A: First, a very brief comment about "notes" and stuff. Your notes go into "Stacks" and Stacks go into "Libraries". Although you should create backup copies of your Libraries, for 95% of users a single Library containing a handful of stacks will be all that is ever necessary. A Library can contain many Stacks and a Stack will generally contain many notes- perhaps a few dozen, but possibly a few thousand. A Stack may contain text "notes" and images, so the generic term for the things in a Stack is "Items", but don't worry about that. There is also a more thorough discussion of the storage system (pretty pictures, too) in a separate "Overview" FAQ. Now, on with the answer.

Creating a useful stack library takes place over time, becoming exponentially more valuable as it grows. Chances are, your library will grow very naturally over time as you type in or gather all sorts of tidbits and scraps of information. You might want to initially cut-and-paste address books and contact information, recipes, or even diary entries that you have scattered about already. In most cases you will want the individual entries to become individual notes in your stack and not combine them into larger notes. Usually a large number of small notes will be easier to maintain than fewer large notes, but you will likely have an assortment of every size.

One excellent use is to create daily "Daylog" entries that summarize events of the day (you can use the automatic date-stamp button to add the current date). Soon you will have a resource that will let you instantly find all the details of when and what happened regarding Aunt Martha just by searching your stack for all your notes containing the string "Aunt Martha". You can really impress the old gal when she calls and you quickly key "Aunt Martha" into the Frog search and all the Aunt Martha notes are instantly available for viewing. She will be impressed that you remember Mister Fluffy got barked at last week by that nasty dog next door. Remind her again about the importance of an up-to-date will, as you also discussed last time.

You can also simply cut sections from web pages or emails or any other source, including URLS (they will be clickable in NoteFrog™ and will open in a browser window) and paste the items into NoteFrog™ as new notes. The Frog even has an automatic clipboard-capture mode that makes the process incredibly simple (see the "Clip Capture" FAQ). You can browse the Net and create an entire catalogue of notes about any topic you wish and find that information instantly at any time in the future.

The point is, as your library of notes grows over time so will the power of your NoteFrog™ Information Management System... I LUV MY FROG T-shirts coming soon.

A: A lot less than you initially think! Although a few stacks, with unique ones for major categories, are desirable, for many people one stack can be made to do the trick. In general, you will almost surely find that fewer stacks are better.

Why? Because most people are familiar with old-style information managers and the rigid structure they impose, there is a tendency to start out creating individual stacks for many categories. NoteFrog™ is unlike any system you have used before, and for many users only a handful of stacks will ever be necessary.

You are strongly encouraged to read the other question/answers in this section and understand the flexibility and power of "tagging" your notes. When you combine tags with the instant results of the NoteFrog™ compound search, you will regret having placed your data into many different stacks. A typical stack will consist of thousands of notes. You will certainly have many large notes, but you will also find that many small notes are almost always better than large notes containing a compilation of that same information.

On the other hand, as NoteFrog™ becomes more and more a part of your record keeping- and it will- you may well have the desire to separate your information into major categories. You might wish to have daylogs by year, possibly private password protected or even encrypted stacks, perhaps business and personal, or special projects. You may want the ability to share certain stacks with others by export/import, while keeping other stacks private. For those cases, and many more, additional stacks will become desirable.

Cumulative "AND" compound searching is available by hitting the [Enter] key after each string of a compound search. The search for that string will be completed and the string itself will be displayed in the box directly below the search input box. Each additional "AND" of a compound search will be searched for and displayed there also, followed by an arrow symbol.

For example, to search your notes for the specific string:
Tom, Dick and Harry
you would enter
tom, dick and harry
into the search box which would return only the notes containing that exact character-for-character string match. However to find all notes that contain all three names you would enter
tom[Enter]
dick[Enter]
harry
which would list all notes that contain those three names anywhere in the body of the note. The strings of a compound seach may be entered in any order. The intermediate results will of course vary, but the final result will be identical.

A: A search "tag" is just any special character string that you decide to use anywhere in a note that will make that note easier to find, either as an individual note or as a member of a group of related notes all including that same tag. You can use any scheme you choose for your tags, however, we recommend that you use the same general scheme for all of your tags. For example, one good approach might be to use two right-bracket characters "]]" as the first two characters of every tag you create. That has the advantage of being a lower-case character and also easy to locate on the keyboard. But feel free to use whatever tagging scheme you choose.

The NoteFrog™ compound search is so powerful and fast that you may easily and efficiently use NoteFrog™ for thousands of notes in many different Stacks and Stack Libraries and never need to add search "tags" to any of them. Most users will probably use tags only infrequently. Even the most intense users are unlikely to ever include tags in more than a small percentage of their notes. But at the same time, they can be extremely useful for many different purposes, including the creation of N-dimensional "Tree" structures (See the "Tree Structure" FAQ).

As an example, suppose you have a friend named Tom and over time you have created many notes that have his name somewhere in the note. If you wanted to find Tom's phone number or address or email, you might choose to add a special "flag" to the note or notes that contain that information. We call that sort of flag a "tag". In this case you might just tag those "important" notes about Tom with a ]]tom string added anywhere in those important notes. Then doing a search for "]]tom" would result in only those notes containing ]]tom appearing in the match list.

You might adopt a more flexible scheme for your tags. Perhaps using something like adding a "]]PB" to any note that contains "phonebook" type information for anyone. Then you would do a compound search by first entering "]]PB" in the search box and pressing the enter key. That would eliminate from the results list all notes not containing a phonebook entry "]]PB" string. Then search within those notes for "tom" or "dick" or "harry" or any other person. Note that when doing a compound search, the order in which the various search terms are entered makes no difference to the final result. You could have entered tom then carriage return then ]]PB and the final result would be identical- a listing of only those notes containing both the strings tom and ]]PB.

Additional examples are covered in other Q/A entries on this page.

A: Add "tags" of your own choosing to any and all the notes you wish to categorize or group.

While NoteFrog™ Professional allows multiple stacks for a high level of grouping, multiple stacks are not necessary for grouping notes since you may instead categorize/group items within a single stack in an unlimited, free form manner. You simply embed a "tag" or tags anywhere in the body of any note. It's best to choose a tag notation which is somewhat unique to make searching for the items easier and faster.

For example, here we will use tags that we create that begin with a double asterisk "**", but you may use any scheme you like. You might choose to identify (tag) phone book type items by adding a "**P" or "]]P" or ">P" in notes containing phone number contacts. Then, whenever you want to view and/or search all your phone book entries, just enter your tag "**P" in the search box and you'll see all the notes that you tagged as phone contacts. To search through those tagged notes, hit the "enter" key to continue a compound search within your phone book items.

If you want additional levels you just add additional tags.

The use of multiple tags allows for N-dimensional tree structures that can be built on the fly by simply including tags for every tree that an individual note might be associated with. Tagging an item by including anywhere in it the three tags:

**Expenses **2010 **auto

provides everything old-style tree technology can do and much more, since you can produce a variety of tree results simply by using tags in any combination in a NoteFrog™ compound search.

For example, searching for your tagged items by entering:

**expenses(enter)
**2008

will put you into a "tree" of all your 2008 expenses.

Searching for

**expenses(enter)
**auto

will gather all of your auto expenses (everything that was tagged with both **expenses and **auto).

All you need to do to add an item into any Frog-tree is add your "TAGs" anywhere in the item.

For example, adding !expenses to an item adds it to that "tree", adding **medical to that item adds it to the medical "tree", adding **medical and **drugs adds items to those trees, but not to the **expenses tree.

The flexibility, power and simplicity of this approach far exceeds the capabilities of any normal tree structure and is one of the huge advantages of the NoteFrog™ method and its instantaneous search capability.

A: You may include a "tag" or tags into any notes to represent any kind of categorization or "ranking" you wish. You can tag your notes using any system you choose, just include your tag(s) anywhere in the body of the note. In the examples we show tags which we have chosen to begin with the percent symbol %, but you can choose any system for your tags. As an example, you might tag your notes using any of the following tags alone or in combination:

%important
%todo
%calendar
%action
%payment
%birthday

Tags may be placed anywhere within a note and can be scattered about or grouped on a single line:

%important %todo %calendar %action %payment %birthday

Create any sort of tagging characters and scheme that serves your purpose. As you enter a tag (or mutiple tags followed by the "Enter" key) into the search box your matching notes will be only those that include the tags that you have thus far entered. Use as many or as few tags as you wish in any note. Notes that contain your tags are instantly available to you via the revolutionary NoteFrog™ search capability.

A: The item "Title" which appears in the left-hand list panel is not a filename or special field, it is merely the first line of the note's content which may be created/edited/changed to anything you wish. The objective of the NoteFrog™ design is to put you, the user, in charge of the easiest ways to create, control and find your items and their appearance.

A: Most of the normal Windows shortcuts are supported, as appropriate, plus a few Frog specific adaptations.

Escape -> Stack refresh

CTL+R -> Stack Refresh

F12 -> Stack refresh

F3 -> Position cursor in "Search" area

CTL+F -> Position cursor in "Search" area

CTL+F3 -> Search for word beneath cursor

CTL+B -> Bold

CTL+I -> Italic

CTL+U -> Underscore

CTL+A -> Select all text in item

CTL+C -> Copy selected text to Windows clipboard

CTL+N -> Create New Item

CTL+S -> Save Item

CTL+D -> Insert Date in item

CTL+Z -> Undo

CTL+Y -> Redo

CTL+P -> Print

F6 -> Switch between Items List and Item panel

ALT+F6 -> Tab between Item and Stacks panel

ALT+F4 -> Exit program

F1 -> Online Help Panel

A: Funny you should ask. We actually added specific template features in a beta. Then in a design session, one of our Beta-test team members told us a template feature was already available. She was right. We checked it out and decided that all things considered, her template method was indeed already in the Frog and more flexible for the user than our design. Dang, we are good. So the answer is: Yes the Frog does templates.

Basically, a template is just a normal note that you copy and then paste back in to be filled out and then saved as a new completed note. But as in almost every case, our little Frog guy/gal (we're still not sure which) makes the process fast, simple and flexible. Dang, she/he is good.

A: NoteFrog's "Clipboard Capture" feature is an efficient alternative to having to open the program window and paste every time you want to gather a new note. Clipboard Capture basically results in pasting of Windows clipboard content to become a new item in the Active Stack.

There are two ways of doing NoteFrog™ Clipboard Captures, one manual and the other an automatic "Clipboard Capture Mode" that you tell the Frog to operate in.

A manual Clipboard Capture is done by right-clicking on the small NoteFrog™ tray icon, the itsy-bitsy Frog logo in the Windows tray (normally at the bottom-right corner of your screen) and then selecting the "Clip Capture" entry. That will paste the current Windows clipboard content as a new note into the Active Stack. This is a very handy option when you come across something you want to save for now and maybe review later. Depending on just what the current status of the NoteFrog™ main window is, you may or may not even see the program window be displayed. You copy whatever you wish to the Windows clipboard and then use the tray icon right-click menu to capture it as a note. Automatic Clipboard Capture (ACC) can be an extremely useful mode to activate when you want to collect a lot of related notes on a particular subject, perhaps while browsing the Internet or grabbing excerpts from a document, related emails or any number of sources.

By turning on the NoteFrog™ ACC mode, the program will automatically "grab a copy" of everything you copy to the clipboard, no matter what source it comes from, and create a new note in your Active Stack for each individual copy that is made. It leaves the clipboard itself unchanged. NOTE: An option to gather captured text clips cumulatively into a single note will be available in a future NoteFrog™ release.

For example, a NoteFrog™ user might be collecting a lot of reference information about wart removal. She just Googles away in her browser, and every time she encounters an interesting fact about wart removal she simply highlights that information and copies it to the Windows clipboard. While in ACC mode, NoteFrog™ monitors the clipboard for any changes. It sees the new clip come in, grabs a copy, and makes a new note containing the clip content. As each new clip goes to the clipboard, the same grab a copy, make a new note process is repeated. If the user copies 20 wart information snippets, NoteFrog™ will have captured them all as 20 new notes in the Active Stack.

Many options controlling Clipboard Capture can be selected in the "Clipboard" tab of the "Options" menu at the top of the NoteFrog™ program window.

ACC mode itself can be toggled on/off by using the Options menu or by right-clicking on the tray icon and toggling ACC option in that menu. As a visual reminder, the tray icon will turn yellow whenever the program's ACC mode is activated.

Because of the way that the Windows clipboard operates, especially with Internet Explorer and Web pages, you will probably find the clipboard capture useful only for collecting text or individual images. It does not work well or at all on general formatted Web page content, only the text portion will be usable. However, that alone can be extremely useful when gathering reference material.

A: Yes. The help sections are available from the program "Help, Tools, & Utilities" section. However, since those sections are maintained at the notefrog.com Website they are only available in the program while you are connected to the Internet. Additional helpful information is included in other sections of the NoteFrog Website and by visiting FrogBlog.

We will refer to the content of the stacks as being "items" because although the items are generally text "notes" they may also be images.

Your items go into stacks and stacks go into a Library. Shown below is a representation of a Library containing four stacks: three stacks of user items plus the NoteFrog™ Trash Stack. The number of stacks and the number of items within a stack are limited only by your hardware.

Except fot the Trash Stack, you may name stacks as you wish. In this example the user has named his stacks Personal, DayLog, and Business, they contain 850, 312 and 632 items respectively, and the Trash Stack contains 31 items. Notefrog maintains a trash stack of deleted items that may be recovered up until the time the user specifically empties the trash.

NOTE NoteFrog™ Standard Edition has a single user stack plus the trash stack.

A: Your stacks can be saved as normal HTML files containing a built-in search capability. Under the program "Stacks" menu option
 Save Active Stack contents in a publishable browser-searchable format... 
you can export a Stack as an HTML file containing code that searches the stack similar to the manner done in the NoteFrog program itself. You may share this stack with others by email or by uploading it to the Internet. In addition to providing a way to share your stacks with others, this capability offers you access to your stacks when you are away from your own computer.

For example, you might email the exported stack to your own webmail account as an attachment and then access it from any computer by viewing that email.

Note that the stack content is not currently encrypted, so you should not publish sensitive data online where non-authorized access could be possible.

A: Return to the main NoteFrog Utilities page in this window and select the "Check For New Version" menu item in the "Available Online Only" section.

A: From time to time we receive a question regarding the status of NoteFrog development. It seems some people are not interested in software unless it's constantly being developed. Consequently, developers are forced into continuing to add "features" until the software becomes bloated, unnecessarily complex and confusing, and error prone. Continuing development is also the preferred method for securing additional revenue from existing customers by forcing them to upgrade - "OK, you want a version that will run under Windows 7? Time for a price increase."

At HTConsulting, we don't subscribe to the philosophy that more is necessarily better. NoteFrog was developed to implement a feature-set similar to a few programs the authors had used in the past, which are no longer available. We first searched current software offerings for equivalent functionality and found none so we decided to develop our own. Upon completion, we offered the software to several friends and associates and they convinced us we should offer it to others. Our original intention was to offer it for free, however having already developed and offered a free product and encountering a mentality of "everything on the internet should be free" along with, "even though it's free, we're still entitled to demand you satisfy our wishes (regardless of how ridiculous they may be)", we passed on the free idea. We also USE our software. So when we want to use it on a new version of Windows, we upgrade it, but we don't raise the price. We don't expect you to pay more to use a program you've already purchased.

Our original pricing model was to make it a "no brainer" to purchase NoteFrog, by offering it for a one time token payment of $9.95. This seemed fair to us. Potential customers, however, must have assumed it could not be any good for that price and we had extremely low sales. When we doubled the price, to $19.95, sales improved dramatically - same product, just more expensive. Similar types of products, (offered with what we feel is reduced functionality), cost $49.95 and up.

Our experience with paying customers reinforced our earlier decision of not offering NoteFrog for free. Our customers are WONDERFUL. We now receive praise and thanks, instead of demands. We are truly impressed with our customer base. They've helped restore our faith that some people on the internet are really normal people. It's THEM we strive to satisfy.

Now back to the original question, Are we still developing? Yes and no. We continually develop in order to make NoteFrog the best and most efficient program at doing what it does. Occasionally a customer will make a suggestion or we'll have an idea for a change which will improve NoteFrog functionality while still fitting in with our original program vision, and we'll add it. However, we are not continuously developing by adding new feature/functionality simply for the sake of offering new versions and raising the price.