Improved Shapes Tool
Most of us can’t help but compare the shapes tool in GoodNotes with the one in Notability. Most of us want the shapes tool to be like the one in Notability. Reasonable, Notability does have a terrific shapes tool. In addition to all the goodies in Notability, we want to:
- Set a default pen for the shapes tool.
- Lock shapes
- Move them to the back of other items on the page.
Audio Recording Tool
It is the second most requested feature from GoodNotes. Audio recording is Notability’s trump card. If GoodNotes added it, most of us might just leave Notability. MIGHT.
Mind Mapping Tool
Creating freehand mind maps is the best way to create mind maps. You can start on them as soon as you purchase GoodNotes. Not sure what a mind mapping tool would do which you can’t already do in the app. If you requested this feature or if you voted for it, please shed some light on this.
NB: You can create mind maps in any note-taking app. That is primarily my note-taking style. It doesn’t require any special tools to start on it.
More Stability Of The App
There is a problem when users request app stability. Noteshelf and GoodNotes have more features but they are not as stable as Notability. To put your minds at ease, GoodNotes has been releasing a lot of bug fixes lately. Let’s hope the app will become more stable by the end of this year.
Improve The Text Tool
GoodNotes’ text tool is its worst feature. This feature needs some substantial makeover. We should have the ability to:
- Add a text box and lists (numbered, unnumbered and interactive lists).
- Strikeout words
- Save some template settings for headings.
More Pens And Addition Of The Apple Notes Kit
I am just a messenger. I don’t get that at all!
True Dark Mode
Yes! Not just for notes we create but for PDFs too. GoodNotes is an excellent PDF reader; true dark mode will significantly improve our user experience in the app.
Highlighting For Dark Mode Paper
Highlighting in dark mode doesn’t work the way it does in light mode. Apple Notes almost got the idea. The highlighter in Apple Notes looks better in dark mode.
Smaller File Sizes
GoodNotes creates large files that take up a lot of space on our devices. Smaller files would be much appreciated. They did release an update addressing that though but, they haven’t quite got it yet. It’s slightly improved.
A Minimalist Interface
Yes, we are all about minimalism in 2020. We want more features but fewer icons and fewer steps for doing those iconless things. Up until now, complex apps have many icons. But we want that changed soon.
Better Handwriting Like Notability
Just out of curiosity, if you like the handwriting in Notability, why don’t you use Notability? Some people like the handwriting in GoodNotes. If it were to change, they would want to ditch the app.
The writing feel of a note-taking app is like a person’s character. It is the one thing that defines an app. GoodNotes can undoubtedly improve its writing experience, but it shouldn’t change it to be like that of another note-taking app.
Zooming For Realistic Paper Sizes
It’s challenging to appreciate your paper sizes in GoodNotes. The app supports many page sizes and therefore a percentage zoom on the screen is necessary. Or perhaps shortcuts to zoom in and out of the 100% size of pages.
Set Width Sizes & Add Margins To Pages
Narrow and wide don’t quite do the trick. We want to determine the width of our grids in millimetres. We also want to add margins on all four sides of the paper. It is not necessary; you can add custom page templates to GoodNotes’ template library.
Improved OCR
OCR for Math equations and more straightforward conversion to text. Copying and pasting converted text then deleting the handwritten section is too much work. We should be able to replace handwriting with text in one step. We also want support for more languages, especially right to left languages. Many people have been requesting Arabic.
Improved Zoom Tool
We need pen tools on the zoom window like there were in GoodNotes version four. We also need auto-advance to support the right to left writing.
An Online Store To Sell Digital Products
These could be graphics, images, symbols and planners, for example. Brilliant idea. It can be an excellent source of money for our developers. Not just GoodNotes but all of them. Noteshelf already has this, although at the moment they only have royalty-free images.
Add more things to our notes:
- Sticky notes
- Clipart
- Tables
- Emojis
At the moment we can add images only in GoodNotes.
Fix The Lasso Tool
The lasso tool should move objects across pages in the same notebook. At the moment we have to copy & paste. The lasso tool in GoodNotes is terrific, yet it doesn’t support such a basic feature. It is unacceptable.
Android & Windows Versions For GoodNotes
So we are not limited to using iPads and Macs only.
Nested Bookmarks
We can create outlines in GoodNotes. Now we are asking for better organisation of those outlines. Creating sub-outlines/ bookmarks will help us do that.
Other requests:
- Hyperlink different notes
- PDF editing: erase, select, trim and resize non-handwritten objects in documents brought into the app.
- Extract highlights from PDFs
- Show file/document count in folders
- Make thumbnails smaller
- Presentation mode like the one in Notability (not sure which feature exactly) because GoodNotes’ presentation mode is quite decent.
- Auto backup to more cloud services from smaller companies, e.g. Nextcloud.
- Move tools around and customisation of our toolbars.