotes are separate applications and that KitKat now prevents PDFView from writing to any external SD card location other than under ${EXTSDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.pdfview.

 

[beginner]

@acadoid:

Sorry if this is my mistake on how to manage LectureNotes,

Should be possible to show the folders and schema of included notes files for each one instead the large picture, when you open the Lecture Notes application? uff, my english, I desire you understand what I mean. I am asking in other words for a way to see your whole list of folders and notes as a tree.

Thanks a lot.

 

[wingsandfloats]

@acadoid: I just tried moving the app directory to subdirectory /files and that didn't work either. I think the problem is that PDFView and LectureNotes are separate applications and that KitKat now prevents PDFView from writing to any external SD card location other than under ${EXTSDCARD}/Android/data/com.acadoid.pdfview.

@acadoid: I'm not sure what your reasons were for splitting PDFView into its own separate application, but the observed behavior suggests that you could make LectureNotes compatible with external SD cards on KitKat by including the PDFView classes within the LectureNotes application and invoking them directly, rather than through the app-to-app communication that is currently implemented. I know you mentioned that you were already thinking about rewriting the PDF conversion to use AshMem, but this might be a less complicated interim strategy? Just an idea, I don't mean to be over-stepping my bounds .

 

[acadoid]

@beginner: There is an ultra-compact notebooks board representation which has an option `display as tree´, cf. notebooks board appearance in the app's display settings.
@wingsandfloats: PDFView is a separate app for legal reasons.

 

[Chinaboy5216]

Hi Acadoid, a question on the Amazon store. I got the latest update from Google play instantly though through Amazon it always takes 2 to 3 days later to receive it. Any reason for this delay? The app still gets better and better, i use your app daily on tablet and Note 3. Just amazing!!!
Thanks for this!!

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app