qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

alfalfa · 2017-11-19 07:49:27

I tried all the sticky note applications that I could find and as I was never satisfied, I finally decided to make my own. I use it quite a lot, and as far as I know it is now the best option on Linux. There are many functionnalities but I try to keep it simple to use and maintain. It is written with Python and Qt5, and seems to be fairly cross-platform. Have a look!

Gitlab page, AUR page

Last edited by alfalfa (2018-07-12 19:49:50)

Morn · 2017-11-26 11:29:18

Looks very promising so far! And it is in Python, so I like it even more. :-)

I agree, sticky note apps on Linux are a problem. Some of them even lose your notes after a while—I am not saying which one that was :-). Xpad is the app I have been using; it's decent but not great.

As for qtPad, I think the right-click context menu needs (a) an entry for creating a new note and (b) a selection of pre-defined background colors to apply, instead of using the full color mixer. The sticky notes app on the Mac has six pleasing preset background colors to choose from, so I would just copy their approach: https://freeair101.files.wordpress.com/ … ture-4.png (There is also light gray but that is not in the screenshot).

P.S. Oh, another wish: I'd like stickies to be resizable.

Last edited by Morn (2017-11-26 11:36:05)

alfalfa · 2017-11-27 05:04:23

Thank you for your feedback!

about your comments..

a, b) I'll add this on the todo list

c) Of course, the notes are resizable on Openbox, what DE do you use? I had some trouble finding a way to display the notes without creating a new entry in the task bar. On Linux, it seems that the only way to do it with Qt is to set the 'toolbar type' attribute on the window, that might be a part of the problem.

You can toggle a "resize corner" by pressing Ctrl+Shift+R, does it help? Maybe it should be enabled by default then

Morn · 2017-11-27 08:44:57

I am using KDE 5. After Ctrl-Shift-R, I can see the mouse pointer change to a resize symbol when I hover near the window corner, but I still cannot actually resize the window. When I try to (with the pointer inside the sticky), I actually drag the window behind it. The mouse dragging seems to be going though the window.

I also note that the maximize, minimize, and resize actions are grayed out in the window's menu, so that might be related. It looks like KWin thinks the stickies should not be resizable for some reason.

alfalfa · 2017-11-27 21:45:32

I fixed the resizing problem, along with various others bugs for KDE. Still, the handling of the tray icon context menu is very odd. KDE seems to calculate the fully expanded size and unfold it from top to bottom. I suspect the problem rather come from their side. The easiest workaround would be to replace the preferences submenu with a dedicated gui, but I hope there is another way as a submenu is easier to maintain.

So far it seem to work fine on most DE: Openbox, MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, Deepin, and even on Windows 7

Last edited by alfalfa (2017-11-28 01:15:02)

Morn · 2017-11-28 09:41:02

Thanks for the update, resizing works now!

alfalfa · 2017-11-29 13:50:14

I went forward with the pre-defined styles idea. On startup, the presets and icons are generated from preferences.json, so you can add your own;

It is a big update so if you want to upgrade your script you'll have to clone the whole repository and transfert your notes in /db/.
Thanks again for your suggestions

Morn · 2017-11-29 14:28:36

Works great! Maybe the first context menu entry should be either Style or New note, because if you right-click accidentally (as I immediately did just now), it will hide the note, which looks like the app has crashed. I think the principle of least surprise dictates that something harmless and obvious should happen. If users think "where did my sticky go now?" that is not something that inspires confidence in a program.

So now all that is needed is an AUR PKGBUILD, together with a desktop file and the Autostart stuff so qtPad gets launched when logging in. And then it is time for me to "pacman -Rs xpad" I think.

alfalfa · 2017-12-13 14:55:19

I wanted to make a little follow up as I worked a lot on the code during the last week. As Morn suggested, the first entry of the context menu is now 'New note', and the hide option was removed altogether, as closing the widget has the same effect. I also added a decent expendable preferences gui, so it will speed up the generation of context menu, fix the weird menu handling in KDE and leaves plenty of room for future improvements. But most of all, I've rewritten many parts of the code to make it simpler, more efficient and straightforward. At some point I had to set up the logging to follow what was going on and to avoid useless duplicate IO and such. The screenshots have been updated so if you are interested you may want to take a look at the Github page for an overall view of the project.

Of course I want to make it available through the AUR at some point, although I had some trouble finding tutorial about writing a PKGBUILD for a python script. I lack of time to make extensive testing at the moment so I'll get back to it in the next weeks. Here is the draft I made so far, hopefully I did it right but if you can give me some feedback I would appreciate. This is my first attemp so please be nice

https://pastebin.com/0BmYaxLc

jooch · 2017-12-25 20:34:40

Looks very promising, been looking for a lightweight xpad alternative for a long time.
However when i tried the PKGBUILD:

barry ~/tmp/qtpad $ yaourt -U qtpad-0.1-1-any.pkg.tar.xz 
loading packages...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) qtpad-0.1-1

Total Installed Size:  0.21 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                     [######################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                   [######################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                        [######################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                  [######################] 100%
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
qtpad: /lib exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

EDIT: Nevermind, some extra spaces were added because of copy/pasting Copying the RAW data fixed it

My opinion: Absolutely awesome! Only 1.2MB of resident memory compared to 60MB for Xpad, well done.

Last edited by jooch (2017-12-25 20:41:33)

alfalfa · 2018-02-01 01:20:10

Thanks for your feedback !
At last you may now install qtpad from the AUR, or with pip for non-arch users. This is my first package, please let me know if you encounter any problem

Morn · 2018-02-01 10:02:42

Nice! For some reason it does not show my old notes though. Did the config path change perhaps?

P.S. Maybe you should add an icon and desktop file too.

Last edited by Morn (2018-02-01 10:03:32)

alfalfa · 2018-02-01 12:53:43

There should be a desktop file at /usr/share/applications/qtpad.desktop
As for the notes, in the version you tried they were stored in the script directory. To allow the installation into sys.path they are now stored into ~/.config/qtpad/notes/

Morn · 2018-02-01 15:15:05

alfalfa wrote:

There should be a desktop file at /usr/share/applications/qtpad.desktop

You're right, there is a very basic desktop file. But I think it would be much better with a distinctive icon. Open Clipart has plenty to choose from: https://openclipart.org/search/?query=post+it+note Maybe add Categories and GenericName to the desktop file too.

alfalfa wrote:

As for the notes, in the version you tried they were stored in the script directory. To allow the installation into sys.path they are now stored into ~/.config/qtpad/notes/

Ok, thanks. There was nothing important in my notes so far, but I felt it was important to point this out for other users.

P.S. And please add the link to the AUR page to the first post.

Last edited by Morn (2018-02-01 15:15:52)

alfalfa · 2018-02-01 20:07:04

It is done, thank you for your suggestions

prosoitos · 2018-05-12 20:35:48

Thanks for the app.

Is there any way to customize keybindings?

Thanks!

alfalfa · 2018-05-13 15:51:58

prosoitos wrote:

Thanks for the app.
Is there any way to customize keybindings?
Thanks!

Absolutely! That functionnality has been added in the next release, which is currently in testing. It should be released in a few weeks, along with an improved version of the preferences GUI and many new features.

Last edited by alfalfa (2018-05-13 15:52:59)

prosoitos · 2018-05-13 22:01:17

!!! So great!!! Thank you! I look forward to checking the new release out!!!

alfalfa · 2018-05-15 21:12:10

(deleted)

Last edited by alfalfa (2018-05-28 16:44:00)

avg_joe · 2018-05-28 15:31:29

Really neat little app, thank you for making it! Giving it a try as replacement for xpad and so far looking great - will provide any feedback as I use it.

alfalfa · 2018-05-28 17:37:26

Thank you for the feedback! I've put countless hours into that project so it is always great to know that it is used and appreciated

Today I've uploaded a major update, which include many new features such as a much improved preferences GUI and a search and replace GUI. As of now, you can customize the hotkeys, style presets and context menus from the GUI. Hope you like it! If you enjoy the app please take a moment to share the word and leave an upvote on the AUR or Github

Arch Linux

#1 2017-11-19 07:49:27

qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#2 2017-11-26 11:29:18

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#3 2017-11-27 05:04:23

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#4 2017-11-27 08:44:57

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#5 2017-11-27 21:45:32

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#6 2017-11-28 09:41:02

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#7 2017-11-29 13:50:14

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#8 2017-11-29 14:28:36

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#9 2017-12-13 14:55:19

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#10 2017-12-25 20:34:40

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#11 2018-02-01 01:20:10

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#12 2018-02-01 10:02:42

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#13 2018-02-01 12:53:43

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#14 2018-02-01 15:15:05

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#15 2018-02-01 20:07:04

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#16 2018-05-12 20:35:48

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#17 2018-05-13 15:51:58

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#18 2018-05-13 22:01:17

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#19 2018-05-15 21:12:10

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#20 2018-05-28 15:31:29

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

#21 2018-05-28 17:37:26

Re: qtPad - a modern and customizable sticky note application

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