Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

getmicropad.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 102 posts

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#21

Post by NIckGeek »

hkai wrote: post #20

Couldn't figure out how to type into it. Opened the menu, created the new notebook. Then it's just empty canvas. I tried clicking into it but nothing really happens. The Android keyboard doesn't show, which means there's no text input.

Yeah, the mobile UX is really a sore point right now, on the sidebar, you create a section and then create a note. When you open the note you should see a message saying your note is empty. Dismiss the sidebar and when you tap on the canvas it'll open an insert menu.

The mobile UI is definitely more of a read-experience but I'd love to change that (and if any developers want to help with that it'd be awesome)

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#22

Post by vekker »

This is a wonderful looking project, thanks for making it open source! I am thinking of forking it for my own side-project and contributing to the development if possible.

As other commenters already noted, the UI/UX of the app will need some work. Just some initial thoughts:

  - Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I would expect to be able to start writing right away rather than first creating a notebook/section/note, choosing a title, etc...)
  - I would like to tag my notes à la Evernote, and filter notes based on this.
  - Speaking of searching/filtering: it would be nice to list all search results (and organisation of the notes for that matter) in the main view.
  - Maximise screen real estate for the actual note taking: why is there such a huge header and side nav... on a 13" screen I barely have room to see my notes. I would like to hide all that in a hamburger menu.
  - Keyboard shortcuts!
  - The ability to drag and drop images or other documents would be nice
  - The text in the textarea when taking a note is so small & there is no padding.
Anyway, hope that's useful feedback.. thanks again for this work! I will look further into it.

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#23

Post by NIckGeek »

vekker wrote: post #22

This is a wonderful looking project, thanks for making it open source! I am thinking of forking it for my own side-project and contributing to the development if possible. As other commenters already noted, the UI/UX of the app will need some work. Just some initial thoughts: - Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I…

Thanks for the list!

Just on a couple points I may already have what you're looking for, you can type in a hashtag (like #todo) anywhere in a markdown element and then that note will show up in a search for that hashtag (that search also works cross-notepads).

The side-nav can be hidden (although the rest of the chrome can't, which is something I want to get sorted). Also, on the textarea size, I think I'm using the browser default, but I might be wrong there.

Thanks for a decent list though, it's great to have action items.

Forks are always welcome and I appreciate all pull requests.

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#24

Post by Geojim »

NIckGeek wrote: post #9
urlwolf wrote: post #6

This Thing is creat. cons I find: - Hmm, no shortcuts? or keyboard support in general. Press arrow down to highlight a search result fails - bounding box for a note not needed (see onenote) - Search the content of a note not possible? - Too much chrome while note writing? These are simple things to fix. Great project!

Thanks! There are some keyboard shortcuts (there's a page in the help notepad on them) but I would like to add more. Not too sure what you mean on the bounding box thing, like the little border around elements? If you want to dismiss the sidebar just click the little ">>" or press "f". Hiding the breadcrumbs in the focus mode is on my todo list. Thanks for the list, I genuinely appreciate it.

Agree about the bounding box, best seen when editing, rest of the time just a distraction.

I've been chasing a onenote alternative for some time, this looks promising. I have to add, I loved the old Onenote heirachy, notebooks down the left (rotated labels), sections across the top, pages down the right.

And more screen shots always help for those too lazy to trial. And add some default notebook/section/note naming, so people can just click and start adding notes.

Great work

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#25

Post by NIckGeek »

Geojim wrote: post #24
NIckGeek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! There are some keyboard shortcuts (there's a page in the help notepad on them) but I would like to add more. Not too sure what you mean on the bounding box thing, like the little border around elements? If you want to dismiss the sidebar just click the little ">>" or press "f". Hiding the breadcrumbs in the focus mode is on my todo list. Thanks for the list, I genuinely appreciate it.

Agree about the bounding box, best seen when editing, rest of the time just a distraction. I've been chasing a onenote alternative for some time, this looks promising. I have to add, I loved the old Onenote heirachy, notebooks down the left (rotated labels), sections across the top, pages down the right. And more screen shots always help for those too lazy to trial. And add some default notebook/section/note naming,…

Thanks, the reason I made this was because of how big of a fan I was of OneNote, but all the little things that I wanted to change (and first-class linux support) drove me to write this.

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#26

Post by mkl »

vekker wrote: post #22

This is a wonderful looking project, thanks for making it open source! I am thinking of forking it for my own side-project and contributing to the development if possible. As other commenters already noted, the UI/UX of the app will need some work. Just some initial thoughts: - Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I…

Good comment, but please don't indent like that, it makes things very hard to read. Two spaces at the start of the line turns on code formatting, which uses a monospace font and scrolls sideways instead of wrapping: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#28

Post by Cyphase »

vekker wrote: post #22

This is a wonderful looking project, thanks for making it open source! I am thinking of forking it for my own side-project and contributing to the development if possible. As other commenters already noted, the UI/UX of the app will need some work. Just some initial thoughts: - Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I…

Here's vekker's list without the formatting:

* Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I would expect to be able to start writing right away rather than first creating a notebook/section/note, choosing a title, etc...)

* I would like to tag my notes à la Evernote, and filter notes based on this.

* Speaking of searching/filtering: it would be nice to list all search results (and organisation of the notes for that matter) in the main view.

* Maximise screen real estate for the actual note taking: why is there such a huge header and side nav... on a 13" screen I barely have room to see my notes. I would like to hide all that in a hamburger menu.

* Keyboard shortcuts!

* The ability to drag and drop images or other documents would be nice

* The text in the textarea when taking a note is so small & there is no padding.

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#29

Post by aiilnns »

I think it would be easier if there was no textbox, no click and insert text. Merely click, have a blinking cursor appear, write anywhere. After you've finished writing click again in an empty space and have the text box created, so you can resize it.

Similarly for drawing.

Ditch the boxes altogether while writing/drawing and have them appear afterwards for manipulation.

edit: Other than that your program looks quite promising!

Re: Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app

#30

Post by NIckGeek »

aiilnns wrote: post #29

I think it would be easier if there was no textbox, no click and insert text. Merely click, have a blinking cursor appear, write anywhere. After you've finished writing click again in an empty space and have the text box created, so you can resize it. Similarly for drawing. Ditch the boxes altogether while writing/drawing and have them appear afterwards for manipulation. edit: Other than that your program looks quite…

Thanks! I was trying that for drawing a while ago but I was having a lot of trouble getting it to work.

I'm thinking as a compromise for the mean-time I plan to automatically insert the text-box when you have the insert menu open and just start typing.

Thanks for the thoughts. It's great to get constructive feedback.

Post reply on HN