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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Unused stickie notes

lbryan123 - Jun 12, 2008 - 11:40 am

Hi,

Something seems to be wrong with my Stickies application. I'm running MacOSX (10.3.9.)

1. Hundreds of new, unused Stickies notes (one behind the other) are always visible on my desktop when "Stickies" is open and not hidden. In my previous OS systems, only the notes I opened appeared on the desktop. I've tried closing all the notes to no avail. I can use one of the notes and move it wherever I want on the desktop, but I have no control over the unused ones. Is there a way to keep unused notes invisible?

2. Whenever I try to use my Stickies application, it takes what seems like forever for all the unused notes to load onto the desktop (which I don't want anyway) and it takes the same long time when I try to quit the application.

Is this fixable? and if not, is it possible to uninstall just the Stickies application and re-install it?

Thank you in advance for your help.

earthsaver - Jun 12, 2008 - 10:01 pm

The file, StickiesDatabase, in your Library, contains all content and info of stickies open. Is there text in some notes you want to keep? Save those notes to text files first. Then, quick Stickies and delete StickiesDatabase. You'll be left with the default notes when you reopen Stickies and can recreate only the notes you want, with the text you saved.

- Ben

lbryan123 - Jun 13, 2008 - 12:25 am

Hi Ben,

Wow! I did what you said and there are no more blank Stickies on my desktop. Thank you so much for your quick response.

Now, though, after getting rid of StickiesDatabase and rebooting Stickies, I have a single blank stickie on my desktop which I cannot remove because it is too high up on the screen and the top of the stickie is under the menu items.

I would like to remove that stickie from the desktop. Any idea how?

Thanks,
Laura

earthsaver - Jun 13, 2008 - 7:22 am

If you click on that last stickie to make it active and press Command+W, the close window command, it'll go away. Does the next stickie you create still occur up there? If so, download the trial of MondoMouse and you'll be able to move the stickie without having to drag the title bar.

lbryan123 - Jun 13, 2008 - 10:29 am

Hi,

So far, so good. Pressing Command+W did make the Stickie window go away, and you were right to suspect that the top of the next stickie might go up under the menu. I downloaded MondoMouse, but it wouldn't install because I don't have at least OS 10.4. I have 10.3.9 ... close but not close enough!

Can we lesser OS people still fix the problem?

Thank you again,
Laura

earthsaver - Jun 13, 2008 - 10:35 am

Try trashing the Stickies preferences file, com.apple.stickies.plist, in ~/Library/Preferences and relaunching Stickies.

lbryan123 - Jun 13, 2008 - 12:31 pm

Hi,

Trashing the Stickies preferences file, com.apple.stickies.plist did not work.

Thanks,
Laura

earthsaver - Jun 13, 2008 - 2:56 pm

How about trying Spooky to move the stickie to the middle of the screen?

lbryan123 - Jun 13, 2008 - 4:22 pm

I downloaded 'Spooky' and enabled Universal Access. But I don't know what to do next to make it work.

Thanks

earthsaver - Jun 13, 2008 - 4:38 pm

Sorry, I guess Spooky was a poor recommendation. MaxiMice will work, though. It will allow you to drag a window from anywhere while holding a modifier key. Really, this process shouldn't be so hard, because somewhere a file is telling Stickies to place the first window too high, but I can't help you find it.

lbryan123 - Jun 13, 2008 - 6:23 pm

Oh boy! MaxiMice seems no longer downloadable. Do you know of a way to uninstall 'Stickies' and download it again?

Thanks for trying.

earthsaver - Jun 14, 2008 - 12:56 am

Reinstalling the application alone probably wouldn't help. Seems the default settings file in the Stickies application bundle doesn't even have a reference to window position. What if you change the resolution of your display in the Displays pane of System Preferences? Does the window come into view? Maybe after to switch back to your normal resolution.

I just discovered I still have the installer for MaxiMice on my system. You can download it from here.

lbryan123 - Jun 14, 2008 - 10:33 am

Hi,

OK! We're making some progress here. I downloaded 'MaxiMice', and got it to work. It moves all windows in 'Stickies' (when I press a modifier key), except the original window still caught under the menu items. Now, I have no more problems with new notes, just that one stubborn note which won't disappear.

Thank you for your helpful support.

earthsaver - Jun 14, 2008 - 10:45 am

Apple has a support article that was supposed to only apply to 10.0 to 10.2.8 users. The suggestion is to choose Arrange in Front from the Window menu in Stickies.

Did you try changing display resolutions?

lbryan123 - Jun 14, 2008 - 4:49 pm

Hi again,

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned last time that I changed resolution with no luck. Also, "bring all to front" does not work.

You know, I don't think that what appears to be a stickie note caught under the menu items is really a stickie note. When I activated it, I tried to type, even though I couldn't see the cursor. I typed a lot, to see if I could eventually see some of what I typed. I never could see any typing. So it must not be a note. Bizarre. The 'note' that won't disappear measures 7 1/2 inches (top to bottom) by 3 1/2 inches, so it takes up all but an inch of the length of my screen! Yikes!

What now, do you suppose?

Thanks, Laura

earthsaver - Jun 15, 2008 - 6:43 am

Please take three screenshots and email them to me. One of the full screen with Stickies open; one with Stickies closed; and one of just the faulty "stickie" in question. Use Shift+Command+3 to take the first two. Use Shift+Command+4 then Space then click the "stickie" for the last.

earthsaver - Jun 15, 2008 - 9:43 am

So, it appears that the stickie is simply really big. Two things on that:

- Using the MaxiMice modifier, try to continue dragging that big blue stickie down until you can see the title bar. Does that really not work?
- There's a preference for the default size of new notes. Select the Stickies application in the Finder, Control+click it, and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Then, navigate to Contents > Resources and open defaultSettings.plist in TextEdit. You'll see ViewHeight and ViewWidth keys. What are the "real" values for each of these?

Also, Stickies was updated some time between 10.3 and 10.3.9, so downloading and reinstalling the 10.3.9 combo update might fix this whole situation.

lbryan123 - Jun 15, 2008 - 8:18 pm

Success! Yay! I so admire your skills and tenacity, and appreciate your willingness to help me until my problem was solved.

Before trying to change the default size of new notes, I went ahead and downloaded the 10.3.9 combo update. Once that was installed, the MaxiMice modifier finally worked on the faulty note. Before, it only worked on the other notes. Why, I can't tell you.

Now my 'Stickies' application works as it should. Thanks a million.

Laura