MessageNotes ver 0.1.0 (for TB) released ( OK for TB 1.0.6 )

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » July 24th, 2005, 3:51 pm

The message notes extension allows a user to link notes to messages

Notes are stored in a plaintext file, ( defaults to msgNotes.txt in your profile ). The plaintext notes file can be stored elsewhere to enable sharing of notes across a network.. ( path to is in the options box )

The notes you add will appear in a box below the message pane.. That 'notes pane' can be configured to be visible all the time, none of the time, or only when a note is present..

New features in this version include

1) context menu for the notes box that includes
..show/hide notes box ( shift-F9 )
..add note (ctrl-F9 ) (single line note mode only)
..edit note (shift-ctrl-F9) (single line note mode only)
..delete note
..search (ctrl-F3)
..search Next (shift-ctrl-F3)
..Clear all orphaned notes ( see below )

2) 'Notes' subcontext menu on the thread pane that includes
..show/hide notes box
..add note
..search
..search Next

3) menu in edit...find... that includes
..find messages with note
..find next message with note

4) search facility to search for messages whose notes match a regular expression.. first match will be autoselected

5) search next to autoselect the next message that matches that regexp
.. search next will wrap around to select the first matching message when nexting off the last match

6) You can 'remove orphaned notes' by right clicking on the note pane and selecting 'Clear all orphaned notes'.. this will , *for every note*, attempt to find at least one message that has the messageId of the note.. If no message can be found, the note is automatically removed..
( all folders in all accounts are checked )

7) Notes can be displayed either in single line mode or multiline mode.. ( set by option )
.. single line mode means that you will need to click add note, edit note etc.
.. multiline mode means that *if* a note already exists, you can just start typing in the note and changes will be saved
.. if in multiline mode and 'notes pane' is visible 'always' then you can just start typing in the note and changes will be saved
... in multiline mode, and 'notes pane' is set to 'never' you will still need to either click the Add Note button on the header pane or right click on a message in the thread pane.. go to the Notes submenu and click add

8 ) Add/Edit buttons can be hidden ( set by option )
... These are only useful when notes are in 'single line mode' ( that is why the option is disabled when using multiline mode )

9) *Message Highlighting* .. ( select some of the message's text, then use the context menu on the note box to 'set Highlight' which persists )
.. highlight a block of text in the message pane, then in the messagePane context Menu, in Notes.. click 'Set Highlight'
... If the selected text gets highlighted in yellow, you are set..
... You can select another block of text to have multiple highlighting
... To no longer highlight a block of text, select that hightlighted block ( NO MORE NO LESS ) and in the messagePane context Menu, in Notes.. click 'Remove Highlight'

get it from www.supportware.net/mozilla/MsgNotes.xpi

doeddeldom · Post by **doeddeldom** » July 29th, 2005, 10:46 am

Wow, great work. I installed it on some computers an most people like it.

But there seems to be one big problem, every tester reported to me: They cant delete an Note. I tried it myself and i dont get it. Maybe you can enlighten me

Also some wanted to highlight not only one part of the text, but i told them it is called "Set Highlight" and not "highlights"...

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » July 29th, 2005, 2:52 pm

doeddeldom,

You were right.. It was a bug..

Get the fixed version ( 0.0.10 ) here > www.supportware.net/mozilla/MessageNotes.xpi (remember to refresh your browser first )

Regarding multiple highlights.. Its a bit difficult to implement, but I will try to add this ability in the next version..
The one stumbing block is how to remove 1 of X highlights..

doeddeldom · Post by **doeddeldom** » July 30th, 2005, 2:52 am

OK, will intall this on Monday a give you feedback. About the removal of Highlights: Maybe you can add an GUI with toggles the single highlights and let the user choose to delete the actual shown. Just an idea ...

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » July 30th, 2005, 7:13 am

ausdilecce wrote:Get the fixed version ( 0.0.10 ) here > www.supportware.net/mozilla/MessageNotes.xpi (remember to refresh your browser first )

I think this link should be http://www.supportware.net/mozilla/MsgNotes.xpi

Great new features -- especially the mult-line notes. Very nice!

Suggestions/requests:
* If the user has "multi-line" and "always" display both selected, put an "Add note" button in the Notes box when it's empty. This will make it easier to add a note, since right-clicking won't be necessary.
* Add instructions on how to move msgNotes.txt (via prefs.js edit or whatever).
* Apparently the Add/Edit buttons only come into play when you're using the single-line mode, yes? If so, maybe you could disable that tickbox for the Add/Edit buttons when multi-line is ticked.

Issues:
* The first time I tried using v. 0.0.10 it was acting weird. E.g., I created a multi-line note for one message but that same note was always displayed for every message. Eventually it started working OK (I changed various settings, restarted TB), but something was definitely not right there for a while. EDIT: not 100% sure, but this seems to happen when it's set to use single-line notes but not multi-line notes.
* If you use single-line mode and enter 2 notes for a message and then switch to multi-line mode, funny things happen with notes display for that message.
* At one point, I was no longer able to use the Notes menu when right-clicking in the Notes box. The menu just wouldn't expand for some reason. I restarted TB and and that fixed it.
* Highlighting doesn't persist with Japanese text. Probably not a show-stopper for most people, of course. :wink:

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » July 30th, 2005, 11:54 pm

Yes, sorry.. it should be http://www.supportware.net/mozilla/MsgNotes.xpi, thanks wintogreen..

Re: "multi-line" and "always".. yes addnote button should appear in the box.. will fix
Re: instuctions on how to move msgNotes.txt.. I think I will put a FAQ tab in the settings box for these instructions and other things.. will fix
Re: Add/Edit buttons & multiline mode.. yea, the checkbox in the settings box should be disabled if multiline is selected.. will fix

Issue 1: odd.. too bad you could not figure out a pattern to it.. I will look through the code for anything that might have caused that..

Issue 2: can you be more specific wrt funny things "happen with notes display" ?
... what *should* happen ( and WFM ) is that you will get one textbox ( as opposed to listitem ) PER note.. Each note will then be multiline..

Issue 3: Can you pinpoint what it was that caused it ? Can you reproduce ? If it happens again, please tell give me as much info about it as poss..

Issue 4: Would be nice if hightlighting *did* persist with other character sets....will check

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » July 31st, 2005, 2:29 am

ausdilecce wrote:Issue 1: odd.. too bad you could not figure out a pattern to it.. I will look through the code for anything that might have caused that..

This turns out to be reproducible for me if I go into options and tick "Always", "Show Add/Edit Buttons" and "Use Single Line Notes". Now, when I click on a message with a note, it displays properly, but when I click on another message withOUT a note, the previous note keeps on being displayed instead of becoming hidden. If I use mutli-line mode it doesn't happen, and restarting TB doesn't fix it.

ausdilecce wrote:Issue 2: can you be more specific wrt funny things "happen with notes display" ?
... what *should* happen ( and WFM ) is that you will get one textbox ( as opposed to listitem ) PER note.. Each note will then be multiline..

I just tried again by using single-line mode and creating 3 notes for one message, and here's what I'm seeing.
1. When I switch to multi-line mode, all 3 notes appear but each is enclosed in its own little box with a border.
2. Still in multi-line mode, I can edit the 1st (topmost) note and it saves with no problems. If I try to edit the 2nd or 3rd notes, the text I enter in either of those boxes replaces the text shown in the first box. (Guess that's not a display problem, exactly.)

ausdilecce wrote:Issue 3: Can you pinpoint what it was that caused it ? Can you reproduce ? If it happens again, please tell give me as much info about it as poss..

At the time, I was trying out highlighting (probably with Japanese-only messages), but I don't know if that's what triggered it. I can't reproduce it and it only happened that one time.

ausdilecce wrote:Issue 4: Would be nice if hightlighting *did* persist with other character sets....will check

With Japanese, what seems to happen is that the highlighted text doesn't match the text that gets written into msgNotes.txt. E.g., if the highlighted text is "LANシステム導入のため", what gets written into the .txt file is gobbledygook like "LANｷｹﾆ・en_・".

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » July 31st, 2005, 2:57 pm

Thanks so much for the verbose debugging wintogreen.. I will attempt to sort these issues out today..

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » July 31st, 2005, 5:16 pm

Thank you for the extension!

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » July 31st, 2005, 9:20 pm

Version 0.0.11 is released.. changes include

When "multi-line" and "always" are selected, the extension will just have a blank textbox.. if you add any text, it will be saved..

The extension now has a pref in the settings box for location of the notes.txt file.. with terse instructions

'Show Add/Edit buttons' setting is disabled if 'Use single line notes is UNticked'

Multiple highlights are now supported,
... for each block of text selected, right click and choose notes>set highlight
... if you want to remove some highlighted text, select the highlighted block you want to remove ( NO MORE AND NO LESS ) and choose ......notes>remove highlight

Extension is now fully localized

Bugfix for issue 1 discussed above
Bugfix for issue 2 discussed above
Bugfix for issue 4 discussed above.. 'other' character sets are now supported

Get it from http://www.supportware.net/mozilla/MsgNotes.xpi

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » July 31st, 2005, 11:25 pm

Hmm, this one isn't functional at all for me. At the bottom of the main TB window there's a 2cm high panel with some stray code in red letters ("<button id='msgNotesToggleButton'..."), and in Tools > Options I get an "XML Parsing Error" message. Tried with a new profile but it's the same.

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 1st, 2005, 12:01 am

Its a locale issue..

What locale are you using ?

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » August 1st, 2005, 2:42 am

What do you mean exactly?

hansen · Post by **hansen** » August 1st, 2005, 4:04 am

Are you using a Japanese Thunderbird?

wintogreen · Post by **wintogreen** » August 1st, 2005, 4:31 am

No, I'm using the English 1.05 milestone, but on Japanese WinXP (with all the default Japanese language/region settings).