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Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

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Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#351

Post by dheera »

reubenmorais wrote: post #307
Boulth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I strongly agree with this. Actually I'm surprised that creating one's own tools is not more widespread in our industry as I consider this a quite…

> I consider this a quite unique trait of our profession. (In case you really meant unique rather than special or valued). Machinists, woodworkers, and craftsmen in general all make their own tools when the situation calls for it.

You use the word "unique" in the strict database sense. That is also a unique trait of our profession.

(and yes the above sentence was meant to be a logical moron)

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#353

Post by orthecreedence »

marchenko wrote: post #311
jopsen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, but I'm still missing a good markdown editor on Android, since Draft went out of action.. It would also be nice with a good editor that was somewhat Dropbox aware, so I had fewer edit conflicts between my laptop and phone..

I use Jotterpad on Android to edit markdown and text files. It syncs well with Dropbox (it feels just like a frontend for a dropbox folder) and supports .txt, .md, .markdown, and .fountain files. I use Brackets and Typora to edit .md files on pc/mac/linux. I find image handling in .md files fairly simple as long as you maintain an appropriate folder structure on the backend. Typora makes this especially easy. I would…

Hey, Turtl creator here. Import/export is launching with v0.7.0 very soon. I've been working really hard on the upcoming release, and self hosting should be easier since we're moving to Nodejs for the server (saying goodbye to lisp).

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#354

Post by orthecreedence »

marchenko wrote: post #330
hwj6etsd90lb wrote: post #13

Turtl: https://turtlapp.com/ Largely because it's open source and privacy oriented, encrypted client-side. It's not as convenient and feature-rich as OneNote, but entrusting Microsoft with all my notes seems crazy.

I love Turtl's interface, tagging system, hosting options, multi-OS setup, and privacy stance. Turtl would be my go-to solution if they supported .md import/export. I think they have .json export planned for the next release, which might be tractable with a bit of pandoc manipulation, but not ideal.

Yes, json export is planned, and should be launching in a few weeks (hopefully...I'm building on nights and weekends and I have a busy summer!)

Out of curiousity, is there a more ideal format for import/export?

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#355

Post by wes-k »

Currently a combination of apple notes and a personal wiki. I was unhappy with the existing wiki software (both paid and open source) and so my partner and I built https://www.wikiful.com/.

We're currently in a sort of soft launch phase. Working on a few more things before really doing a Show HN or product hunt.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#356

Post by mrks_ »

gingerlime wrote: post #286
romseb wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does look like a very polished Markdown editor and is available for Mac, Win and Linux. Unfortunately it is neither open source, nor will it be free after the Beta.

... paid software certainly has its place, but with no clear pricing info, nor any concrete info about who's behind it, it makes me hesitate to jump on board. It does look really good though.

I think the sole developer is https://abnerlee.github.io.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#357

Post by tincholio »

kissgyorgy wrote: post #171
b3n wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not proprietary, it's still just plain text, and can be edited with anything. Emacs adds a lot of nice features on top of it to manipulate that text, but it's still just text. See http://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only/ .

Yes, I have been fooled by the "oh it's just plain text" notion also and have regretted it. Did you try to actually open an org-mode file with anything else than Emacs? Did you try get any meaningful information out of it on a mobile phone or with an another editor? I did...

TBH, I wonder why you had to "leave without your notes", when pandoc eats org-mode for breakfast and gives you a multitude of target options, including markdown (and this is really after wondering what prevented you from using a fresh Emacs install, if you couldn't fix yours, to export them in the first place)

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#358

Post by marchenko »

orthecreedence wrote: post #354
marchenko wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Turtl's interface, tagging system, hosting options, multi-OS setup, and privacy stance. Turtl would be my go-to solution if they supported .md import/export. I think they have .json export planned for the next release, which might be tractable with a bit of pandoc manipulation, but not ideal.

Yes, json export is planned, and should be launching in a few weeks (hopefully...I'm building on nights and weekends and I have a busy summer!) Out of curiousity, is there a more ideal format for import/export?

I appreciate your excellent work. Google Keep, for example, exports both a .json and a folder of individual html files. I ended up piping the individual .html files through pandoc to .md files for idiosyncratic reasons. To be fair, I think turtl is so many leagues ahead of other solutions on the rest of its feature set that a .json export - which appears to be standard - is enough.

I suspect that turtl appeals to a lot of users with a large directory of plaintext notes who would be enticed to adopt the service if bulk textfile import were also streamlined. I hope the next release is a success!

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#359

Post by marchenko »

orthecreedence wrote: post #353
marchenko wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Jotterpad on Android to edit markdown and text files. It syncs well with Dropbox (it feels just like a frontend for a dropbox folder) and supports .txt, .md, .markdown, and .fountain files. I use Brackets and Typora to edit .md files on pc/mac/linux. I find image handling in .md files fairly simple as long as you maintain an appropriate folder structure on the backend. Typora makes this especially easy. I would…

Hey, Turtl creator here. Import/export is launching with v0.7.0 very soon. I've been working really hard on the upcoming release, and self hosting should be easier since we're moving to Nodejs for the server (saying goodbye to lisp).

This is excellent news for anyone nervous about vendor lock-in, which is a big problem in the notes space.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

#360

Post by JesseAldridge »

wool_gather wrote: post #316
JesseAldridge wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same sort of idea. I built this when Notational Velocity broke when upgrading to the latest macOS: https://github.com/JesseAldridge/toothbrush It's a single python file for grepping a directory of text files as I type. I have a global keyboard shortcut cmd+J that gives focus to my terminal and I then launch the script by running `t`. Then I can just start typing to search a career's worth of notes. Would be…

Notational Velocity broke? Any details? I'm continuing to use it happily on High Sierra.

Yeah High Sierra was what broke for me: https://github.com/scrod/nv/issues/365

Maybe it's working now?

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