ScrapBook for Palm OS

About ScrapBook

Introduction
ScrapBook is a note-takingapplication, featuring enhanced organizational and search capabilitiesthat help you manage a large collection of notes. ScrapBook alsosupports encryption (using the DES algorithm), to let you keep selectednotes private.

You can organize your notes using nested folders (as many as you need,nested as deeply as you need), as well asby using standard Palm OS "categories".  Also, you can assign alist of keywords to a note, and find notes by searching for one or morekeywords.

ScrapBook can search its database for multiple words at once (or,optionally, even multiple strings at once), searching keywords, titles,and (optionally) fullmessage texts.  This includes the ability to search the messagetext of encrypted notes (in which case, ScrapBook will decrypt noteson the fly during the search, prompting for passwords as needed, butonly when necessary). Search results aresorted so that the best matches are presented first.

ScrapBook can exchange notes, in both directions, with the built-inMemos or Memo Pad application. This also provides a path for exchangingScrapBook notes and text files on the PC.

ScrapBook is shareware with a 30-day trial period; it becomes fullyfunctional when registered.

Applications
ScrapBook was designed as a generalpurpose tool, so that its capabilities can easily be applied in avariety of situations. Some examples of ways to use ScrapBook include:

• Secure management of passwords, PINs, and other secret data
• Keeping a private daily journal or diary
• A safe notebook for personal information
• General purpose knowledge base with high speed search
• Editing long lists (given support for large notes and forward& backward searching within a note)

Nested Folders
ScrapBook lets you organize your notesin a hierarchical collection of folders, in which a folder can containother folders, with no limit imposed on the depth of the nesting thatyou use.  A simple "Folders" form lets you navigate quicklythrough the hierarchy.  You can restructure the folders and movenotes from one folder to another using Cut and Paste operations.

You can continue to organize notes using "categories" (to carry overthe organization when notes are imported from Memos) even as the notesare assigned tofolders (these two methods of organizing your notes can co-exist).

Multiple Keyword Search
ScrapBook's primary search feature isthe multiple-keyword search.  The word or words used in a note'stitle areconsidered to be searchable keywords.  Optionally, you can listadditional keywords after the note's title.

A keyword search can search for one ormore keywords.  It is possible that several matching notes will befound.  The best matches are those notes which matched the largestnumber of keywords, so these appear first in the forms that let youbrowse through the results of a search.

An internal cross-reference (which cross-references known keywords withthe notes that use them) provides two kinds of speed improvement:

• Keyword Autocompletion: when specifying a keyword you want tosearch for, you only need to enter enough letters for ScrapBook torecognize it correctly (ScrapBook fills in a guess for all theremaining letters so you can see when the recognition is correct).
• Direct lookup of matching notes - without needing to take thetime to perform a text-based search!  Keyword searches are veryfast, even on older devices with slow processors.

Additional Search Features

• Multiple String Search - similar to a keyword search, except thatit alsosearches the message text of the notes. Optionally, the message textof encrypted notes can be included in this kind of a search. (This searchmode does not use the internal cross-reference.)
• Global Find - ScrapBook supports the Palm OS® Global Findfeature.
• Find String - perform forward or backward searches to findoccurrences of a string within the text of the current note.

Additional Features

• You can choose which notes to encrypt (using the DES encryptionalgorithm), and what password to use for each encrypted note.
• Remembers passwords in use during the current session so thatdecryption attempts often don't need to prompt for a password (thismemory is cleared as soon as you leave ScrapBook or power down thehandheld).
  
• Import / Export notes from (or to) the built-in "Memos" or "MemoPad"application (which provides a path for exchanging notes with the PC)
  
• ScrapBook's data is automatically backed up to the PC duringHotSync to guard against data loss in case the handheld device is lostor damaged or loses data due to low batteries, etc. The PC's copyof the data can be used to restore ScrapBook data onto a handhelddevice (the original handheld device or a replacement).
• Supports Palm OS® "categories"
• Can list notes, sorting by:

Creation date

Modification date

Title (alphabetical order)

Number of folders the note is linked to (0 or 1)

Message size

(default ordering, by ID number - optimizes lookup speed)

ScrapBook's Forms

• Folders - create and manage folders, and notes within thosefolders
  
• Edit - edit a note's message and its title/keywords, and selectwhether or not to encrypt the note
• Search - compose a list of keywords or strings that you want tosearch for
• Browse - view the notes (one at a time) that matched the mostrecent search
• BrowseList - view a list of the titles of the notes that matchedthe most recent search (then tap on a title to edit the note)
  
• List - list all notes in a particular Palm OS® category (orin all categories)
• Import/Export - exchange notes with the built-in "Memos" or "MemoPad"application

User Manual
The download file includes a completeuser manual.

New in version 1.13a

• Fixed the problem encountered when importing notes larger than 4kbytes from Memos (note - this problem did not occur if you wereimporting from the older program Memo Pad).
  
• Added a new menu option in the Folders form, Add Search Results,to help you quickly populate a folder using the results of a search.