Microsoft Onenote for Linux? ~ Ask The Admin

Monday, July 23, 2007

Microsoft Onenote for Linux?

One of the most important applications I had to find a replacement for when switching from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) was Onenote, its so darn handy, even though a lot of people still think that if you don't have a tablet its no good...WRONG! For note taking its wonderful. I use it in meetings, interviews, lectures, researching, pretty much everything.


I checked out a lot of applications, on Freshmeat, the download.com of the Open Source community, they just didn't
cut it, after a good Google search I happened upon Basket a clone
of Microsoft Onenote.

Since a picture can paint a thousand words...



As you can see by this screen shot, your page can be a multitude of mixed formats and functionality as this screen shot illustrates, images, web links, app links, embedded files, to-do lists, etc., every element of the page can be moved around, resized according to your preference. Not bad for a free app so far huh?

With the amount of information you can put into Basket it could easly get chaotic. Basket allows your pages of content to be grouped into "baskets", which really is their term for a group, so each basket (Group) can also have child baskets attached to it, all hierarchal, which is great for people who manage to get thinks cluttered up real fast.. :)

Each element of content can be assigned tags also, like To-do, or Priority 1!, all customizable. For people like myself its a great way
of making sure I get the important stuff done first and work down
from that point, below is a shot of the tag assignment window.



Pretty neat stuff! You can also backup and restore your whole basket structure, password protect baskets, import CSV files or any other custom form of separation, also integrate with Kontact, the KDE PIM system.

So far I have being using Basket for a few months now with no problems at all, even a seasoned Onenote user who borrowed my laptop didn't have trouble using it, apparently he said it drew a lot
of parallels with Onenote so it was quite natural for him to use.

This sort of application quality is the direction developers
need to head in if they really want to make Linux a solid viable choice for businesses. Basket is definitely business class.

Thanks to Karl for allowing me to be a guest blogger here at Asktheadmin.

Psymon101 from sigmundvoid.com