How to take notes when the screen is covered by an OS X full-screen window

From ArticleWorld

There are times when you need to take notes while "watching" something in full-screen mode. Although for some of you this may seem strange, there are people who do need this. The typical situations include:

• You are watching a full-screen movie and need to take notes
• You are in a full-screen remote conference and need to take notes
• You are examining a magnified image, at a very high zoom value
• You are running an application that insists to "take away" the screen.

The typical method is to simply write things down in a notebook, but if you need the notes in an electronic format and you have to write a lot, it may be difficult. Besides, this methods works very well if you are one of the lucky (and experienced) users who can type faster than they can write with a pen.

Methods

• The first method is a quick and rather dirty one. This has the advantage of being cheap and working on any computer, but may sometimes be rather difficult to use, especially if you have a lot of writing to do.

1. OS X comes with a Sticky application which you can use for this. Create a new sticky
2. Go to the Note menu, and check "Floating Window" and "Translucent Window"
3. Now open your full-screen application normally. The notes window will stay on top and you can safely use it now. It is quite powerful, too, allowing different fonts and colors for example.

• If you have the budget, a graphics card that supports it (and the space), you can get another monitor and connect it to your computer. You will then be able to use the full-screen application on one monitor and take notes on the other. However, this requires more space, making it obviously impossible to use with a laptop in the bus, and will not work with all computers.