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Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

 

Two things are happening.  First, Shu responded to you and updated his Favorites addin.  In his words, here is the update:

 

I just implemented a new version (1.6.1) of the OneNote Favorites AddIn based on some of the valuable blog feedback.

 

The new updates are:

1. OneNote Favorites Center become modeless dialog, and you can switch multiple favorite pages very fast.

2. Accessibility improved. You can add favorites and access OneNote Favorites Center by keyboard. The shortcuts for Add OneNote Favorite is "CTRL + ALT + D"; and for OneNote Favorites Center is "CTRL + ALT + I". (but due to the add-in framework of OneNote, the add-in will delay load for 10-20 seconds. so those shortcuts won't be enabled until the add-in got loaded.)

3. UI improvement: XP/Vista theme.

4. Fixed the bug: some of the status (treeview/listview, expand/collapse, pin) cannot be saved automatically.

 

Excellent work!  Thanks, Shu.  I uploaded the new install files at

http://johnguin.members.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/ON_Favorites_Page.zip

 

Update: the downloaded file will be at http://blogs.msdn.com/johnguin/archive/2008/09/11/onenote-favorites-updated-with-user-requested-feature.aspx.  Looks like the original file got lost when the server was upgraded.

 

Second, it "develop a test matrix" time again in OneNote.  We try to mirror real world usage of OneNote in our persona and dogfood testing.  One of the less glamorous tasks facing testers is to ensure we get all possible configurations in use covered.  For the specific task on my plate, I have to develop a spreadsheet to track where each team member will store her personal notebooks (unshared notebooks) for the future.  It's a relatively straightforward task once the list of places to store notebooks is created and prioritized.  Obviously, notebooks stored on a local drive are easy to test and represent the vast majority of use.  We can't stop there.  We will test with USB devices, NAS servers, SharePoint, LAMP, Windows Home Server (yes, we need to get that problem fixed) and so on.   Once that is done, I will develop the matrix and assign team members different configurations to use to store their notebooks.  This way, we will get a different type of testing completed when compared to automated testing.

 

We will also rotate the configurations on a schedule to fit new configurations into the mix.  Planning this far out, and trying to predict what new technologies will be available is a different side of testing than some people expect. 

 

So, what configurations do YOU use to store your notebooks? 

 

Questions, concerns, comments and criticism always welcome,

John

Published Thursday, March 20, 2008 7:21 AM by JohnGuin

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# MSDN Blog Postings » Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

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Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:41 PM by MSDN Blog Postings » Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

Thanks for the update. Glad to see the keyboard shortcuts.

I use OneNote on both a desktop and a laptop PC. And I use FolderShare to quickly sync the notebooks. This works great for me so far.

I have also used notebooks stored on an USB stick, but I found this not to be reliable (and also had to be encrypted to prevent data theft).

FolderShare is great because it encrypts the transfers so I can sync and have my data with me wherever I have WiFi.

Thursday, March 20, 2008 1:49 PM by Daniel

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

A couple of additions:

It would be great to see the ability to integrate OneNote Notebooks with Groove and/or Office Live. Just saying...

Don't forget that some out there use SD cards instead of USB drives to store notebooks.

And one thing that you may not realize: There is a segment of rapidly growing "snow birds" using OneNote. For these people, having everything on a removable drive of some kind is imperative. They don't share between users, they share between two machines in different locations. In this case, the users may go months without syncing. I know you can't actually test across months, but there should be a way to create a test that simulates it. Ping me if you need more details.

Thursday, March 20, 2008 2:24 PM by Kathy Jacobs

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update: bug report

Hi, Thanks for the updated powertoy.

However, it crashes in the following situation: add a notebook to the favorites (as a notebook), close the notebook, try to open the notebook from the favorites center (it is listed under 'Wild Favorites'): onenote favorites addin crashes (onaddinfavcenter.exe disappears from the task manager), but Onenote actually loads and shows the notebook. However, Onenote does not quit anymore (task manager is needed to kill onenote and onaddinfavadd.exe)!

Besides that, the treeview does not show the sections (the default view) when the center is opened for the first time, but only after switching to section group or notebook and then back to sections.

Hope you have the time to look into these!

Thanks.

Sunday, March 23, 2008 7:02 AM by Paul

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

The bug was introduced when I changed the Favorites Center dialog to modeless. I've fixed it and create a new version - 1.6.2.

As for the default view issue, I've changed the design to remember the current view for next time you open the OneNote Favorites Center.

BTW, I also found that XP/Vista theme actually doesn't work in the version 1.6.1. But this has also been fixed in 1.6.2.

Thanks for using the add-in and providing the great feedbacks!

Sunday, March 23, 2008 1:41 PM by shuchen

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

I updated the download today (3/24/08).

John

Monday, March 24, 2008 10:50 AM by JohnGuin

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

John,

Thanks for the continually informative posts!  We are loving OneNote at the educational level for teachers.  It really has helped with information organization and our communication with different departments.  

On our team, we are able to keep a record of information that has been "discussed" already.  This helps us to be effective with how we are dealing with issues and keeping the office up to date with items of importance.  We can really focus on accomplishing things!  With my less technical teammates, it is nothing to hear them say, "Oh, I already 'onenoted' it."  This is mentioned about a parent e-mail, office e-mail or something that needed to be scanned and stored on a student.  It really is a need transformation!

At school we have Network Shared Drives, which is how we are keeping our Notebooks synched across the teams.  What I would love is the ability to use some method in the "cloud" to synch OneNote at home with my wife, etc.  We don't have any type of networked running at home and I can set something up where I can upload the notebook files, etc. and keep them current that way.  But I would love something that is more seamless than that.  My wife is in Real Estate and I am trying to work on showing her how to use it for work.  Mainly, the use would be to keep the information for my daughter together.  She has brittle bone disease and has TONS of papers from the hospitals and doctors.  We have pdf files that we keep on the computers and Micro SD cards for our Palm Treo's, but I would love to be able to have everything on OneNote and have it synch without thinking of it.

I hope that explanation was clear!

Thanks for all you continue to do!

Monday, March 24, 2008 4:57 PM by Eric Verno

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

Hi Shu,

Great work on the upadate !! thanks.

I don't know if you are working on more improvements for the Favorites Powertoy but here is a suggestion I have

An ability to group favorites by user tag names. This way you create groups of favorites across multiple notebooks/ sections :). This can then be used to group together pages from different sections/notebooks.

To Eric:

  In case you can't get some "cloud" method working, you should look into USB Flash Drive synchronization. It works pretty well for me.

Thursday, March 27, 2008 2:40 AM by Anirudh Saraf

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

Anirudh, good comments, I will consider it in the next version.

Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:25 AM by shuchen

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

Hi Shu,

I was just thinking about implementing that tagging feature on my TreeView Control before realizing that the feature is in a way redundant . If the user wants to create custom favorites with tags, he could use the OneNote tag feature, tag the title of the page, and call the Tags Summary to view the pages associated with that particular tag (I recently re-discovered the tagging feature after having dismissed it as a useless feature earlier;)). I think that would be way more powerful than you wasting time on doing this in the favorites powertoy. I think a blog article showing how to extend tags as a favorites powertoy is in order :)

Sunday, April 06, 2008 11:37 PM by Anirudh Saraf

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

I am very curious how you implemented the keyboard shortcuts for the Favorites Add-in. I am working on a couple of add-ins for use on my team and would very much like to enable keyboard shortcuts.

thanks for all of your blog posts on OneNote. As a passionate OneNote user, it is exciting to learn about OneNote from another perspective.

Sunday, July 20, 2008 8:21 PM by Ryan

# re: Favorites powertoy for OneNote update, and developing a test matrix

Ryan, as to the keyboard shortcuts, nothing fancy here, I just used the system hot keys. (so it still works even if you minimize the OneNote window.)

Firstly create a hidden window to listen to the WM_HOTKEY message. Then,

m_wFavCtrHotKey = ::GlobalFindAtom(_T("ONFAVADDIN_FAVCENTER_HOTKEY"));

if (!m_wFavCtrHotKey) m_wFavCtrHotKey = ::GlobalAddAtom(_T("ONFAVADDIN_FAVCENTER_HOTKEY"));

::RegisterHotKey(m_hWndHidden, m_wFavCtrHotKey, MOD_CONTROL | MOD_ALT, _T('I'));

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 3:58 AM by shuchen

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