Please see the Reviews & User Comments listed on ScrapBook's main page.

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Please see the new ScrapBook Tutorial (new with version 1.16 of ScrapBook).  (You're welcome to send email if you have questions or feedback regarding the tutorial.)

In addition to this FAQ, I would recommend that a new user review the 8 annotated screen illustrations here . (You can follow the links at the bottom of the page to view descriptions of the other forms.)

The reference-style User Manual (included in the download) provides a complete description of ScrapBook's features and controls.

In addition, the ReleaseNotes.txt file (in the download) contains a complete summary of the changes found in all of ScrapBook's update releases.

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Yes.

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The capitalization check question can be disabled using the menu "Options" / "Confirm Capitalization" on the "Import/Export Notes" form.  This option applies not only to the importing of notes from Memos, but also to simply editing notes using the Edit form.

This option affects the capitalization of the word in question as it appears in ScrapBook's internal cross-reference.  This, in turn, affects the way the word is capitalized as you see it listed in the Search form's "All Keywords" list (when using the "Keywords" search mode).  In some cases, a word might be a little easier to spot quickly in the list if it appears correctly capitalized, however, the issue isn't critical since keyword searches are case-independent.

Another area where the default capitalization comes into play is the keyword auto-completion feature on the Edit form.  If you're entering words into a note's keyword list, and are making use of the keyword auto-completion feature, if ScrapBook's guess as to which keyword you're entering is accepted, then the default capitalization is used.

Note - if you disable this question (which causes ScrapBook to default to lowercase), but later find that there are certain words in ScrapBook's cross-reference that you would prefer to have properly capitalized, you can specify a keyword's proper capitalization using the menu "Options" / "Set Keyword Case" in the Edit form.

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The Edit form can use the space in the lower part of its screen to display the keyword list and a row of controls just below it, or it can use the same area to extend the display of the note's text.  You can toggle back and forth between the two modes by tapping the icon in the bottom right corner of the form.

If you want the Edit form to prefer the "expanded" view (i.e. more space for the note's text), you can use the Edit form's menu "Options" / "Prefer Expanded View".  Note that, if this preference is selected, the display of the keyword list and the controls right below it will be suppressed only if the note actually contains enough text that it would extend into that part of the screen.

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To link a ScrapBook note (which is not currently linked to a folder) to a folder of your choice, there are a couple methods available to accomplish this.

The Folders form provides the ability to browse through the hierarchy of folders and select a particular folder.  Almost everything in ScrapBook helps support finding a particular note, and all these paths support loading a particular note into the Edit form.  So, the two key players are the Folders form (whose context specifies a folder), and the Edit form (whose context specifies a note).  Each form can refer to the other's most recent context, and this provides the basis for linking notes to folders.  So, the steps involved are:

1. Load the note in question into the Edit form
2. Leave the Edit form (you don't have to have modified the note), and switch to the Folders form
3. Browse to the desired folder, and use menu "Edit" / "Link to last note edited"

          OR

1. In the Folders form, browse to the appropriate folder
2. Leave the Folders form, and load the note in question into the Edit form
3. In the Edit form, use menu "Edit" / "Link to last folder"

See also "How can I import or export a note directly to or from a specific folder?" (described next).

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To export ScrapBook notes directly from a ScrapBook folder to a Memos category:

1. In the Folders form, browse to the folder containing the data you want to export
2. Select (by tapping on the icons), one or more notes and/or folders to be exported
   
3. In the Import/Export Notes form, choose Export, choose Move or Copy, and choose a destination category in Memos
4. Use menu "Options" / "Export Selected Folders Items"

To import Memos notes directly into a ScrapBook folder:

1. In the Folders form, browse to the destination folder where you want the notes to be stored
2. In the Import/Export Notes form, choose Import, choose Move or Copy, choose the source category in Memos
3. If you want to, you can, at this time, also choose a Category (in ScrapBook) for the imported notes to be assigned to
   
4. Select the notes to be imported, then use menu "Options" / "Import To Current Folder"

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In order to support the high-speed keyword search feature, ScrapBook parses note titles into a list of 'keywords' that you might want to search for at some time in the future.  This list is visible in the Search form (in "Keywords" mode).  In order to make sure that this list is easy to read, and appears like a list of for-the-most-part "normal"-looking words, there are some restrictions on the set of characters that can be used in titles (for example, excluding printable characters that are commonly used to *separate* one word from another).

For best results, I would suggest thinking of note titles not just as note titles, but also as space-separated lists of keywords that you might be interested in searching for at some time (since this is how they are interpreted by ScrapBook).

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A ScrapBook user recently emailed me about this feature; he said that my reply did address the questions he had, so I'll simply include it here too (slightly edited):

I'll try to describe the ideas I had in mind behind the "virtual folder" feature...   The main thing that the virtual folder feature depends on is having the user assign appropriate keywords to each note.  Ideally, this would become a habit, so, whenever one creates a new note, one would choose a title and then take an extra few moments to think about what the foreseeable circumstances would be in which he or she would want to retrieve that note, and, for each of those circumstances, to see if there are any obvious search keywords that would apply, and then to add those keywords to the note's keyword list.   So, for example, if I'm making a note to record certain business expenses, I might also tag that note with keywords like "tax", "return", "2007", since filing my taxes would be a foreseeable circumstance in which I would want to retrieve that note.

So ... assuming that most notes not only have appropriate titles, but also have well chosen lists of keywords (to help retrieve the notes under various circumstances), then the virtual folder concept is basically a streamlined way of performing commonly used keyword searches (where each search can specify one or more keywords - i.e. depending on the length of the path of the virtual folder).

For example, assuming I did what I described above with the note about the business expenses, I could then, at any time, create a folder whose path
is "/tax/return/2007/".  Then, whenever I go into that folder and tap 'V', ScrapBook will perform a keyword search for the set of keywords: "tax",
"return", and "2007", and, presto, the note mentioned above will appear in the search results (without me ever having to have made an explicit link between that note and that folder!).

I think virtual folders would come in handy if you wanted to look at a collection of notes from several different angles, so to speak.  For example, I might also have a virtual folder "/business/expenses/", and if those words appear in the note's title or keyword list, then the same note could appear in *both* virtual folders (or even more virtual folders - it all just depends on how the keywords match up).   So, if a note wants to be linked to multiple folders, this is a way to do it.

Another way to put it is that creating a normal folder isn't really any different from creating a virtual folder - the difference comes into play in terms of what you do when you visit the folder.  I.e. it's a procedural difference.  In order to visit a normal folder, just browse to the folder's path and you will automatically see listed there the notes that are linked to that folder in the normal way.  In order to visit a virtual folder, you browse to the folder's path, and then tap the 'V' button - *then* you will see the virtual folder's "contents" (which is really the results of a multiple-keyword search).

It is a little abstract, but the key idea is that a keyword search is what underlies a virtual folder, and the structure of nested folders you create is really a way of organizing and providing quick access to the keywords that you want to search for most often.

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