SketchBox: Supercharged Stickies

Stickies, included on every Mac, is a great note-taking app. However, it just needs some more features. SketchBox, from omz:software, is just like Stickies, with small colored notes to type on, but with many extra features.

SketchBox is a small little window that holds all of your notes; just double click one and it will move out of the box to its position on your screen. The left side of the window displays your folders and the right side displays your notes. You can zoom in on your notes to view them easier before opening them. One problem with this window, though, is that it’s a bit big and on smaller screens it could get in the way, but hiding the window can easily fix that. Once you have created a new note (command-N) you can do many things with it. On the top is the close button, note color change button, and the options button. On the right are three tabs: one for drawing, one for typing, and a third for setting alarms.

I’ll start with the Drawing tab. On the bottom of the note are options. You can switch between Eraser and Pencil and change the color and width of the pencil stoke. When you change the color of your pencil your mouse pointer also changes colors, so you can tell which color you are using. There is also a screenshot tool built into the drawing tab. Just click the camera
icon and the whole note turns into a viewfinder. Just set up the shot and click on the window. You can then draw on the picture and save it to your computer.

The next tab is the Text tab. If you have already drawn a picture or taken a screenshot this will overlay the text on top of the image, but with the image faded in the background. If you switch back to the drawing tab after typing, this will switch; the image will look normal but the text will be faded. The text is very simple. On the bottom of the note you can change the size and make the text underlined, bold, or italic. You can change the font by clicking command-T or by going to Format–Font in the menu bar. Sadly, there is no option to drag the text around. If you want to place it in an area on your screenshot you have to use Enter and Tab to place it.

The third tab is the Alarm. The Alarm is very easy to set — just drag the sliders in each section: Days, Hours, and Minutes. On top of the note you can see exactly what time and date your alarm will go off at. In the preferences you can choose between an analog or digital alarm noise. You can click the button at the bottom to have it reset. If an alarm is on then a small orange alarm icon will be displayed in the corner of the note in the main SketchBox window.

SketchBox has many great features that can not be found in Stickies. It even has tablet support which supports pressure sensitivity and the ability to use the end of your tablet pen as an eraser. If you have been using Stickies, or some other note taking application, you should definitely try this out. SketchBox is freeware and can be downloaded here.