Extranote

Chances are you do a lot of research over the web, and you might need a small place to write down all notes. It can be rather frustrating to have to open a text document for every bit of text you want to save, but you can definitely rely on applications like Extranote, which places notes on the desktop for you to fill with info.

First of all, you need to make sure that .NET Framework is installed on your computer, otherwise the program doesn’t function. Setup lasts only a little while, so you quickly get the chance to check out the application’s features, with a sample note showing up on the desktop on launch.

In terms of visuals, the application comes with a custom-made design, resembling a small glass pane, which is fully transparent. You can move it anywhere you see fit, and it’s designed to easily blend in with any type of environment. Note that it can’t be resized, and adding too much text makes it unreadable, because of the lack of a scroll bar.

Just to prevent accidental editing, the application doesn’t let you modify text on the spot. You first need to enter edit mode, function triggered at the press of a button. A new panel appears, letting you write down text on the spot, or paste from clipboard. Import and export functions aren’t implemented though.

Notes themselves are pretty straightforward, with no possibility to minimize them. Colors can’t be changed, nor the text style used. The window can’t be configured to stay on top of everything else. Creating more notes is simply done by running the program again, but you can assign a hotkey command to its shortcut for faster access.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Extranote is a stylish note to keep on your desktop, but practicality isn’t as shiny as the interface. Only a small amount of text remains visible. There aren’t any customization options, and it can get frustrating to run the program every time you want a new note on the desktop.