Original review published on Steve Litchfield's 3-Lib.

I've been putting off reviewing this application for a very long time, despite seeing it rise and rise in the author registration table. Almost a thousand people have registered this over the last year, and they can't all be wrong! I think perhaps I've been clinging to a belief that the Series 5's built-in applications are quite sufficient for general note-taking. In reality, I either end up using a convenient Agenda to-do, making a new 2 line Word file or (more usually) writing the note on a paper PostIt note! RMR Notes claims to offer a better way and when I noticed a new version on-line on RMR's web pages (in the course of my usage of RMR Event in the programming series) I decided to take the plunge...

RMR's other programs have a reputation for being feature-packed but occasionally a little on the slow side and RMR Notes is similar, taking up to 15 seconds to start up and open its document file. In regular use, the answer is of course to keep the program open as much of the time as possible, in which case access is near instantaneous.

The aim of the program is to store temporary snippets of information that you would otherwise struggle to find convenient homes for. Initially analogous to the 3c/3mx's Jotter application, RMR Notes goes one step further by allowing priorities and categories for each note, though of course you don't have to use them if you don't want to. You can even divide notes into multiple groups, though this extra level of organisation and the 3 or 4 seconds needed to switch between them tends to rather foil the point of using RMR Notes for its simplicity and convenience.

In use, the program is simple to operate. A tap of the Enter key or the appropriate toolbar button and a new note dialog is brought up. Just fill in the details, tap "Done" and a one-line entry appears on the main screen. A nice touch is that pressing the space bar views the note in full in 'read-only' mode so that when rushing for a train or similar you don't amend it by mistake. In case you were wondering, the Tab key brings the note up for editing, in addition to the equivalent menu commands and toolbar buttons.

As ever, RMR's software is extremely polished and sticks to all the expected Series 5 conventions, so there are no unpleasant surprises. Virtually everything about the program is configurable, this is one utility that you really can shape to match your imagination. For example, you could choose to hide the priority and category fields on the main display and in the entry dialogs. Plus there are options to sort and filter the entered notes by date, priority or category. You can even export notes to ASCII or Comma-delimited text files for re-use in another program.

There are other note-taking utilities available for the Series 5, but this is the most comprehensive and professional. I'm still not 100% confirmed in the RMR Notes faith, but at least I'm one step further down the road to being a believer!

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