OneNote Powertoy Contest Update
Last year the OneNote marketing team started a contest to see how developers and enthusiasts used the OneNote SimpleImport API and the OneNote command line switches to create powertoys that worked with OneNote 2003.
The contest generated some great buzz and people were excited to see who would win and what powertoys they created. I was working with the marketing team to test these out and help judge a winner. Around December of 2005 we had selected the winners and we were working with them to get a final prografully developed, tested and posted on the OneNote 2003 Powertoys site on Office Online.
Then things got messy:
- There were changes on the marketing team and I said that I would take over this contest.
- The team got really busy with OneNote 2007.
- We found that the DataImporter that Donovan Lange wrote didn't work with OneNote 2007! That meant that all powertoys written for OneNote 2003 would not be compatible if they used the DataImporter. Seeing that virtually all of the contestants were using the DataImporter I thought it was important we get the problems solved.
- Donovan was able to fix the DataImporter and posted an update on his blog at the end of March.
- I contacted some of the contest winners to get them to use the new importer.
- I only got a few responses.
- Here we are now.
In hindsight there are a few things I would do differently with this contest. I have realized that some of the powertoys will have to be rewritten for OneNote 2007 and it was a pie in the sky goal to have all of the powertoys working with OneNote 2003 & OneNote 2007.
From here on out I would like to get in touch with the winners and publically announce the winners so that everyone can see what came of this contest. They can contact me and we can get their most recent code posted on our website and I can link people to the powertoys. We never forgot about this contest and we still are reaching out to the community.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.