BorkPad

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(last updated January 3, 2003)

What It Is

BorkPad is a faithful replica (within reason) of the classic Mac OS 9 NotePad, originally developed by Light Software. It stores multiple pages of plain text notes. It is designed to be fast launching and unobtrusive.

BorkPad is freeware. Use and enjoy. The source code is available too. Any questions or comments? Send them to borkpad-help@borkware.com

The original suggestion from Bork read:

Ever since I moved to OS X, I miss the OS 9 NotePad. It was blazingly fast to load, so it was convenient to stick some random text or notes. I want something that looks and feels like that old notepad.

But there's tons of NotePad replacements out on Version Tracker. They can store pictures! And movies! And styled text! And they have toolbars and drawers and documents and dancing wombats!

Yeah, I looked at a bunch of them. They're great, but they're all too complicated. I never deal with that multimedia stuff. Just text. I don't want styles. Just plain text. I don't need any extra controls, just a central place to put the text.

But what about stickies? It'll do what you want.

Perhaps, but then you have a bunch of little buggers clogging up the screen. I liked the NotePad UI: multiple pages, but all in one small window

Guess we can't convince you otherwise

Nope. Sorry. And I'd like a replacement for the OS 9 ScrapBook too.

We're working on that.

Great! Wait. I'm talking to myself again, aren't I?

Yeah.

Versions

• 1.1 : (April 20, 2003)
  • Fixed problem where edits to notes could be lost if the goto-note or find sheets were opened.
  • BorkPad now remembers what note you were on, and restores it on startup. Thanks to Jeff Perrin for reminidng us of that feature.
  • Notes are now stored in ~/Library/Application Support rather than in the user defaults file.
• 1.0 : it works! (January 3, 2003)

Download

Download BorkPad (v1.1), 233K (compressed disk image format)
Download BorkPad (v1.0), 310K (compressed disk image format)

Download Pröject (with source) (v1.1), 137K (tar.gz format)
Download Pröject (with source) (v1.0), 136K (tar.gz format)

Known Problems

in 1.1

• None so far.

in 1.0

• Unsaved changes to a note can be lost if you open the "Goto note" or "Find" windows. Fixed in version 1.1.

ScreenShots

BorkPad in all of its glory.

The BorkPad FindSheet, for digging through your notes.

You can even control the font and size! Woo hoo!

Items of interest about the code

• Model/View/Controller architecture
• Cheesy swooping animation when changing pages
• Number-only text formatter
• AppleHelp, and Context Help
• Constructing a font menu, changing fonts on the fly, and storing font preferences
• Graphics calls for drawing the auxiliary UI for the main window
• Sheet handling
• Searching for text amongst multiple strings
• Localized string handling (although there's only one translation currently available)
• Storing property lists in XML format (v1.1)
• Using ~/Library/Application Support to store the notes (v1.1)
• Tons of the usual commentary