NoteSets Tutorial

1. Introduction

NoteSets is a simple note-taking application that allows formatting of text, creation of note sets, saving and loading note sets, exporting individual notes or the whole note sets. By creating different note sets, the user can essentially group different notes together.

2. Taking New Notes

On startup, NoteSets contains two empty panels. To start taking notes, select New from the Note Set menu to create a new note set. An editor will then appear in the right panel, and the application title bar will change to NoteSets - Untitled - New. You can now begin writing your first note. Once you have finished writing, press the Add As New Note button at the bottom right, and the current note will be added to the Note Set View in the left panel. The Note Set View shows you all the notes you created thus far, along with the date and time of their creation, and a preview text showing the first 120 characters of the note. The list is sorted in chronological order, hence the latest note will appear at the bottom of the list.

3. Viewing Notes

To view a previously created note, select it from the list and its content will be displayed in the editor. To write a new note when viewing an older note, delete all the text from the editor and you can start writing the new note. The notes are stored in the Note Set View, not in the editor, clearing the editor thus will not delete stored notes.
Both the editor and the Note Set View allow resizing for easier writing or preview. To do so, simply drag the middle divider left or right.

4. Editing Earlier Notes

To edit a previously created note, select it from the list and edit its content in the editor. Once finished editing, click the Add As New Note button to add the edited version to the list. The original version can be deleted if it is no longer needed.

5. Deleting Notes

To delete an existing note, select it from the list, then click the Delete Selected Note button on the bottom left. You will be greeted with a confirmation prompt showing the preview of the selected note. Click OK the the selected note will be removed from the list.

6. Saving Notes

All changes made to a note set, i.e. new notes, edits, and deletions, will be lost on exit if remained unsaved.
To save the current note set, select Save or Save As from the Note Set menu. The current note set will then be saved as a single .noteset file.
To prevent any data loss, if changes to the current note set were detected, you will be greeted a save reminder prompt before creating a new empty note set, loading another existing .noteset file, or exiting the application. If the editor is not empty, NoteSets will also prompt you to add its contents to the current note set before creating a new empty note set, loading an existing note set, exporting all notes, or exiting the application. If the editor is merely showing an earlier note that is already the current note set, you can safely ignore this prompt.

7. Loading Notes

To load an existing note set, select Load from the Note Set menu, and choose your desired .noteset file from the file chooser. Once the note set has been successfully loaded, the title bar will change to NoteSets - <noteset_file_name>. For example, NoteSets - lorem_ipsum.noteset if the file lorem_ipsum.noteset has been loaded.

8. Title Bar Status

The title bar also acts as a status bar that indicates the current status of the current note set.
NoteSets — The default title bar shown on startup.
NoteSets - Untitled - New — Signifying a new empty note set has been created.
NoteSets - <noteset_file_name> — Signifying the currently opened note set file.
NoteSets - <noteset_file_name> - Edited — Signifying unsaved changes (new note, and/or, note deletion) has been made to the current note set file. If the current note set is a new, unsaved note set, "Untitled" would be displayed instead of the filename.
NoteSets - <noteset_file_name> - Saved — Signifying the changes has been successfully saved to the indicated note set file.

9. Exporting Notes

For greater note portability, you can export individual notes or the whole note set.
To export a selected note, first select it from the Note Set View, then select Export Selected from the Export menu. You will then be prompted with a message notifying "Exporting, please wait until a success message is shown". During the wait please avoid editing, adding or deleting notes, creating, loading or saving note set, and exiting the application, to prevent errors.
Once the export is successful, you will be prompted with the success message and your selected note has been exported to a .html file, preserving your text formatting. To export the whole note set, select Export All from the Export menu.
You will then be prompted with a message notifying "Exporting, please wait until a success message is shown". During the wait please avoid editing, adding or deleting notes, creating, loading or saving note set, and exiting the application, to prevent errors.
Once the export is successful, you will be prompted with the success message and the current note set has been exported as a .zip file containing all the individual notes as .html files. The .html files are named according to this format: <number>_<date>_<time>.html , whereas:
number is the note number of this note. If it is the first note of the note set, its number is 0; if it is the second note of the note set, its number is 1, etc.
date is the date of creation of this individual note, formatted in dd-mm-yyyy.
time is the time of creation of this individual note, formatted in hh-mm-ss.