Nice idea, although I fear it will break due to AppleScript. I might take some time to investigate doing it all as a Swift CLI.
Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#22I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
>Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way.
Got up out of bed from doomscrolling to play with/implement this! My less-technical partner tends to reach for Apple Notes and I have offered/threatened to make something, but they've kept (begrudgingly) relaunching VSCode after a "oof, I know it was just real quick." Thanks for the inspiration/headstart.
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#23I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
Sounds very useful! Does it handle images in both directions ?
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#24I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
I love Apple Notes, but I also love writing in vim; looks like I can finally reconcile those two things thanks to your project. Nice work! > questions about the quirks I've used a decent amount of AppleScript to automate things on my Mac, so I know it's a powerful tool but not easy to just jump into, even when you're already familiar with that bizarre syntax. What kinds of quirks did you run into?
It's a mix of the lack of documentation for the response payloads and the integration with the shell commands. My tip would be to wrap everything in shell, handle errors on the AppleScript end, and keeping it incredibly simple.
For example, the errors raised from the AppleScript without printing the error inside a try-catch are incredibly dim. So instead I've opted to wrap them on the AppleScript level, print the error and return an empty string. Kinda reminded me of old-school shitty C code.
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#25I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
>Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way. Got up out of bed from doomscrolling to play with/implement this! My less-technical partner tends to reach for Apple Notes and I have offered/threatened to make something, but they've kept (begrudgingly) relaunching VSCode after a "oof, I know it was just real quick." Thanks for the inspiration/headstart.
That's so great to hear! I'd love to see your next project
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#26I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
“Fun”. In the latest MacOS, Apple Notes supports markdown export ( https://support.apple.com/en-md/guide/notes/not201900c07/mac ), but not through its AppleScript dictionary. So yes, it seems you do need Pandoc to do html-to-markdown and vice versa.
Yea, it was a bummer they don't have access to it on the AppleScript side. I considered using an x-callback for it but it's not that stable either which is what I was going for. Maybe in the future
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#27I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
This looks cool, so obviously I have questions! Does it support pushing to personal/home/this-is-my-note.md, or does everything wind up in the Notes root? It appears notes have to start out externally in order to "stash pull" them, is that the case? thanks!
Oooh not yet, I've thought about it, as well as some other ideas of bulk syncing and diffs. I'd love for open issues—or better so PR's—on the repo!
What I tend to do—you can also see in the readme—is that I push it to Notes, then pull if I've made any changes. When you already have the id on the note, you can move your note anywhere you'd like (:
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#28I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
How hard would it be to extend this to support bulk export of Apple Notes?
That's a great idea! Could you open an issue-or better so, PR—for this?
I've had some additional backlog ideas.
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#29I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes. Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file. Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No da…
Sounds very useful! Does it handle images in both directions ?
Unfortunately not yet, but that's a great idea! Could you open an issue-or better so, PR—for this?
Re: Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
#30This is awesome! I’ve been looking for a way to batch export my notes out of Apple notes, will this work for that purpose? I totally agree with you that most notes apps miss the mark. I’m working on one now which I hope satisfies the same requirements as Apple notes(dead simple, iCloud sync, free) but has some things I want (improved search, first class markdown support). I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a w…
What an awesome project! That's a great idea and it could easily incorporate it, I'd love to help out, let's talk(: