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Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

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Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#101
I’m paper and pen - so recently was introduced to Goodnotes on iPad with a pencil. I found a used eBay iPad and can rapidly take notes, draw diagrams and flowcharts. Full search with online recognition, too.

Honestly it’s pretty good. I am much more productive than on paper.

On laptop or desktop I stick with vim and copy to Word if required. I use Inkscape for diagrams.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#102
Used to use MS OneNote, switched to using Outline (Mac) when I moved away from Windows. I'm still pretty happy with it, but I'm a one-device-at-a-time, laptops-are-as-mobile-as-I-go kind of guy who doesn't care about syncing, etc.

However, most of the time I just use paper. I generally use 200-ish page hardbound books with a narrow rule, and go through around 2 a year with work; entries are dated, volumes are dated when filled and filed away. I don't treat them with the full rigor that you would a real "lab notebook", but it's the same general idea.

For hobby use, I use similar books, but usually blank or graph lined.

For day-to-day reminders and such, I'm almost always carrying a little 50-cent spiral-bound notebook. When used up, remove the spring, toss the pages and cover into the recycle bin.

My use of software for note taking at this point is pretty much confined to initial research where I'm more interested in saving images and URLs than any actual details that might end up on paper later.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#103
I use a private wordpress.com account and write notes in markdown. It supports full-text searching and has a nice markdown renderer. I publish quick notes/bookmarks as blog posts and important notes that I plan to constantly update as static pages. Categories and tags help me arrange things in the side menus.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#104
I've found that actual paper works best for me -- I tend to jump around a lot, use special symbols, occasionally draw diagram fragments. Then when I'm done dumping core it gets transferred into emacs/org-mode, where it may get an editing pass to make it more coherent to future-me.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#105

Over my last two terms I've invested in using markdown with Pandoc to write any notes in class. I needed a way to be able to take math notes, and be simple to use. After migrating to Linux, OneNote was no longer an option. It's simple to use, as it uses markdown syntax for anything text based, and LaTeX syntax for inlined math formulas. I as of recently also found out that VimWiki exists. I've started to use it becau…

+1 for VimWiki, it's just simple enough for decent note-taking although it's not as highly customizable as org-mode. Btw, I think the internal linking features and others do not work with Markdown syntax of VimWiki after the export, or have you figured out something ?

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#106
Sounds odd but: mindnode, devonthink and paper

No matter what I tried, a mind map app felt extremely natural. I just dump random bits of stuff into the map and it works.

If I’m not in my pc, always paper

Then bigger notes in devonthink because of its superb search and classification

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#107

I've given up on using any sort of branded app for notetaking. At best it's open source and the maintainers will lose interest in a few years. When you write things down, you're investing in your future. It's silly to use software that isn't making that same investment. After trying Evernote, Workflowy, Notion, wikis, org-mode, and essentially everything else I could find, I gave up and tried building my own system f…

Another useful tool I've been using for note-taking is `mdbook` which I think accomplishes the same thing - organizing markdown files into a book of sorts. Just thought I would throw the name out here in case anyone is looking for alternatives to research.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#108
post #21

plain text files and your favorite editor, whatever that is. things that should be encrypted are either gpg encrytped or put in my password manager. Bonus if you format your plain text with markdown or asciidoc or whatever your fav. plain text markup language is. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. Put it in a VCS for super double bonus points :) me personally: Vim, asciidoc and in a fossil repo.

Actually, I don't even understand why anyone would think that you need a dedicated app for note taking.

- Markdown rendering can be done with pandoc

- Structure and search can be done with a solid file structure and grep

- Sync can be done with git or any other syncing solution out there.

- Encryption can be done with gpg (vim-gnupg)

Serious question: What feature is missing from this workflow (assuming the audience are developers)?

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