Pickel -- Note-taking Program - written in C++

I have been using KNotes mostly to manage my notes, but i needed something more organized due to the amount of notes i have. I know there's KJots, and it's pretty much what i'm looking for, but it has a similar note-storing theory as KNotes which i'm not interested in. And since i wanted to practice more Python and get into PyQt4, i decided to code my own note-taking program. Though a slightly bigger learning curve than PyGtk, i found PyQt4 to be quite convenient in many areas. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This work has only been tested under Linux, but should be able to work under Windows and other operating systems with the proper dependencies installed. This program is still in its early stages but can perform basic note-taking actions. All features currently not implemented the actions for them have been disabled.

As of version 1.0.0, PicKel is no longer written in Python and it is no longer under the CC-NC-SA license.

Required dependencies:

• Qt4 (C++) (Makes use of QtCore, QtGUI and QtXML)

PicKel Project Page

Visit the project page to find out how to download the C++ source code with subversion. I will soon be releasing archives of the source code. If i can get my hands on a Windows (XP) installation, then i'll try to provide an already compiled executable for Windows. This program has been tested under Linux and Windows 7. It has not been thoroughly tested, however, under Windows 7, but for what has been tested you shouldn't have any problems with general use. Since the Qt4 library works with all major operating systems, this can also be used under the Mac OS.

Please report any bugs to the issues section of the project page.

To provide a screenshot of the program:


To compile under Unix like systems, you must cd into the directory where it has been downloaded to and run:

After it is done compiling, the executable should be found under the build directory from where it was built. There is currently no install script or desktop file, so running the program will require digging to the build directory or if you're on Windows, making a desktop shortcut.

 

 

 

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Nice find, I'll be checking this out later. Just based on the screen shot it looks pretty impressive already. If it loads as fast as Microsoft Notepad and is as easy to use as Microsoft Notepad, it will defiantly be my most favourite program.

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This looks pretty good for notes but what would make it better than, say, Openoffice? Can you do things like bookmark things, highlight, etc. with this program as well?

It looks pretty good from the organization standpoint as you could do one 'note' per day or whatever and then keep everything organized like that.

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Highlight and text color will be implemented once i implement a color wheel widget. Different fonts and text sizes will be implemented later along with other text styles. Currently i'm trying to figure out how to dock the program into the system tray, where you can right click and get a list of all the notes you have. Clicking on a note there would (will) pop up the program with that note selected. Another future plan for the script is when you click on a category in the list, you'll see in the right side basically an overview of what's in that category, like in KJots. The bookmark idea, i don't really understand the concept or its purpose concerning notes.

As for what makes it better than OpenOffice: smaller file size, shorter compilation time—if any (especially if you use a distro that comes with KDE4 as its default DE; most distros already bring Python installed)—less resource hungery, and what-not. Also, i would say OpenOffice is a bit over the top for simple note-taking. I would say a better comparison with my program would be with KJots. If i'm not mistaken, KJots requires the KDE libraries to be installed, where mine doesn't and i'm trying to avoid using any KDE-specific widgets. Unfortunately that is the only apparent advantage my program has over KJots.

 

 

 

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Any success running this in Ubuntu Hardy Heron that you are aware of?
Are those dependencies part of a fairly typical default Install?
If not, are they difficult to track-down and have installed? (Linux Noobie)

Any chance you can post up a method for installing this? Assume I have a copy of the Zip file on my desktop. Thanks.

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Python should already be installed by default. In Kubuntu 8.10 (since they're defaulting to KDE4), Qt4 should be installed by default. But to install most of the dependencies required for this program, just install the package "python-qt4."
Then you'll have to download the latest version of SIP and install that. To install it, extract the archive, open the terminal in the extracted folder, and type in
That should make the program work.

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Thanks a lot for the reply about this! It does seem to be pretty good. I didn't notice that you were the one who made it, which is actually pretty good with you asking for input about it. It shows that you want it to improve.

As for the bookmarks, they are for...Let's say you take an hour of notes in a class, that takes up around 3-4 pages. Bookmarks would allow you to separate it based on subject or whatever, after the fact. This way you could spend your class time doing the typing and then organize it afterwards. It would be somewhat like an anchor in html I guess.

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I like it, it is simple and user friendly, but i will not trade it for the using notezilla, notezilla is much more complete for me, for what i what i need and for what i want sometimes, so thanks anyway.

Thanks for sharing though.

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Hmm.. looks pretty good and useful. I will check this out when I have time, though.

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I've released a newer version of PicKel—version 0.9. It contains more rich text support, system tray icon with its own context menu, etc. Although bullet items is not yet possible via a push button or from the Format menu, you can initiate one by attempting to insert an asterik (*). Concerning SIP and Ubuntu, Ubuntu 8.10 has a more up-to-date version of SIP, therefore you don't need to compile SIP yourself in order to use this program in Ubuntu 8.10.

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