Version 0.0.1.0
Virtual Notebooks (or VNotebooks) is a pure Chrome app that will help you stay on top. It manages unlimited nested lists, stores any file type, syncs with your Google Drive. Whether it is todo lists, groceries, recipes, daily journal, bookmarks (with saving pages as PDF files), project topics-notes-files-data, etc. - all of them can be easily organized, stored and synced between computers (Android phone and tablet versions are in the works). Store any of your local or web files/images in notes, put in your thoughts and comments, and sync them through your Google Drive to other computers. Combine notes into groups and sub-groups, rearrange, copy and paste at will. Work online or offline.
VNotebooks are based on HTML5 technology. You get your own local and fully private IndexedDB database. It means that you alone manage your data. There is no special external server that keeps and synchronizes a version of your database. VNotebooks keeps track of all changes internally and syncs them as small ZIP files through your Google Drive with your other computers (e.g. home and work place). It's like a super-flash-drive which you don't have to carry with you.
If there are multiple users on the same computer, make sure to create your personalized version of Chrome (just add new user in Chrome Settings; the new user must have Google account). That way every Chrome user has separate IndexedDB and file system, so the user's data is fully protected and private.
We do not collect personal data. Actually, we do not collect any data at all. What you put in VNotebooks is only yours. Sharing (collaboration) with selected users is in the works.
Note: it is probably dangerous and is not recommended to store highly sensitive personal data (like passwords, bank accounts, etc.) in VNotebooks as they are at the moment. While IndexedDB is private, it is NOT encrypted. We are working on a separate encryption system that should alleviate this issue.
Note: it is probably dangerous and is not recommended to store highly sensitive personal data (like passwords, bank accounts, etc.) in VNotebooks as they are at the moment. While IndexedDB is private, it is NOT encrypted. We are working on a separate encryption system that should alleviate this issue.
Installation
You can download and install VNotebooks app from Chrome web store at:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vnotebooks/dpbgpopgofkbilgomgabkgpfencbaglk
While you are at it, also download and install (free) VNotebooks Launcher extension from:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vnotebooks-launcher/aopbfhambggegocenflplijelppaogeg
The launcher is a simple but important extension that provides the connection between Chrome and the main VNotebooks app. Bookmarking, saving pages as PDF files, etc. would not work without the launcher. It also provides one-click access to VNotebooks app from Chrome. Once you install it, VNotebooks icon
will appear in the Chrome window top corner. You can launch the main VNotebooks app by clicking on the icon.
Licensing
VNotebooks app price is USD $9.99. You pay once and use it on all your computers. This is one-time cost per major version. For example, if you bought version 0.0.1.*, we may charge you some additional percentage of the initial cost for version 0.0.2.*, depending on the extent of changes and feature additions in the newer version. Once the phone and tablet versions are published, we may also charge additional percentage of the initial cost if you install them.
We provide 7-days trial period plus 3-days grace period so you can test-drive VNotebooks and see how it suites your needs. Try it out and give us your comments below!
Usage
VNotebooks are designed to be intuitive and simple to use. The main window displays either sub-groups
or notes 
of a selected group - similar to viewing folders and files in e.g. Windows Explorer. The purpose of most icons should be obvious as they are reasonably standard today (for example, search icon).
For example, the app main window displaying groups under parent group "Recepies" may look like this.
Add groups or notes to the current parent group by clicking the large plus sign. To see notes of the sub-group "Deserts", click on that sub-group, and a list of notes appears. You can toggle between displaying sub-groups and notes of a given parent group ("Deserts" in this case) by clicking on the parent group name just under the search icon. The same toggling action can be achieved by clicking the icon to the left of the search icon.
Clicking on any note URL opens that URL in a new Chrome tab in the current Chrome window. Clicking on note file opens it in a popup window. Only text files, images and PDF files can be opened this way. Other files, for example MS Word document, will have to be exported to your local file system in order to view them (you have to have MS Word installed in this case).
Note options dropdown menu allows you to, for example, save all URLs or all pages (as PDF files) from the current Chrome window, open all URLs from the current list of notes in a new Chrome window, delete checked notes, etc.
Saving pages as PDF files produces a PDF of the image of that page, which means that the PDF file will not be "live": if the page contains a link to some web site, you will not be able to go to that web site from this PDF file.
You can edit a note (or group) by clicking on it and holding the mouse button pressed for about one second. For example, note-edit popup can look like this. The same but empty popup will appear if you are adding a note.
WYSIWYG editor will let you format the note text at will. It will store the text in HTML format. It does not allow adding images or URL links to the note text at present.
"Save URL" and "Save page (PDF)" buttons save individual URL or page of the currently active Chrome window tab.
Note file can be added (replaced), exported or removed in this popup window. Only one file per note is allowed. Add (replace) file button will open standard "choose file" dialog, but you can simply drag and drop a file from your local file system or from the web.
Clicking the microphone icon (bottom left corner) will start Google speech recognition feature. Once the microphone icon is active, click on the note title or text field and start talking instead of typing. Of course, you have to have a microphone...
Click on the "Save" button to save changes to the note.
Finally, the main options button
(top right corner) will open the following dropdown menu.
You can rearrange notes (groups) within the same parent group. Click on "Rearrange" in the dropdown menu, and then click-hold and drag the note (group) that you want to move up or down.
You can copy-cut-paste notes (groups) from one parent group to another. Click on "Copy-cut" in the dropdown menu: orange boxes will appear to the right of items list. Select the items you want (click on an item's orange box to toggle the selection), and then click on "Copy" or "Cut" button that appears at the top of the window. Go to a parent group where you want the selected notes (groups) to appear and click "Paste" button. Standard keyboard shortcuts for copy-cut-paste (ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-v) also work.
If you click on "Settings..." item in the dropdown menu, a settings popup appears, where you can change certain settings for the VNotebooks app. The settings choices are reasonably self-explanatory - please let us know if you need guidance with them.
A word of caution on the choice of the value for Synchronizer Interval in Settings. VNotebooks internally collect all changes made during a session and automatically synchronize them with your other computers (through Google Drive) every Synchronizer Interval minutes, say every 5 minutes. Synchronization is also always performed on closing the app. The collected changes may be newly added items, edited existing items, new items' order after rearrangements, etc. Even changes in Settings are synchronized. The 5-minutes Synchronizer Interval (default) is a reasonable choice if your sessions are relatively long, you make a lot of changes, and/or you manipulate a lot of files during your session. That way the synchronization files (ZIP files) passed to Google Drive are likely to be reasonably small and fewer in numbers. The shorter the Synchronizer Interval, the larger the number of these synchronization files will be sent to Google drive, where they will be (hidden and) accumulated. If your sessions are relatively short most of the time, a good choice for the Synchronizer Interval is "On close". If you choose "Never", all the changes will still be collected but will not be synchronized even on closing the app. Changing "Never" to some other value will start automatic synchronization again. Notice that if you check Synchronizer-"Sync now" box and click "Save", the synchronization will be performed immediately.
You can export full content of your IndexedDB (including note files) to a standard ZIP file on your local file system, or import such ZIP file from your local file system. Some care should be exercised with exporting full content of the IndexedDB: if the resulting ZIP file is greater than about 2 GB for 32-bit systems (or about 4 GB for 64-bit systems), VNotebooks app may have trouble importing such large file. This is system-specific limitation. We are working on ways to split such a large ZIP file into smaller pieces during the export process, but that is not available at present.
Disclaimer
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vnotebooks/dpbgpopgofkbilgomgabkgpfencbaglk
While you are at it, also download and install (free) VNotebooks Launcher extension from:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vnotebooks-launcher/aopbfhambggegocenflplijelppaogeg
The launcher is a simple but important extension that provides the connection between Chrome and the main VNotebooks app. Bookmarking, saving pages as PDF files, etc. would not work without the launcher. It also provides one-click access to VNotebooks app from Chrome. Once you install it, VNotebooks icon
will appear in the Chrome window top corner. You can launch the main VNotebooks app by clicking on the icon.Licensing
VNotebooks app price is USD $9.99. You pay once and use it on all your computers. This is one-time cost per major version. For example, if you bought version 0.0.1.*, we may charge you some additional percentage of the initial cost for version 0.0.2.*, depending on the extent of changes and feature additions in the newer version. Once the phone and tablet versions are published, we may also charge additional percentage of the initial cost if you install them.
We provide 7-days trial period plus 3-days grace period so you can test-drive VNotebooks and see how it suites your needs. Try it out and give us your comments below!
Usage
VNotebooks are designed to be intuitive and simple to use. The main window displays either sub-groups
or notes of a selected group - similar to viewing folders and files in e.g. Windows Explorer. The purpose of most icons should be obvious as they are reasonably standard today (for example, search icon).For example, the app main window displaying groups under parent group "Recepies" may look like this.
Add groups or notes to the current parent group by clicking the large plus sign. To see notes of the sub-group "Deserts", click on that sub-group, and a list of notes appears. You can toggle between displaying sub-groups and notes of a given parent group ("Deserts" in this case) by clicking on the parent group name just under the search icon. The same toggling action can be achieved by clicking the icon to the left of the search icon.
Clicking on any note URL opens that URL in a new Chrome tab in the current Chrome window. Clicking on note file opens it in a popup window. Only text files, images and PDF files can be opened this way. Other files, for example MS Word document, will have to be exported to your local file system in order to view them (you have to have MS Word installed in this case).
Note options dropdown menu allows you to, for example, save all URLs or all pages (as PDF files) from the current Chrome window, open all URLs from the current list of notes in a new Chrome window, delete checked notes, etc.
Saving pages as PDF files produces a PDF of the image of that page, which means that the PDF file will not be "live": if the page contains a link to some web site, you will not be able to go to that web site from this PDF file.
You can edit a note (or group) by clicking on it and holding the mouse button pressed for about one second. For example, note-edit popup can look like this. The same but empty popup will appear if you are adding a note.
WYSIWYG editor will let you format the note text at will. It will store the text in HTML format. It does not allow adding images or URL links to the note text at present.
"Save URL" and "Save page (PDF)" buttons save individual URL or page of the currently active Chrome window tab.
Note file can be added (replaced), exported or removed in this popup window. Only one file per note is allowed. Add (replace) file button will open standard "choose file" dialog, but you can simply drag and drop a file from your local file system or from the web.
Clicking the microphone icon (bottom left corner) will start Google speech recognition feature. Once the microphone icon is active, click on the note title or text field and start talking instead of typing. Of course, you have to have a microphone...
Click on the "Save" button to save changes to the note.
Finally, the main options button
(top right corner) will open the following dropdown menu.You can rearrange notes (groups) within the same parent group. Click on "Rearrange" in the dropdown menu, and then click-hold and drag the note (group) that you want to move up or down.
You can copy-cut-paste notes (groups) from one parent group to another. Click on "Copy-cut" in the dropdown menu: orange boxes will appear to the right of items list. Select the items you want (click on an item's orange box to toggle the selection), and then click on "Copy" or "Cut" button that appears at the top of the window. Go to a parent group where you want the selected notes (groups) to appear and click "Paste" button. Standard keyboard shortcuts for copy-cut-paste (ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-v) also work.
If you click on "Settings..." item in the dropdown menu, a settings popup appears, where you can change certain settings for the VNotebooks app. The settings choices are reasonably self-explanatory - please let us know if you need guidance with them.
A word of caution on the choice of the value for Synchronizer Interval in Settings. VNotebooks internally collect all changes made during a session and automatically synchronize them with your other computers (through Google Drive) every Synchronizer Interval minutes, say every 5 minutes. Synchronization is also always performed on closing the app. The collected changes may be newly added items, edited existing items, new items' order after rearrangements, etc. Even changes in Settings are synchronized. The 5-minutes Synchronizer Interval (default) is a reasonable choice if your sessions are relatively long, you make a lot of changes, and/or you manipulate a lot of files during your session. That way the synchronization files (ZIP files) passed to Google Drive are likely to be reasonably small and fewer in numbers. The shorter the Synchronizer Interval, the larger the number of these synchronization files will be sent to Google drive, where they will be (hidden and) accumulated. If your sessions are relatively short most of the time, a good choice for the Synchronizer Interval is "On close". If you choose "Never", all the changes will still be collected but will not be synchronized even on closing the app. Changing "Never" to some other value will start automatic synchronization again. Notice that if you check Synchronizer-"Sync now" box and click "Save", the synchronization will be performed immediately.
You can export full content of your IndexedDB (including note files) to a standard ZIP file on your local file system, or import such ZIP file from your local file system. Some care should be exercised with exporting full content of the IndexedDB: if the resulting ZIP file is greater than about 2 GB for 32-bit systems (or about 4 GB for 64-bit systems), VNotebooks app may have trouble importing such large file. This is system-specific limitation. We are working on ways to split such a large ZIP file into smaller pieces during the export process, but that is not available at present.
Disclaimer
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
