Tomboy is a desktop notes application from GNOME. It is well integrated to Ubuntu Unity system tray, small, easy to use, and it includes many other features. For you looking for a good desktop notes, than Tomboy is for your. Tomboy web site is https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy. Here, we introduce how to install Tomboy and its example of use in Ubuntu.
Install Tomboy
Perform this command line in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install tomboy
If you dislike command line, then search the name tomboy in Software Center and install it.
Basic Window
If you click Tomboy icon in system tray > Search All Notes, you will get the Tomboy main window. It shows all your notes.
Basic Use
- Creating note: once running, Tomboy icon will stay in your Unity system tray (top panel). Click the icon > click Create A New Note. Type anything. The first line would be the title for that new note.
- Accessing notes: click Tomboy icon > click one title of notes available.
- Formatting text: open a note > select a portion of text > click Text button > select one of text formats available (e.g. highlight or italic).
- Delete note: open a note > click Delete This Note button.
Use Examples
A desktop notes can be used for anything. A real example perhaps todo list for today or tomorrow. For some bloggers (like us), using Tomboy for saving daily long HTML tag codes is worthy. For some readers, using Tomboy to save many URL links is perhaps a good idea. You can access them anytime from your system tray.
Make Tomboy Starts Automatically
You can add tomboy command into Ubuntu Startup Items so it will starts every time you start Ubuntu. Just search for startup in Ubuntu Dash Menu, then add tomboy command as a new entry.
Technical Addition
Tomboy saves its notes in the directory ~/.local/share/tomboy/ which is inside your own $HOME directory. The files there are basically plain text, coded as XML inside, with .note file extension.