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StickySorter

Ever found yourself lost in the eye of a brainstorm? Lots of great information, but it’s all over the place! Sticky Sorter is a Grassroots Project, developed by two Microsoft Employees, that you can use today to manage such challenges. The inventors, Julie and Sumit, were looking for an easier way to capture, sift through, and organize hundreds of research observations traditionally done on physical sticky notes in an affinity diagramming exercise with researchers from around the world. The result is StickySorter which met their complex needs, supports virtual collaboration, and is now available for you to use in managing your next brainstorm.

View Slide Show

View Slide Show

Check out the video and slideshow for the many ways you can capture, organize, and display your notes with Sticky Sorter.

Check out the video and slideshow for the many ways you can capture, organize, and display your notes with Sticky Sorter.

Affinity Diagramming Introduction

Affinity Diagramming Introduction

Download Sticky Sorter and see how you can improve your next brainstorming session. Or, get more of the back story on this idea.

LATEST BLOGS | FAQ

1. What is Sticky Sorter?
2. Import and Export
3. Create and Label Groups
4. Display Structured Information
5. Create Custom Views
6. Work with Large Collections?
7. What are the system requirements for running StickySorter?
8. How do I import data into StickySorter?
9. Does StickySorter have collaboration features?
10. Using StickySorter
11. Create Notes
12. Change Colors
13. Edit Notes
14. Arrange Notes
15. Create Groups
16. Add Notes to Groups
17. Pan Canvas
18. Zoom Canvas
19. Select Notes
20. Search
21. Save Your Data
22. Add Fields
23. Hide & Show Fields
24. Place Fields on Back of Note
25. How can I tell what group an individual note is in?
26. How can I tell which notes are part of a group?
27. Keyboard Shortcuts
28. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts that can’t be found in the file menus

1. What is Sticky Sorter?

StickySorter is an application for collaborative information organization tasks, like brainstorming, planning, and affinity diagramming. While it uses the familiar paradigm of sticky notes as information elements, it’s not your typical sticky note application. StickySorter has a variety of features specifically designed to help you with information organization. For example, you can:

2. Import and Export information in csv (Comma Separated Values) format, a standard format that is compatible with many other applications such as Microsoft Excel and Access.

3. Create and Label Groups of notes and save that information along with the notes themselves.
Other virtual note applications allow you to move notes close to one another as the only means of grouping. StickySorter goes beyond this: it stores group information as a property of the individual notes so it can be saved and used for other tasks. It also allows you to move and manipulate groups with ease.

4. Display Structured Information on a note. StickySorter allows you to create notes that have multiple fields—a title, description, and author, for example—rather than a single block of text. Like groups, this field information is saved with the notes so it can be used for other tasks.

5. Create Custom Views of your information. In addition to allowing you to define multiple fields on a note, StickySorter allows you to choose which fields you want to display. This is handy when you import information that has multiple fields but you only need to see a couple of them for sorting and organizing.

6. Work with Large Collections of notes. StickySorter has a number of features that make it easier to work with large numbers of notes, including panning and zooming on an infinite canvas; tiling, cascading, and piling notes; setting note colors; searching for text within notes, and much more.

7. What are the system requirements for running StickySorter?

StickySorter will run on any PC. It also imports and exports csv format files, which can be opened in many other programs such as Excel or Notepad.

8. How do I import data into StickySorter?

StickySorter will open csv files which can be created using many applications, including Excel and Notepad.

The data in your csv files does need to be formatted in a specific way. The best way to understand how is to create several notes in StickySorter, save the file, and then open it in an application that can read csv files. This will give you a firsthand view of how StickySorter formatted the information in your notes.

Briefly: When you open a csv file in StickySorter, each row of data becomes a separate note. Each column becomes a field on the note. The data in the first row of your csv file is used as field labels. However, you only see the labels when you are editing the note.

For example:

Check out the Using StickySorter section for more information.

9. Does StickySorter have collaboration features?

While StickySorter does not have any features that are explicitly for collaboration, such as file syncing or networking, here are some ways you can use StickySorter to collaborate with others:

Project your StickySorter file on a wall and have everyone discuss the contents of the notes and how they should be grouped. Have one person create groups and arranges notes based on the discussion. At the end of the meeting, save the file so that you can work with it later, either in StickySorter or in an application that reads csv files, such as Excel.
If there are remote participants, you can use online meeting software, such as Microsoft Office Live Meeting, to share Sticky Sorter with others.
To let people prepare their thoughts before a StickySorter session, have individuals work on separate files, either in StickySorter or in an application that reads. csv files, such as Excel or even Notepad. Later, you can merge everyone’s files together in StickySorter using File > Insert.

10. Using StickySorter

11. Create Notes

There are several ways to create a new note:

Right click on the canvas and choose Add Note
Select Add from Note menu
Type Ctrl +N
Click Add Note in toolbar

12. Change Colors

There are several ways to change the color of a note. Select the note or notes and then:

Select Set Color from Note menu
Right click on note and select Set Color
Press F1 through F6
Click Set Color in toolbar

13. Edit Notes

There are two ways to edit a note:

Double click on note
Right click on a note and select Edit

14. Arrange Notes

There are three commands for automatically arranging notes:

Pile: puts all the selected notes in one small pile with the notes overlapping each other.

Stack: puts all the selected notes in a vertical cascade, so each slightly overlaps the other.

Tile: puts all the selected notes in a grid. Notes do not overlap.

15. Create Groups

There are several ways to create a group.

Right click on the canvas and select New Group
Select Add to Group > New Group from Note menu
Click the Add to Group button on the toolbar

16. Add Notes to Groups

There are several ways to add a note to a group:

Select note(s), right click and select Add to Group
Drag note(s) onto the header of an existing group
Select note(s) and select Add to Group from Note menu

17. Pan Canvas

StickySorter has an infinite canvas. There are several ways to pan around on the canvas:

Middle mouse button + drag
Ctrl + left mouse button + drag
Scroll wheel to pan up and down. Hold shift while scrolling to pan left and right
Click Pan Mode on toolbar. Click Select Mode to exit pan mode.

18. Zoom Canvas

There are several ways to zoom in and out of the canvas:

Ctrl + scroll wheel
Ctrl + ’+’ to zoom in. Ctrl + ‘-‘ to zoom out.
Click Zoom In/Out on toolbar

19. Select Notes

Select multiple notes:

Ctrl + click
Click and drag a selection box over notes. The top left corner of a note must be within selection box to be selected.

Select all notes: Ctrl + A
Select a group of notes: Click on group header

20. Search

Type keywords in the Find Notes box (upper right corner of application window) and press Enter. All notes containing the text in any field are selected.
Open Find dialog:

Select Find from Notes menu
Ctrl + F

21. Save Your Data

Select Save or Save As from the File menu. StickySorter saves data in a csv (Comma Separated Values) format file.

22. Add Fields

By default, a sticky note has one visible field. You can add more by:

Selecting Customize Fields from Notes menu
Clicking Customize Fields in toolbar

You can also add new fields by editing the csv file in a program like Excel and adding new columns. The first row is used as the field labels.

23. Hide & Show Fields

By default, one field is visible on a note. To hide a field, place an ‘@’ in front of the name of the field that you wish to hide, for example ‘@Researcher’ To make a hidden field visible, simply remove the ‘@’.

There are two ways to edit the name of a field:

Select Customize Fields from the Notes menu
Edit the csv file in a program such as Excel. The data in the first row of the csv file is used as the field labels

24. Place Fields on Back of Note

By default, one field is visible on the front a note and no fields are visible on the back of a note. To make a field appear on the back of a note, place an ‘!’ in front of the name of that field, for example ‘!Researcher’ To make the field appear on the front of a note, simply remove the ‘!’.

There are two ways to edit the name of a field:

Select Customize Fields from Notes menu
Edit the csv file in a program such as Microsoft Excel. The first row of the csv file is used as the field labels

25. How can I tell what group an individual note is in?

Select the note and look for the group header that is highlighted in a thin darker blue outline. All the other notes in the group will show this thin highlight as well.
Look at the back of the note ("Flip" the note). The group is shown on the back by default. If you want it to show on the front, you can use the Customize Fields option to change it.

26. How can I tell which notes are part of a group?

Select the group header of a group. All the notes that belong in that group will be selected, even if the note is not physically next to the group header.
If you select a note that is part of a group, all the notes in that group and the group header will be highlighted with a thin blue border.

27. Keyboard Shortcuts

You can find a lot of the keyboard short cuts from the file menus. Where there’s a keyboard shortcut, it’ll be hinted to the right of the action!

Ctrl + ‘N’ adds a new note to the canvas.
Ctrl + shift + ‘D’ duplicates the selected note(s)
Ctrl + select note - selects multiple notes
Ctrl + W – tiles selected notes into a grid
Ctrl + T – flips selected note(s) from front to back or back to front
Ctrl + R – stacks selected notes into a vertical cascade
Ctrl + A – selects all notes
Ctrl + F – brings up the find dialog
Ctrl + X – deletes selected note(s)
F1..F6 – sets the color of the selected note(s)

28. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts that can’t be found in the file menus

Ctrl + select whiteboard – pans the canvas
Middle mouse button pans the canvas
Middle mouse scroll wheel scrolls the canvas up & down
Shift + scroll wheel scrolls the canvas left & right
Ctrl + scroll zooms the canvas in & out.
Ctrl + ‘+’ zooms into the canvas
Ctrl + ‘-‘ zooms out of the canvas

Collaborative StickSorter (2 replies)

I could see it being very useful to have a shared StickySorter environment that could be accessed by multiple people from different workstations on the network. After setting up a shared StickySorter canvas you could set ...

Posted by: bevans Last updated: 9/22/2011 7:31 AM

Subgroups needed (0 replies)

You need to be able to create a hierarchical group structure. This would make it a great tools for all types of writers.

Posted by: jessomem Last updated: 8/22/2011 11:37 AM

MRU list or remember last file opened (2 replies)

Any chance of adding an MRU list to the file menu, or perhaps the option so that it loads the previously used file when you next reopen the application.

Posted by: Michael Last updated: 7/19/2011 3:13 AM

Program deficiencies (0 replies)

I'm finding StickySorter quite useful but have found the following deficiencies that are quite annoying. If the following items could be included they would greatly enhance usability.

1. Program remembers where last ...

Posted by: Gundsynd Last updated: 6/13/2011 3:23 PM

Go to the discussion forum...

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Requirements: Windows XP, Vista or 7 with .Net Framework 2.0

Limitations: None

Last updated: 06/28/2010

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