{"id":524,"date":"2024-11-11T22:07:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T02:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/?p=524"},"modified":"2024-11-12T11:34:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T15:34:49","slug":"the-extremely-hacky-way-to-have-a-pop-up-notepad-with-a-keyboard-shortcut-in-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/11\/the-extremely-hacky-way-to-have-a-pop-up-notepad-with-a-keyboard-shortcut-in-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"The extremely hacky way to have a pop-up notepad with a keyboard shortcut in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you use Raycast for Mac, there&#8217;s a neat &#8220;Floating Notes&#8221; feature (now called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raycast.com\/blog\/raycast-notes\">Raycast Notes<\/a>) that summons a little pop-up notepad, and you can have a single keyboard shortcut that both opens and closes it again\u2014helpful for temporarily jotting things down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve looked around and found nothing similar for Windows, but I did come across a workaround involving a free app called <a href=\"https:\/\/webcatalog.io\/en\/apps\/\">Webcatalog<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/webcatalog.io\/en\/apps\/\">Webcatalog<\/a> bills itself as an &#8220;app store for web apps.&#8221; Once installed, it allows you to install other websites as freestanding apps on your desktop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most things, this isn&#8217;t really necessary, because most web browsers can install websites as desktop apps on their own. But when you install a site as a desktop app using Webcatalog, there&#8217;s a feature that lets you toggle the app open and closed with a keyboard shortcut. Aha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the process looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sign up for a free Webcatalog account.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Install the Windows app.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Search for a suitable notepad app from the Webcatalog store. (I suggest <a href=\"https:\/\/numbr.dev\">Numbr<\/a>, which is both a notepad and a calculator in one.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the notepad app you&#8217;ve selected, head to Menu &gt; File &gt; Settings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the Appearance tab, select &#8220;Define a keyboard shortcut to switch to the app window quickly.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enter the keyboard shortcut you want to use and hit &#8220;Save.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not a perfect solution. The keyboard shortcut only works after you&#8217;ve launched the app manually, and it stops working if you quit the app with the X button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, the field is wide open for someone to create a proper floating notepad app for Windows. Otherwise we&#8217;ll have to wait until <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/09\/25\/raycast-raises-30m-to-bring-its-mac-productivity-app-to-windows-and-ios\/\">Raycast makes its way over<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you use Raycast for Mac, there&#8217;s a neat &#8220;Floating Notes&#8221; feature (now called Raycast Notes) that summons a little pop-up notepad, and you can have a single keyboard shortcut that both opens and closes it again\u2014helpful for temporarily jotting things down. I&#8217;ve looked around and found nothing similar for Windows, but I did come [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","iawp_total_views":96,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-tech","h-entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarednewman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}