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Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#21

Post by simon_acca »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #17

I used to use OneNote a lot (partly because my high school used it a lot). It was alright, but the free version on the Windows Store is horrible and I don't have enough use for it to pay for the full version. I've tried using the notes app on my iPhone but it's just not quick enough to write things down in - although that might be because I have a 5s with a smaller screen than newer phones. I've used it when I have b…

MediaWiki.{exe|app} exactly! That's what I'm trying to build, and this is the best description I've heard so far :)

Related question: would you prefer this to be local or on the cloud? I am oriented towards a cloud service because of cross-platform support and auto sync between devices, but open to suggestions.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#23

Post by stinkytaco »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #19

I keep notes in text files in sublime. If I want to search, I just do a text search. I generally have many, many tabs (don't the old folks call them text buffers?) open, and when I go through a weekly cleanup of these I find that they fall into two categories: Stuff that was just, say, a couple of lines of code or urls, short todo lists that have been todone, long lists of credentials, research. I delete the stuff I…

I sometimes have a yearning for a text program like emacs or sublime that can handle images, formulas or other graphical material as easily as paper or onenote. That way I could keep these things together. Not enough that I can't just dump that stuff into a folder, but enough that I find occasional friction.

And though I've never gotten a distracting email on paper, I find it quite easy to do distracting things like doodle, plan dinner, read previous notes, daydream, etc.

EDIT: As I'm brainstorming this, I can see linking to images on the filesystem using a markdown like syntax, then having those images appear when reviewing the notes. Perhaps quickly switching to a program for drawing or automatically syncing pictures of my paper notes or drawings to my PC so I can quickly link those files into the document I am working on.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#27

Post by stinkytaco »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #17

I used to use OneNote a lot (partly because my high school used it a lot). It was alright, but the free version on the Windows Store is horrible and I don't have enough use for it to pay for the full version. I've tried using the notes app on my iPhone but it's just not quick enough to write things down in - although that might be because I have a 5s with a smaller screen than newer phones. I've used it when I have b…

What platform are you on? I can think of several programs that fit at least some of this bill:

Emacs with Org Mode and deft

Zim

Circus Ponies notebook

Devon Think

Notational velocity with its wiki like linking

Tomboy notes

many more that I could list with time

Some of these will have various limitations such as not supporting images or not allowing easy drawings, etc, but many would come without the overhead of wiki markup.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#28

Post by ASalazarMX »

My ideal notes app would be a rich-text offline hierarchical organizer like CherryTree (http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree) with a mobile version and synchronization thru Dropbox or similar (like KeePass).

Cloud solutions are nice, and I've tried several, but it always feels more like a convenience for the provider rather than the consumer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#29

Post by pajtai »

I use simplenote. It's plain text, syncs, is multi platform, and is free. https://simplenote.com/

I find that images, etc, clutter things, and that for me plain text works the best - my snippets are usually code - and it handles that well. I often use urls to link out.

In terms of remembering things - I find typing it out helps, but writing it with pen and paper helps more... and finally the most help is to review your notes. As long as you review soon after taking them, the format almost doesn't matter.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#30

Post by snerbles »

For meetings I almost always use a pen and notepad - I'm often the only guy in the room without a laptop.

For project/task notes at my desk I write to a single markdown file in the following format:

    ### Task Name
     * Note about task
     * Another note about task
Every time I save the file, a shellscript makes a date-stamped copy. For searching I wrote a rather obnoxious tool based on lunr.js that indexes the entire history, allowing me to search tasks by content.
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