About CintaNotes

CintaNotes is a small and easy to use personal note management application. It is designed to be your indispensable assistant in the daily task of collecting numerous pieces of information, whatever they may be: your own thoughts and ideas, book and article excerpts, job postings, famous quotes, research data, curious facts, Wikipedia definitions, blog posts, important news, you name it.

It lets you quickly jot down and tag any piece of useful information that you come across while reading documents or surfing the Net - just select the text and press Ctrl+F12. With CintaNotes, this is really all it takes to make a note! CintaNotes does not clutter your workspace with "sticky notes", all notes are neatly organized in an easily navigable list. And unlike browser-based tools like Google Notebook or Firefox plug-ins CintaNotes does not require a web browser to work - it works with Microsoft Word, Outlook, Adobe Acrobat - the "text-capturing magic" works with all applications that can copy text to clipboard!

Retrieving information is also trivial: just open CintaNotes and start typing, and only notes which contain the text you type will remain in the list. More sophisticated search criteria are also supported, like searching by title or by URL the note was taken from.

CintaNotes is a totally portable application, meaning that you can put it on a flash drive and run it directly from there - in this way, your notes will always be with you.

System Requirements

CintaNotes runs under Microsoft Windows® XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, and 7. It does not require any runtime support.

Installing, Licensing and Updating

Installation

Installing CintaNotes is easy. After you download and run the installer, you'll be prompted to specify the folder where CintaNotes will reside (Program Files by default), then you'll be asked for the Start Menu folder name. After the installation is complete, check the "Launch CintaNotes" option to get rolling.

Installing CintaNotes requires administrative privileges, so running the installer will display a Windows User Access Control (UAC) prompt - this is normal.

CintaNotes can also work without installation. You may copy the CintaNotes folder to any other location, create a shortcut to it and thus have two independent note managers. For your convenience there also is a portable version of CintaNotes available for direct download from the official site, which doesn't contain an installer.

Please pay attention that if you install CintaNotes into the Program Files folder, your note data and settings will be stored separately in the CintaNotes Application Data subfolder (which is different for each user and accessible as %APPDATA%), so simple copying of the CintaNotes folder will result in a fully functional application (without any notes). You can find and copy your data files manually.

License

By default, CintaNotes is installed under the terms of the Basic (Free) License. To register a Personal License, or a Company License it is necessary to go to the License Dialog ( Help / License). The main differences between the licenses are as follows:

• The Basic (Free) License is used by default. It does not provide access to premium features including:
  • Multiple Notebook Support
  • Export notes in HTML format
  • Tag usage count displayed in Tag Sidebar
  • Pasting notes into other applications
• The Personal License provides access to all features including the premium features listed above. The Personal License is for non-commercial, non-profit use only.
• The Company License also provides access to all features, and differs from Personal License in that it allows using premium features of CintaNotes in commercial and business environments.

To obtain a Personal or Company License, click the "Buy" button in the License dialog which will take you to the online order page. Upon a successful order you will receive a Registration Name and Registration Key by email. You can enter these registration details to the License dialog in one of three ways:

• Clipping using the configured clipping hot key (usually Ctrl-F12), this is the recommended approach;
• Copying the email content to the clipboard and then opening the License dialog;
• Manually entering the registration details into the License dialog.

If you have purchased a Personal or Company License, regardless of whether you are using the Installed or Portable version of CintaNotes, you will need to apply the license on each PC that you use CintaNotes with to be able to take advantage of the premium features.

You don't have to download a separate package after purchasing a license. There is just one distribution of CintaNotes. Registering a license unlocks premium functionality in the program that is already installed.

Updating CintaNotes to newer versions

Usually all you need to do to update CintaNotes is point the installer to your CintaNotes folder.

To update the portable version, unpack the archive and copy the new files over the old content of the CintaNotes directory.

Updating from CintaNotes Beta to CintaNotes 1.X is a bit more difficult because CintaNotes 1.3 dropped support for the Beta .dat file format. So you need to export your notes to an XML file first, and after installation of the latest version re-import it using the File / Import command.

Updating a registered version of CintaNotes (i.e. with Personal or Company License) will automatically transfer the registration details to the new version. Udates of the Personal and Company Licenses are valid for 12 months from purchase, if you update to version released after this time, it will run with the Basic (Free) license. In order to use the Personal or Company license further you will have to either return to an earlier CintaNotes version, or to buy an extension of your free updates period for another year.

Taking notes

CintaNotes provides you with several ways to take notes. You can enter notes manually, clip text from other applications, or paste text from clipboard.

Entering notes manually

Open CintaNotes and select the "Add" command from the "Edit" menu (or just press the Ins key). CintaNotes creates a new note and displays the note editing dialog. In this dialog, you can enter note's title, content, link (source), and tags.

The "Link" is a URL, e.g. "http://cintanotes.com", associated with the note. If CintaNotes recognizes contents of the "Link" field to be a valid URL, it displays a small blue arrow icon to the right inside of the "Link" edit box. Clicking on this icon will open the URL in your default browser. (Note: The URL can also be a link to a file on your computer, in which case CintaNotes will attempt to open that file in the default application for that file type.)

There's also a "Browse Link" command in note's context menu, which enables you to browse the note's URL without opening the note edit dialog.

The "Tags" field is used to categorize notes (see "Using tags to categorize notes" section below).

None of these fields are required and may be left blank. After you've entered the information you want to keep, press "OK" (or Ctrl+Enter) to add the note to your notebook.

Clipping text from other applications

Entering notes manually is great if you want to write down some brilliant ideas of your own, but often you will just want to store a piece of information you've found somewhere else. This is the case where CintaNotes really shines.

Provided CintaNotes is running in the background (usually it will reside in the system tray), all you need to do is mark the text you want to store and press Ctrl+F12. Et voilà! CintaNotes' main window pops up, focused on the new note with the text you've just selected. Some fields beside text are also filled automatically - the title of the source application window is taken as note's title, and if you clip text from a web page, the note's "Link" field automatically receives the URL of the page from the address bar of your browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, Chrome and Safari are supported).

At this moment you might want to edit the new note to add information to it or tag it. Pressing Esc minimizes CintaNotes and you can continue reading where you left off.

Pasting notes from the clipboard

CintaNotes also supports direct text pasting from the Windows clipboard. Select the "Paste" command from the "Edit" menu or press Ctrl+V. CintaNotes creates a new note with the text from the clipboard. It also tries to determine which application has put the data into the clipboard, and if successful uses the application window title as the note's title. Unfortunately reliable clipboard data source detection is not always possible, and when CintaNotes fails to find the source window, the first line of the pasted text becomes also the note's title.

If you are pasting a note that was inserted to the Clipboard from CintaNotes, the Title, Tags and date information will be copied from the original note in addition to the note content.

It is recommended that you use clipping instead of clipboard pasting as much as possible, because in the former case more data can be filled automatically for you.

Editing notes

You can go back to editing any note at anytime - just double-click on it, or highlight it and press the Enter (or F2) key.

CintaNotes supports basic text formatting with the help of the Format popup submenu. Bold, italics, underline, strikeout, monospace and highlighting are supported. Also you can make bulleted and numbered lists.

Deleting notes

Deleting notes is also straightforward - select the notes you want to delete, and press the Delete key (or select "Delete" from the "Edit" or note's context menu).

Caution: Take care when deleting notes, CintaNotes currently does not provide support to 'Undo' this operation.

Merging notes

Often, when you read a long text and make notes along the way, you end up with a whole bunch of short notes on the same topic. In many cases this is OK, but sometimes what you really want is just one note with all the text you've copied.

In CintaNotes, you can merge these notes together via selecting all of them and choosing the "Edit/Merge" command (or pressing Ctrl+M). The selected notes will be merged into one.

The "Merge" command is also accessible from the note's context menu. It is enabled only when two or more notes are selected.

Finding Notes

By default, CintaNotes displays all notes which are in the notebook organized in a list. You can enter a search query to limit the display to the notes satisfying the query. To begin entering the search string, just start typing in the main CintaNotes window. The focus will go to the search box, and the note list will be updated as you type.

When you search, CintaNotes highlights parts of notes which matched your search. Additionally you can use the F3 and Shift+F3 keys on the focused note's text preview to navigate forward and backward through the highlighted matches (the same keys also work in the note editor window for searching selected text).

Search strings are not case-sensitive. To reset the search filter and go back to the full list, click the 'X' (close) button inside of the search box, or press Esc. Adding a new note will reset the search filter as well.

The following search query syntax is supported by CintaNotes:

• word1 word2 matches all notes that contain both words in any order;
• word1 -word2 matches notes that have word1 but not have word2;
• word1 word2|word3 matches notes that have word1 and have either word2 or word3;
• "word1 word2" will display only notes that contain the verbatim string "word1 word2";
• different combinations of the above also work: "word1 word2"|word3 -word4 will diplay notes without word4 which have either "word1 word2" or word3.

This extended query syntax works only for note title and text.

By default, CintaNotes searches only from the word boundaries. This means that e.g. when you search for nation, notes containing the word "international" won't be displayed. If you want to search also inside of words, you need to activate the "Search inside words" option by clicking on the magnifying glass icon (or simply right-clicking) in the search box, and selecting "Search inside words" item from the drop-down menu.

The "Search inside words" option makes search much slower, especially when the number and size of notes is large. So it is best to use it only when you can't find what you need with the default search.

If you'd like to limit the search to only some data fields, CintaNotes has a number of search modes which allow you do exactly this. In the "Anywhere" mode, which is the default, CintaNotes includes all fields into the search. The following additional search modes are available:

Title and Text	Display only the notes which contain the search string in their Title or in their Text.
Title Only	Display only the notes which contain the search string in their Title.
Text Only	Display only the notes which contain the search string in their Text.
Creation Time (Modification Time)	Search by note's creation (modification) date and time. Keep in mind that the search is still text based, so you can enter "11/" to list all notes created (modified) in November (if your system uses the US time format), but you'll also see the notes created (modified) on 11th day of any other month. To find all November notes you should search for "/11/".
Link	Search in the "Link" field.
Tags	Search in the "Tags" field. This is the search mode you use when you wish to list all notes having particular tags.

Previewing and Reading Notes

CintaNotes displays a note's Text directly in the notes list. The number of the text lines which are displayed is controlled by the View/Note Appearance dialog.

Pressing the Left or Right arrow keys scroll the currently focused note's text directly in the preview by line.

Pressing Ctrl + Left or Right arrow keys scroll the text by page. You can also "pin" the note using spacebar (or left mouse click), and then the preview text can be scrolled with all usual navigation keys or mouse wheel.

If you want to read the note more comfortably, you can press 'Enter' or 'F2' to open the note in the editor.

Managing Notes

Using Tags to categorize Notes

When you take notes every day, having all of them in a single list becomes unmanageable very quickly. Note tags are used to address this problem. While editing a note, you can specify any text in the note's "Tags" field. Later you can use part of this text to quickly filter out notes which don't contain it in their "Tags" field, thus greatly narrowing down your search

For example, you might decide to tag all notes related to your current research project with a "research" tag. So every time you take such a note, you put "research" into the "Tags" field. After that this tag will appear on the Tag Sidebar (see the section below), so you will be able so highlight it, and CintaNotes will display just your research notes. Alternatively, you can turn on Tag Search (see "Finding notes" section) and type "research" as your search string.

If you want to associate two or more tags with a note, just put them all into the "Tags" separated by spaces (comma and semicolon can also be used but will be automatically converted to spaces).

Tags can include symbols, not just alphanumeric characters, i.e. "#1!" is a valid tag. Remember also that tags are not case-sensitive.

It is possible to tag several notes at once: just select them and press F4 (or select the Tag... command from the context menu).

The Edit/Replace Tags command allows tag renaming, splitting, merging and deleting. Generally, each tag specified in the first edit box is replaced with all tags from the second edit box.

Tag auto-completion

In any tag entering field CintaNotes displays a dropdown list of available tags as soon as you start typing. Pressing Spacebar, Return or Tab accepts the currently highlighted suggestion, whereas Esc or Del cancel it. You can also force auto-complete display by pressing Ctrl+Space.

Using the Tag Sidebar

Tag Sidebar is a handy tool for fast access to different tags and tag sets. It is the controller of the built-in tags filter.

The sidebar is not displayed by default, you can turn it on using the View/Tag Sidebar menu command.

There is a list of clickable labels on the sidebar. The first two labels are "All" and "Untagged", they are predefined and cannot be changed. When you click on the "All" label on the sidebar, you make sure that no tags filter is applied. The "Untagged" label will display only notes having no tags.

The Untagged label is your natural note inbox which gives you a quick and convenient access to recently captured information that needs to be categorized (provided you are using Tags, of course).

Directly below is the list of all tags defined in the notes. This list displays all tags in the alphabetical order. If the list is long and doesn't fit, two scroll buttons appear (you can also scroll this list using the mouse wheel, and this is probably the most convenient way).

To the right of each tag is the number of notes in the current notebook which have that tag applied. This allows you to easily see which tags are underused and can be merged or removed. Tag count display can be turned off in Options / Tags menu. (Note: This feature is only available to Personal and Company License holders.)

Clicking on a tag activates it, and only notes having this tag will be displayed. Using Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click, you can expand the tag selection to additional tags. Keep in mind that with Ctrl+Click, a tag intersection is used when multiple tags are selected (i.e. notes having all of the selected tags will be included), whereas with Shift+Click, a tag union is used (i.e. notes having any of the tags will be included).

There is also a possibility to exclude (subtract) tags from the set via Alt-clicking on them. The excluded tags will become strikeout with bluish background. Only the notes which have the selected via tag union or tag intersection tags, and which additionally don't have any of the excluded tags, will be shown in the list.

Tags selected in tag union mode have a yellowish highlight, whereas tag intersection tags will have the normal white highlight. The three modes are mutually exclusive.

Entering tags into the search box also implies tag intersection. The difference here is that you don't have to use your mouse, and that you don't have to enter complete tags.

The Tag Sidebar also highlights Tags which are related to any Tag of the currently selected set. Two tags are considered related if there are notes which have both of them.

Each tag label in the Tag Sidebar has a right-click context menu which allows you to rename or delete a given tag. When multiple tags are selected, you can merge them as well.

Sorting and Reordering Notes

CintaNotes supports sorting notes by title, creation and modification date, link and size. "Manual" sort mode designates user-defined sorting, this is the only sorting mode where note moving commands are available. You can also select the direction of the sort using the "View / Reverse Order" menu option.

Sorting commands are available directly from the toolbar. The control to the right of the search filter box controls the current sorting mode. You can click on the icon on the left side to toggle sorting direction, or click on the field name to pick another sorting criterion.

The same commands are also located in the "View/Sort By" menu.

If current sort mode is set to "Manual", you can reorder selected notes using the Alt+Up and Alt+Down keys. It is also possible to move notes to the very top of the list (Alt+Home) and to the very bottom (Alt+Bottom). The moving commands are also accessible from the context menu, as well as from the main Edit menu.

Notebooks

CintaNotes stores all the notes you take in a notebook file. On first run, CintaNotes will create a notebook file called "cintanotes.db" in the install location (or the location of the executable if using the portable version).

If you've installed CintaNotes into the "C:\Program Files" folder, the files cintanotes.db and cintanotes.settings will be located at the following path: C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Program Files\CintaNotes\. This is because according to Microsoft guidelines applications should not write into the Program Files folder (with the obvious exception for installers).

You may create new notebooks using the File / New command, and open existing notebooks using the File / Open command. In addition you can save copies of Notebooks using the File / Save As command.

Working with Multiple Notebooks

If you have purchased a Personal or Company License you can have multiple notebooks always at your fingertips. Each time you create a new notebook file or open an existing notebook file, that notebook file will be added to the CintaNotes File menu. To switch between notebooks is then simply a matter of selecting the notebook file from the File menu. As a further time saver, the notebooks are numbered, allowing you to use keyboard shortcuts, so typing Alt+F, 2 will change to the second notebook in the list. A notebook can be removed from the list by opening that notebook and selecting the File / Close menu item.

This allows you to keep separate notes for different research projects you may be working on. It also allows you to share some notebooks, so that in the case of a Company License, you may have your own notebook and a shared corporate notebook.

Be sure to check with Notebook you are working with, the notebook name is provided in the Title bar of the CintaNotes window (but only is the notebook file name differs from the default name "cintanotes.db"). It is also important to note that when you add a new notebook, the numbering of the notebooks can change.

To move or copy one or more notes between notebooks, simply use the Cut (Ctrl+X) or Copy (Ctrl+C) command on the notes you want in the open notebook, then switch notebooks and use the Paste (Ctrl+V) command. CintaNotes maintains all the note information, including tags and dates during this operation. The same operation can also be used to duplicate notes in the current open notebook if needed.

The Basic (Free) License limits the number of notebooks in the File menu notebook list to one: the one which is currently active.

Synchronizing Notes

If you work on multiple PCs, e.g at home and at work, you will probably want your notes to be automatically synchronized. CintaNotes doesn't synchronize notes directly, but it plays well together with free online synchronization services such as DropBox.

The recommended way to synchronize notes using DropBox is as follows:

1. Install (or Move) the CintaNotes folder outside of your DropBox folder (e.g. in "C:\CintaNotes").
2. Run CintaNotes and choose the File / Notebook... menu command.
3. In the "Notebook File" box, change the path so that it points to a file inside of your synchronized folder (e.g. "C:\My Dropbox\CintaNotesData\cintanotes.db"). It's OK if the path doesn't exist yet.
4. Ensure that the "Enable external notebook synchronization" flag is checked.
5. Check the "Relocate current notebook" flag if you don't want to create a new notebook but would rather move the current one.
6. Press OK.

Replicate this setup on each PC. That's it! Now your notes will be automatically synchronized. Configuring for other synchronization services like LiveMesh or SugarSync is similar.

If you've installed CintaNotes into the "C:\Program Files" folder, the files cintanotes.db and cintanotes.settings will be located at the following path: C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Program Files\CintaNotes\. This is because according to Microsoft guidelines applications should not write into the Program Files folder (with the obvious exception for installers).

Moving the CintaNotes folder inside of your DropBox folder is NOT recommended because:

• The backup files will constantly be "conflicted";
• You won't be able to have separate settings on different PCs.

For the advanced user: If you don't care about independent settings (e.g. you use same fonts and screen resolution on each PC), you can put the CintaNotes folder inside your DropBox, by taking out the backup folder using the "backup.folder" parameter of the cintanotes.settings file.

Note that you don't have to close CintaNotes for your notes to be synchronized. After the period of inactivity specified in the "Release file lock after" field of the "Notebook Parameters" dialog, CintaNotes releases the database file lock. But please allow some time (usually about 2-10 minutes, depending on your internet connection) for full synchronization cycle.

Please note also that if you take notes offline, or shutdown the computer right after you've creates some notes, these last notes may not be synchronized, and if you then take notes on another PC, conflicts might arise. With DropBox, you will notice them with the appearance of the "conflicted copy" database files alongside of cintanotes.db. If you see these files, you will need to merge them back into your main notes database.

To do that use the File / Import command on this conflicted file. As of version 1.1C and later, the import command filters out duplicate notes automatically, so that you will get the notes that you don't have. This handles the most frequent case of added notes, but in case of modified or deleted notes you may still have to delete unnecessary notes by hand.

Pasting Notes to Other Applications

CintaNotes allows you to extract the content of a note to another application running on your Windows PC. Pressing Ctrl+Enter or the middle mouse button will paste the currently selected note (or notes) into the Windows application that was running immediately prior to opening CintaNotes.

This feature is a great time saver when writing a report for example. You can be writing in Word, then switch to CintaNotes, select a note which you want to quote, hit Ctrl+Enter and the note is there in your document and you can continue writing.

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Enter (or Shift+Middle click) inserts all note fields and not only note text.

The most ergonomic way of using this feature is combining it with the Show/Hide Window hot key configured in Options / Hot Keys....

This feature is only available with Personal and Company Licenses.

Exporting Notes

CintaNotes supports note exporting in several ways:

1. Unicode text file. You can export notes from your notebook to a Unicode text file via the File / Export command. This is a one-way export: you cannot import this text file back into CintaNotes.
2. XML Exporting. A more generic approach is to use XML format for further note processing. Choose File / Export main menu command, select "XML" from the available formats and enter the name of the XML file all notes will be exported into. This file can be viewed and processed with your favorite XML authoring program. CintaNotes can load this XML file back into itself with the File/Import command.
3. HTML Exporting. You can also export notes from your notebook to a HTML file which can then be easily viewed in your favorite browser. Choose File / Export main menu command, select "HTML" from the available formats and enter the name of the HTML file all notes will be exported into. Note that HTML export is only available to Personal and Company License holders.
4. Exporting as text via clipboard. Select notes, copy them to the clipboard and paste them as text into any text processing application such as standard Windows Notepad.

If you want to retain all information and be able to import notes back into CintaNotes, choose the XML format.

When using the File / Export command, the "Export Scope" groupbox gives you a choice whether to export all notes, the currently visible, or only the selected ones.

Importing Notes

You can import notes using the File/Import command. You can import notes from previously exported XML files and from other .db files.

Notes Backup

CintaNotes automatically creates three backup files: notebook.hourly.db is updated each hour, notebook.daily.db — each day, and notebook.weekly.db is updated once per week. The files are written into the main CintaNotes application folder, but can be modified using the cintanotes.settings file (see the "Advanced Configuration" subsection of the next section for details).

To restore your notes from backup, use the File / Import command and pick the necessary backup file. If you find that CintaNotes no longer runs, you may need to rename your main database file before running CintaNotes.

Configuring CintaNotes

Backup Options

The options in the File / Backup menu control which of the three backup files should be created and kept up-to-date. If you uncheck any of these options, the existing backup file will be retained, but it will not be updated anymore.

Visual Parameters

The Color Theme submenu of the View menu lets you select the most pleasant color for your notes. This can also be useful to quickly tell apart different instances of CintaNotes.

The Notes List command of the Options menu opens a dialog box where you can pick fonts for note's header and text, and adjust now many note lines should be displayed directly in the list. You may also select if Rich Text formatting should be rendered in the note preview.

Hot Keys

The Hot Keys command from the Options menu enables you to change the default system-wide key combinations for clipping text, activating CintaNotes window and adding a new note.

Clipping Options

If Options / Clipping / Silent is activated, CintaNotes will not pop up after each clipping, but will display a balloon tip instead. Clicking on the balloon opens CintaNotes.

The Options / Clipping / Use as Title menu lets you control where the clipped note's title is taken from.

Options / Clipping / After Clipping / Switch View to Untagged specifies whether you want to switch the tag filter to show only untagged notes after clipping, which is convenient for separating newly taken notes from the rest, and for tagging them.

Options / Clipping / After Clipping / Open in Editor lets you open a newly clipped note in editor for immediate tagging and probably further editing.

Options / Clipping / After Clipping / Assign currently active tags - When this option is on, newly clipped notes are automatically assigned tags which are currently selected on the Tag Sidebar.

Editor Options

The Notes Editor can automatically highlight various links in the notes text. The Options / Editor / Highlight Links option controls this behavior. In this submenu you can also specify whether you'd like to use single or double mouse clicks to open these links.

The Enable Text Formatting option controls whether text formatting submenu and commands will be available.

If you disable text formatting support in the editor, opening and saving notes will strip them of any text formatting (except lists)!

When the Auto-Indent option is selected, new lines of text automatically receive the same level of indentation as the lines above them.

Main Window Behavior Options

If you want CintaNotes to be minimized to the system notification area (otherwise known as "System Tray"), turn on the Minimize to System Tray option in the Options menu.

Turn on the Close to System Tray option if you want the program to behave the same way when you close the window (that is, when you click on the window's Close button or press Alt+F4). When this option is turned on, closing the window will not exit the program. To exit CintaNotes, you will have to select the "File/Exit" command, or right-click on the CintaNotes icon in the notification area and select Exit.

If you want CintaNotes window to be always on top of other windows, turn on the Always on Top option.

Startup Options

Options / Startup / Run Minimized makes CintaNotes always start minimized to tray.

Check Options / Startup / Run at system startup to have CintaNotes start automatically at the Windows startup. It will start minimized to the System Tray regardless of the Run Minimized option.

Use this option with care if you run CintaNotes from an USB stick, since if the stick is absent CintaNotes won't be found during system startup.

Options / Startup / Allow multiple instances — specifies whether CintaNotes will run if another instance is already running. When this option is off, CintaNotes will display a message box informing you that an instance has already been activated.

For advanced users: This message box can be turned off by editing the startup.multipleinstances.activationmsg parameter in the cintanotes.settings file.

Selecting Language

CintaNotes has a multilingual user interface, by default the user interface will be in English. You can switch the current language with the Options / Language menu.

If you can not find your language in the list, please check the official translation center as someone might have already translated CintaNotes into your language and the translation is scheduled to be included into the next release. If your language is absent or incomplete, you might opt to do a great favor to all speakers of your language and create a translation yourself. You'll have to register on the site and enroll into the translation team for your language.

Advanced Configuration

Some options of CintaNotes can only be set by editing the cintanotes.settings file. Be sure to edit it using a Unicode-aware text editor (e.g. Notepad).

app.mainframe.basecolor

Encoded base color of the current color theme, as a web color value like #F05A00. A dark color should be used as a hue reference value, all colors of the theme are derived from it by blending it with white in different proportions.

app.mainframe.tagsidebar.width

Width of the Tags Sidebar, in pixels (92 by default).

backup.folder

The folder where CintaNotes writes backup files to ("backup" by default). Both relative (e.g. "..\..\backup") and absolute (e.g. "F:\backups\cn") paths are supported.

clipping.trimwhitespace (since 1.2)

Specifies whether CintaNotes should trim leading and trailing whitespace from the clipped text. Trimming is enabled by default.

editor.focus.title (since 1.4.1)

Specifies whether the Title field of the note editor is focused initially. When this option is 0 (off), the note text field gets focused. Default value: 0 (off).

noteslist.search.highlights.displaycounts (since 1.4.1)

Enables or disables display of search matches' counts in the note preview area. Default: 1 (on).

sqlite.pragma.cache_size (since 1.0)

Controls how many database pages can be kept in memory and directly influences how much memory the program will consume. Each page is 4096 bytes. The larger this value, the faster CintaNotes will work with large databases, but also the more PC memory will be consumed.

sqlite.pragma.synchronous (since 1.0)

Three possible values: FULL, NORMAL and OFF. If you experience frequent DB corruption (might be relevant for unstable systems and hot-unplugged USB drives), try setting this setting to NORMAL or FULL. CintaNotes will run slower, waiting after each modification till the data is written to disk before returning control to the user.

startup.multipleinstances.activationmsg (since 1.4.1)

Specifies whether CintaNotes will display a message box telling that there is an already running instance. Default value: 1 (on).

tagsedit.autocomplete.acceptonspace (since 1.4)

If set to 1, enables accepting tag suggestions when pressing the spacebar.

editor.fonts.monospace (since 1.5.3)

Font face used for monospace text style. "Courier New" by default.

editor.colors.highlight (since 1.5.3)

Color used for highlighted text style. Yellow by default.

Command Line Switches

-m

Start minimized to tray. Is a non-persistent alternative of the Options/Startup/Run Minimized option.

-i

Run in 'invisible' mode. Other instances of CintaNotes won't find this instance. Is a non-persistent alternative of the Options/Startup/Allow Multiple Instances option.

-noactivationmsg

Suppress the message box which appears when you start CN with it already running. Is a non-persistent alternative of the "startup.multipleinstances.activationmsg" option in the settings file.

FAQ

Does CintaNotes support Unicode?

Yes, CintaNotes is fully Unicode-compliant and actually stores all text data in Unicode. But you have to make sure that the fonts used to display notes include the needed character sets. With default fonts there's usually no problem.

Will there be a version of CintaNotes with UI in my native language?

CintaNotes already supports a large number of languages, you can see the whole list of them in the Options / Language menu. If your language is not in the list, please read the Configuring CintaNotes / Selecting UI Language section on what you can do in this situation.

How do I select multiple notes?

Use Ctrl+click, or Shift-Up/Down key combinations. Also if you navigate the list while holding the Ctrl key, you can toggle the selection on the current note with the spacebar.

How can I change the text-capturing hotkey from default Ctrl+F12 to something else?

Use the Options / Hot Keys command.

How can I change the search mode in the search box without using the mouse?

Press Ctrl+F and then Alt+Down to display the menu (or you can press Ctrl+Up/Down/PageUp/PageDown to switch search modes one-by-one).

How can I change the width of the tag sidebar?

Change the app.mainframe.tagsidebar.width parameter in the cintanotes.settings file to the desired width in pixels.

What programming language is CintaNotes written in?

CintaNotes is written in Visual C++ and builds on top of pure Window API calls. No libraries like .NET or MFC are used, this is what enables CintaNotes to take full control of resource usage and remain fast, lean, and self-contained.

What does "Cinta" mean?

In Spanish, "la cinta" means "band" (or "tape"). In a sense, this is similar to the way CintaNotes represents notes: as a list. And, well, we just thought it would be a nice name ;-)

Is there a Linux or Mac version?

Unfortunately no. CintaNotes relies heavily on Windows API, so porting it to other platforms seems unfeasible at the moment.

How can I report a bug?

If you're encountering problems with CintaNotes please go to http://cintanotes.com and make sure that you're running the latest version of CintaNotes. If the problem is with the latest version, please report it on our Bug Reports forum. We strive to deliver high-quality software and keep CintaNotes as bug-free as possible, so we and all other CintaNotes users will greatly appreciate your contribution.

Keyboard Shortcuts

System-Wide

Ctrl+F12

Captures selected text from active application as a new note. Title of the source application window is used as note's title. This hot key is configurable.

Ctrl+Alt+F12

Activates CintaNotes window. This hot key is configurable.

Main Window

Ins

Opens a dialog for adding a new note.

F1

Displays this help.

Esc

If a tag or text search filter is set, clears current filter to display all notes; otherwise minimizes CintaNotes.

Notes List

Up

Down

PageUp

PageDown

Home

End

Moves cursor selecting the note under cursor.

Right

Left

Scrolls large notes.

Ctrl+Up

Ctrl+Down

Ctrl+PageUp

Ctrl+PageDown

Ctrl+Home

Ctrl+End

Moves cursor without affecting selection.

Shift+Up

Shift+Down

Shift+PageUp

Shift+PageDown

Shift+Home

Shift+End

Moves cursor extending selection.

Ctrl+Spacebar

Toggles selection on current note.

Ctrl+A

Selects all notes which currently appear in the list.

<any character key>

Starts substring search using current search filter settings.

Ctrl+F

Moves focus to the search filter box.

Enter or F2

Opens a dialog for editing the current note.

Del

Deletes selected notes.

Ctrl+X

Cuts the selected notes into clipboard.

Ctrl+C

Copies the selected notes into clipboard.

Ctrl+Shift+C

Copies selected notes into clipboard as text. Notes are copied in a format which includes note's creation time, title, text, and link.

Ctrl+V

Pastes clipboard contents as a new note. If the clipboard contents did not originate from CintaNotes, the creation time will be taken from the current time, and a copy of the first text line as will be used as the note title.

Ctrl+M

Merges two or more selected notes together. Text of the second and subsequent notes is appended to the text of the first (earliest) selected note, then the appended notes are removed since they are no longer necessary.
This operation is only available when two or more notes are selected.

F3

If text search is active, focuses next search highlight in current note's preview.

Shift + F3

If text search is active, focuses previous search highlight in current note's preview.

F7

If currently focused note has a link, opens this link using the default web browser.

Alt+Up

Alt+Down

Alt+Home

Alt+End

Moves selected notes up and down.

Ctrl+BkSp

Display similarly tagged notes. This command changes the tag selection on the Tag Sidebar to match the tags of the currently focused note.

Ctrl+U

Display untagged notes.

Ctrl+Enter

Pastes selected notes' text into previously active application. (Only in Personal and Company License)

Ctrl+Shift+Enter

Pastes selected notes' Title, Text, and Link into previously active application. (Only in Personal and Company License)

Search Box

Down

Move focus to the notes list.

Ctrl+Up

Ctrl+Down

Ctrl+PageUp

Ctrl+PageDown

Navigates search mode menu without opening it.

Alt+Down

Opens the search mode menu.

Ctrl+Home

Ctrl+End

Focuses the notes list and moves cursor to start/end.

Ctrl+Enter

Treats the search term as tags and tries to select them in the Tag Sidebar. If the search term is empty, "Untagged" is selected.

Note Editor

Up

Down

Navigate the controls.

Ctrl+Down

Move focus to the Tags edit box.

F3

Find and select next instance of currently selected text (if present).

Shift + F3

Find and select previous instance of currently selected text (if present).

F7

If currently edited note has a link, opens this link using the default web browser.

Ctrl+Enter

Save the note and close the dialog.

Ctrl+S

Save the note without closing the dialog.

Alt+C

Close the dialog without saving the note (equals pressing Cancel button).

Note Editor - While Editing Note Text

Ctrl+B

Ctrl+I

Ctrl+U

Ctrl+-

Ctrl+H

Ctrl+M

Toggles various formatting on currently selected text.

Ctrl+L

Cycles selection between no list, bulleted list and numbered list styles.

Ctrl+Del

Clears currently selected text of any formatting.

Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y

Undo/redo last typing actions.

Tags Edit Field

Ctrl+Spacebar

Display the list of all existing tags minus the tags which are already entered in the textbox.

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