This is version 2.1 of this panel I am developing per several requests from the forum users.

This panel displays an editable text box in which you can store whatever info you want. It can also display a text file's contents and update the text when the file updates.

NEW FEATURES FOR VERSION 2.1:
- Ability to display text in Right-to-Left direction.
- Ctrl-A now selects all the text.
- This version is only compatible with b86 and above!

NEW FEATURES FOR VERSION 2.0:
- Ability to display the file matching the DS skin and without the white background.
- Ability to save the text between sessions / save it to the text file.
- Ability to display a different text file each day (this is Prism's request). I know this feature isn't so flexible currently.

REQUIREMENTS:
- You must have installed the .NET Framework version 1.1 in order for this panel to work.
- You must use the latest DS build (currently build 86).

INSTALLATION:
- Download the file from the Extension Exchange, here:
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/ffdetails.php?id=188.
Make sure you save the file with a DSPACKAGE extension.
- Run the file (double click it) when Desktop Sidebar is running.

Please post any feedback in this thread, I will gladly accept it. Thanks.

I think that this plug-in will be useful for many users that want to store unformated data for their everyday use.

As a first suggestion, i would be satisfied if text could be saved between sessions, in the case that no text file is used.

Thanks alot!!!

Yeah, added that right now. I'll wait for more suggestions though because releasing a version for one feature is ridiculous.

Yes, great panel! Just that what I've searched for.

Nice panel If we could only save the file after editing it, the panel will be more useful.

Feature is in the works.

this is pretty darn cool. this would have been so useful had i not accidentally deleted my game ost database.

i just noticed we don't have one of them crying emoticons.

'There's no crying in technology'
LOL.

very nice, exactly what I was looking for.

one thing you might want to add if you have the time or motivation is the ability to drag .txt files into the field itself (a useful feature in notepad). Other than that, excellent work

Thanks.
It's a nice suggestion (drag-drop). I know how to implement it, because I have already done it with the File Browser panel.

ahh finally

great stuff, thank you

I already have Notes Panel installed and I still want to have this panel too because of it features. But now my DS is getting crowded. GoMa, if you don't mind, how about integrating this panel features with the Notes Panel?

I think it's better to have a panel with multiple features than having many kinda-same panel with a few different features in each one of it.

Mattisking was intrested in improving the Notes Editor panel so he might add such a feature.

I'm so excited to see this plugin! I've always wanted this, since all other sidebars (SmartBar, even some other primitive ones) have this convenient textbox.

One thing I noticed that another Free Sidebar (Codename Dashboard) that really impressed me was the use of several tabs that look like Firefox browser tabs. So, instead of having one note, you can have several. To switch between them, you simply click on the tabs. That was so amazing! Can your plugin be made to do such a function?

Excellent work you've done here!

Krimoufuk: that will kind of be reimplementing the Notes panel. I mean, this panel is meant for something other than editing notes, although I don't care if somebody used it for note taking.

Ctrl + A doesn't work. It's a very convenient shortcut for Select All. Otherwise one'd need to right-click and select that function.

I will try to fix it, thanks.

Version 2.0 is out. Check the first post.

GoMa - nice but there isn't an option to save the file Hope you'll add it next version.
Small suggestion - it is hard to find the link to the panel download page - make it bold so more users can see it

yyy, there is an option. It's called "save the text between sessions".

Hmm... you need to look harder.
I will add a manual save option in the next version.

Great

Would it be possible to introduce some basic formatting for the text? Say for example, if i surrounded a word with <b></b>,in the text file, it would make it display bold. Bold, underline, italic, and color would be great to have. You could use either html-like tags, or maybe tags like you use on this forum. This would be for the read-only mode of course.

version 2 is nice, the save between uses feature is very helpful

GoMa,

Great panel. Can you implement a few shortcuts, in particular ctl+a. I use this panel a lot when developing and often I copy text that is formatted and need to paste it into a "Dumb" editor and then copy it again. I've been using this panel for that, however it is a lot faster if I can use ctl+a to select the text again.

In other words I would like to use it like this:
ctl+v - paste in(works)
ctl+a - select all text (doesnt work)
ctl+v - into my dev environment clean and unadulterated text.

how about auto save?
can make a option to let it able to auto save frequently?
or even saves if you type in any letter
i think it will be so cool

I have a bug report and feature requests:

The panel can't read any Hebrew text. I've tried it in the non-editable mode, and it just skips the Hebrew letters.

I would like to have in this panel an option for right-aligning, and also another mode in the panel - something like "quotes" panel, which will get a file, and show its content line-by-line, each line after a few seconds/minutes.

I will try to implement "quotes" mode (it will not have this name though ).
Right aligning - do you know how I can do that? I remembered your request before releasing the second version, but didn't find a TextOutput method for that - do you know how to do that? Maybe it can be done through skinning? I'll look into it.
Hebrew - I did notice this but unfortunately I think there is nothing that can be done to cure that issue. I will contact kdam.

Autosave - I don't promise, but I will try to implement that.

GoMa - for autosave, could you technically save the text to a file that is local to your panel's folder in the /appdata/desktop sidebar/plugins directory? and then on close you can either load from there or save to the ds config file?

For the right aligning - use the CListOutput.SetRightToLeft(true) function.

But it doesn't really help without Hebrew support.

I have an idea, I'll look into it and tell you if it succeeds.

i believe you can display hebrew characters in an IListOutput and ITextOutput, but I think only the list supports RTL characters. Try it out with my alarm panel. You can set the title as hebrew (RTL support will come later).

It seems quite strange that the TextOutput object doesn't support RTL.
I would suggest using ListOutput with one row. Shouldn't be so difficult to change.

It won't be difficult because of the way I have programmed the panel - I will implement this suggestion. Still, I will contact kdam and tell him about this - if it will be available on a near future build I will not change it.

I've just solved the Hebrew problem: in order to see Hebrew letters, save the file in Unicode format, and not in the ANSI format which is Notepad's default.
It works just fine for me, now I'm just waiting for the RTL support.

Another thing - the panel doesn't include an autofit support.

I'm happy you have found this solution!

Autofit - I don't think it is necessary for this kind of panel. Perhaps only when it's in non-editable mode?

Oops - I think that forgot the Right to Left option of the ITextOutput. Even if you can do it by skinning, I think that it should be done by the panel's code, like with the IListOutput.

Kdam told me that RTL support for TextOutput will probably be in build 85, so for the time being I will not include this feature.
However it might be possible to right align the text, which can get you the wanted effect - I will try to do this.

Any way to have CTRL + A do a Select All?

It's already implemented. I just want to include RTL support and then release it. In the coming days hopefully.

Hasn't kdam fixed the textoutput RTL problem yet?

He has (at least there is a method for it, didn't check if it works yet).

Great, thanks!

Very much appreciated.