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Version 8.0 of Noteshelf, released in August 2020, finally introduced vertical scrolling—a feature we had been eagerly awaiting. To change the scrolling direction in your workspace, go to Settings > Scrolling. When your pages are zoomed out, there’s a fast scrolling bar on the right that helps you navigate through your documents quickly. However, it scrolls through pages, not individual sections, which you can do with your finger. There’s a gap between pages, so your handwriting won’t overlap across them, and the lasso tool can’t move items between pages. You’ll have to cut and paste notes between pages, which isn’t ideal. Hopefully, this will be improved in the future.
The developers have also been working on enhancing the handwriting experience in the app. The lag that used to occur when handwriting in Noteshelf has nearly disappeared over the past few months. We hope this bug is permanently fixed.
Another new feature is the ability to restore pages you’ve deleted from your notebooks. While most apps can restore deleted notebooks, restoring individual pages is quite unique to Noteshelf.
In September 2020, Version 8.1 was released, bringing the ability to rotate handwritten notes using the lasso tool. You can rotate your notes without resizing them, and it’s best to handle rotation and resizing separately. This update also added access to Unsplash for stock images, making it easy to get images without leaving the app.
Additionally, you can now long-press documents on the shelf to preview their contents. This is particularly helpful if you have similar-looking notebooks. It would be great if, in the future, we could have notebooks without covers so we can see the first pages right from the shelf. In December 2020, digital planners for 2021 were also introduced.
In January 2021, Version 8.2 was released, which was quite exciting! Noteshelf replaced its fixed pen sizes with a pen slider, allowing you to adjust to any thickness in between the fixed sizes. The fixed sizes are still available on the slider, so long-time users can continue using what they’re familiar with. This makes Noteshelf the first note-taking app to offer both fixed and variable pen sizes. The color palette was also updated to a paged display, giving it a more modern feel.
The favorites toolbar is now smaller and mobile, although it might be a bit too small for some. You can turn it on or off, move it around the page to any of the four edges, and customize or delete your favorite tools easily. Noteshelf has made its pen tool customization options more modern and user-friendly, ensuring they are intuitive and easy to use.
Currently, we’re on Version 8.3 of Noteshelf, which was first released in February this year. This update introduced the ability to create quick notes with a single tap. Simply tap the plus icon on the shelf labeled “Quick Create Note.” The name might seem a bit odd, but the feature itself is a must-have for any note-taking app. However, the default pumpkin yellow page color is quite harsh on the eyes. Since there’s no way to set a default paper template for quick notes, it would be better if the developers chose a more neutral color like white or beige. The lines on the current template are hard to see, and staring at it for too long can be frustrating or even give you a headache.
You can now manually sort your notebooks on the shelf by simply dragging and dropping them into their new folders. This is a much faster way to organize notes, and it’s a feature we really appreciate. We also got more options for grouped documents on the shelf. Previously, we could only open or rename groups, but since Version 8.3, we have additional options.
On March 24, 2021, another update, Version 8.3.3, was released. This update brought support for backing up notes to WebDAV, which is great news for those who have privacy concerns about using popular cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive.
The developers have stated that “strokes will appear in real-time when working on the same notebook in split view.” While letters do appear slightly quicker, the app still isn’t showing the actual strokes as you handwrite. They’ve also made some improvements to the zoom feature for better clarity, although the changes aren’t immediately noticeable. The last update in this version allows you to swipe the favorites toolbar up and down to hide or show it. However, despite our efforts, we couldn’t get this feature to work, whether using a finger or an Apple Pencil. It’s likely a bug or something we haven’t yet figured out.
Overall, Noteshelf developers have been making continuous improvements to the app, and we appreciate the updates over the past few months. Are there any changes that might make you start using Noteshelf? Let us know.
