Tool to let me draw on the screen or otherwise mark up open windows?

Question

How often do you find yourself in this situation?

You're deep into debugging something complex that involves a lot of very different moving parts. Your brain is splattered all over your screens. Many windows are open - some tiny notepads with bits of copy pasted debug gunk, editors of different kinds for scripts or other code, a diff tool, web browsers looking at SO and help, standalone report apps, pieces of debugger, OneNote with more notes, etc., and you start losing track of which is which?

Ok, THIS notepad is the log file from yesterday, but THIS one is today. THIS window has the integration history of the failed build, which I got by copying from THAT debug watch window...I think... Wait. Was it watch window #1 or #2 that I was looking at? Oh no...

In other words, you're in deep.

I've been hitting this problem a lot lately. I have three monitors and I can somewhat categorize windows that way, but it's still overwhelming, I find myself backing up a lot to find out where I am.

My question: Is there a tool to help out here? I'm having trouble coming up with the right keywords to ask the googles.

Perhaps something that will attach a little gizmo to a window with a note (that stays with it as I move it and it changes in the z-order), or something that will let me virtually draw on the monitor with a transparent overlay, at least to mark areas where I am organizing different things. Or both.

Things I am not after:

• Virtual desktop. These don't work for me.
• Drawing on the wallpaper. While I can hit Windows-Space to peek at the desktop, I'd really rather have something that is visible at all times.
• Paper-and-pencil or other note taking type answers. This is to solve a screen space organization problem, not to come up with a new way to take notes.

Answer 1

What about this:

http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/

There is discussion listing some software of this type here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/785557.html

Answer 2

Here's one that lets you draw on the screen. Meant for marking up presentations.

http://www.screenmarker.com/

Unfortunately it seems buggy (at least on Win7) and has no text function. The search goes on but I figured I'd pass along this link to anyone else landing here.

Answer 3

ZoomIt from the http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx sysinternals guy is supposed to have a LiveZoom feature that allows also drawing on the screen. This only works on Vista or higher, so I couldn't try it out and actually verify these statements, but sounds promising.

Remember with more screens you can get more brain splatter ;-)

Answer 4

I've used Virtual Board before and was happy with it. Its very similar to the "smart monitor" software we have on the podium pc's in our university classrooms. Its got a lot of functionality that isn't necessarily "advertised" simply because you can use it in so many different ways. I think you draw/mark up the desktop, then "minimize" your drawing while you work, then restore it to see the notes or whatever you had done before.

Answer 5

Almost 3 weeks, and no 'good' answers...

http://www.conceptworld.com/QNP/

Flip through features, or for a quick rundown...

Allows attaching notes to documents, programs, websites, etc.
Can color them, put formatted text in them, put hyperlinks in them.
Roll up/down, put on timers, search for them, send them to others...

The notes are attached to the window themselves, so it'd help with marking which is which.