To add Tomboy to a panel, right-click on the panel, then choose Add to Panel. Select Tomboy Notes in the Add to the panel dialogue, then click Add. You should see a yellow note icon appear in the panel, representing Tomboy. The panel icon is illustrated in Figure 1.

Once you have successfully added Tomboy to the Panel, you can create new notes using one of the following methods.

To create a new note using the mouse:

To create a new note using the keyboard:

After creating a new note, a new window will appear with the title New Note N. At the top of the note is a toolbar with several buttons and text. Directly below this toolbar is the content area of the note. This is illustrated in Figure 2.

The note can be edited by clicking in the content area and using the keyboard to add and remove content. The first line is considered the title of the note. By default this is populated with the text “New Note N”. The title is changed by clicking in the content area on the first line and using the keyboard to change the title. By default, focus is given to the content area upon creation of a new note, so you can immediately start editing the note without the need to click on the content area with the mouse.

Using the toolbar available on each note is discussed in Section 3 ― Working With Notes.

Figure 2 The default window for a New Note

To get an overview of all the notes managed by Tomboy, select the Search All Notes menu item from the panel menu. By default, the Search All Notes dialogue will display the notes in the order that they were last modified. Click the Note or Last Changed column headings to change the sort order. Click the column heading a second time to toggle between ascending and descending order.

You can find specific notes by entering text into the search field in the Search All Notes dialogue. The list of notes will automatically update to list only the notes which have matching text.

To open a note in the Search All Notes dialogue, do one of the following:

Clicking the Search button will open the Search All Notes dialogue described earlier (Section 2.4 ― Table of Contents.)

The Link button allows you to create a link to a new note from within the current note. For example, if your note contains the phrase “FinalExam”, you can select this text with the mouse and click the Link button to create a new note with the title “FinalExam”. A link will also be created in the current note that can be clicked to open the new “FinalExam” note.

Formatting text within your notes can be done using the Text button. The Text button will display a menu with several options from which you can choose. Each menu item is explained next.

The Tools button is represented by the icon. When you click the Tools icon on the toolbar present on your note, a menu will appear with the following items:

The Delete button will pop up a dialogue box asking if you want to permanently delete the note and its contents. Click the Delete button to discard the note permanently, or Cancel to abort the process. Links to this note from other notes will still exist, but will re-create the note upon activation.

To force a note to always be in the panel menu regardless of when you last accessed it, click the thumbtack icon to "pin" it to the menu. Notes that are pinned to the panel menu will have a thumbtack icons that look like this: . Notes that are not pinned to the panel menu will have thumbtack icons that look like this: .

Figure 3 Tomboy Panel Menu

You may begin a bulleted list by using one of the following methods:

End a bulleted list by doing one of the following:

To increase the line indentation in a bulleted list with the mouse:

To increase the line indentation in a bulleted list with the keyboard:

To decrease the line indentation in a bulleted list with the mouse:

To decrease the line indentation in a bulleted list with the keyboard:

You can configure your note synchronization preferences in the Synchronization tab of the Tomboy Preferences dialog. Default conflict handling behavior can be configured by selecting the Advanced... button.

Figure 4 Tomboy Synchronization Preferences

You can synchronize your notes at any time by selecting Tools ▸ Synchronize Notes from any note or from the Search All Notes dialog.

When synchronizing notes between multiple computers, conflicts may occur. Usually this is the result of not synchronizing regularly when switching between systems. Tomboy will detect conflicts in the content of your notes and help you to avoid loss of important data.

If a conflict is detected during note synchronization, the Note Conflict dialog will appear. If you do not need the changes you made in your local note, you can select Overwrite local note. If you would like to keep your local changes in a new note, select Rename local note.

The editing tab will allow you to set preferences related to editing notes. There are three checkboxes on this tab, which can either be turned on or off.

Figure 5 Tomboy Editing Preferences

The hotkeys tab allows you to set global key combinations to perform different functions in Tomboy. In order to set key combinations, you must have the Listen for Hotkeys checkbox enabled. Use Alt+H to toggle this option.

Figure 6 Tomboy Hotkey Preferences

Please see Section 6 ― Note Synchronization for more details.

The add-ins tab allows you to enable and configure Tomboy Add-ins.

The list of installed add-ins shows on the left. An add-in is enabled by selecting it from the list and then selecting Enable. Disable an add-in by selecting it from the list and then selecting Disable.

Please see Section 8 ― Add-ins for more information about the add-ins that are installed with Tomboy.

Figure 7 Tomboy Add-in Preferences