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Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

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Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#51

Post by progman32 »

randomor wrote: post #50
progman32 wrote: post #48

Love the design. Lowest possible friction is important. I personally a) dislike writing _anything_ on touch screens b) live in the terminal anyway. So I wrote a script called "n" that appends a timestamp to a text file, then: If there are command line arguments, it appends them to the file verbatim and exits. Else it opens vim, in edit mode just under the timestamp. For example: # n 'Hello, world!' # Writes a quick t…

Have you heard of jrnl.sh? You may like it if you live in the terminal. I’d like one day support merging jrnl logs.

Aha! Yes, I remember now, I must have seen jrnl here on HN. I certainly imitated its interface. Looking at the project again I'd recommend using jrnl instead of my one-off scripts, it's seen a lot of recent activity!

Now that my memory is jogged (amusing, for a journaling discussion), I opted for my solution because I wanted as few dependencies as possible for workflow reasons. Journaling is very personal, and I wanted the ability to quickly change the tool if it didn't suit me. Now that I better understand what I want, I may switch to jrnl. I also built a rudimentary task tracking system on top of my system as a separate tool, but that part really isn't worth sharing.

jrnl interop sounds useful, especially if bidirectional and automated (and for me personally, available on Android).

Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#52

Post by chris-orgmenta »

junseok wrote: post #6

This is excellent! I've discovered that I value very similar features as I have tried other journaling apps. I found that my personal favorite solution so far is actually a chatroom with just myself in KakaoTalk. It also has the extremely simple input, which is critical to make sure capture and journaling actually happens, and fast search using substrings and tags, which make recall simple. EDIT: Also, automatically…

Would like to try your recommendation, KakaoTalk permissions are a little scary though

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kakao.talk

Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#53

Post by throwaway180118 »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #28

whoa, the design of this web page threw me off at first. Interesting apple vibe but it's all over I don't know where to look, it's just all over/in my face. (on desktop)

I agree. Took me a minute to figure out where to get the software. I'd recommend something like a colored header bar along the top with the store page links.

Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#56

Post by thebiblelover7 »

progman32 wrote: post #48

Love the design. Lowest possible friction is important. I personally a) dislike writing _anything_ on touch screens b) live in the terminal anyway. So I wrote a script called "n" that appends a timestamp to a text file, then: If there are command line arguments, it appends them to the file verbatim and exits. Else it opens vim, in edit mode just under the timestamp. For example: # n 'Hello, world!' # Writes a quick t…

I created my own, more complicated script called npad which automatically creates a note in the `~/Npad` directory when you run it. I created it because I kept on writing text files in random places and couldn't find them later.

Check it out at https://gitlab.com/thebiblelover7/npad

Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#59

Post by balaji1 »

c9fc42ad wrote: post #45
randomor wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Editing will be coming, at some point, due to overwhelming demand. :) Hesitant about threads at the moment, as don't want to complicate existing interface. Some also suggested using horizontal scroll for different streams to separate work and life for example.

For threads you could implement something like Telegram's "Reply" feature. E.g. long press or swipe on a prior entry when typing a message, then when it's sent it has a clickable link to the prior message embedded above it. Either way I'm definitely going to be checking this out as it's very similar to how I already use the Notes app for journaling type entries.

Would be great to see the thread of "replies" functionality also. I use that feature in Telegram and WhatsApp for chaining related stuff. I have long lists like that.

And separate streams for work and personal is definitely one use for me. And I create temporary streams for a project or a trip. Horizontal scroll could work great!

Re: Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface

#60

Post by dismantlethesun »

mongol wrote: post #24

What do people use journal apps for? One thing I want to do is to log nature observations when I am out and about in nature. Preferably through voice recording (not neccessarily transcribed) and geotagged. Bonus points if the phone can stay in my pocket and I can do it through a PTT microphone. Are there apps for this?

I use journaling to take notes when I am doing undirected research. I also use it to log my thoughts on topics that I later need to write reports about.

My spouse is in journalism. She keeps voice recordings of everything instead of a journal. There aren’t really any good apps for this, but a transcription service and dedication to writing summaries can go a long way I hear. The transcription makes the voice recording searchable, and the summary ensures that you’ve gone back over everting at least once and pulled out the important information.

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