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

Tired of note-taking apps

akkshaya.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 481 posts

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#61

Post by mxuribe »

grugagag wrote: post #42
douglaswlance wrote: post #7

Nothing beats plaintext.

I learned that a while ago and settled on notepad++ to organize my daily work. Every new tab opens and without needing to be saved is persisted even if computer restarts. That is a perfect scratchpad for ideas. What I want to keep gets named and is then classified. For is no longer useful the tab gets closed and not saved. Notepad++ allows for searching all documents within folders as well. Another great option is mo…

I absolutely love notepad++; for many reaosns including but not limited to: beinglightweight, fast, quite featureful even before resorting to the many plugins, etc. The only downside is it is for windows only. For my dayjob i'm forced to use windows, so can enjoy notepad++ for everything (from dev. to basic notetaking, to journaling)...but all my personal machines run linx OS...so no notepad++. I love the choice of note-taking apps on linux - kwrite, leafpad, etc. - but i wish notepad++ would exist for linux distros. If anyone could recommend a notepad++ clone but for linux, would greatly appreciate it!

Also, yeah, I've learned so long ago that plain text - regardless of which actual app i use - is awesome (flexible, scriptable, readable far off into the future, no system lock-in, etc.).

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#62

Post by J_tt »

pjot wrote: post #51

Nothing has been as frictionless as nvALT[1]. Plain text, full text search, and point it at iCloud/Dropbox/Drive and now you have your notes fully synced. I’ve spent far more time than I care to admit trying out new note applications... [1]: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

For windows I like resophnotes, the autosave is amazing and outputting plain text means I can share with my co-workers easily

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#63

Post by buybackoff »

I used emails to self for notes. Tried Evernote, OneNote, Keep. The problem always was: it is a separate app/page, more actions are needed than just writing an email.

But since Google added three buttons and panel at the right of GMail web interface with tasks, calendar and Keep - that problem is gone. It's also possible to attach an email to a task or note, and tasks with notifications go automatically to the calendar.

I still miss some features from Keep, e.g. richer formatting or markgown would be nice, but the main friction is gone and I use tasks and Keep quite regularly.

For work I use StickyNotes in Windows, one per projects. Before that it was just notepad, but StickyNotes have richer formatting (than nothing) and autosave.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#64

Post by m0xte »

omarhaneef wrote: post #59

I think the reason writing things down is stickier than the apps is because they have a dedicated “always on” quality. I wonder if you could get part of the way there by having an iPad or remarkable tablet that is just always on and charged ready to take notes.

My go to is goodnotes on an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Has a desktop app for macos as well. Literally I haven’t touched a physical notepad since. It is always ready, expressive and just works. Plus I can split screen with PCalc to crunch some numbers.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#65

Post by residualmind »

I'm mostly using text files at the moment:

I have a 'global' notes file in my home directory and then sometimes project specific notes in project directories.

My .envrc in project directories prints the project-specific notes file when I cd into there.

I have aliases and scripts that make adding a line to a file easy:

m foobar # (m for memo) appends "* foobar" to my global notes.

t foobar # (t for task) appends "o foobar" to it (the `o` I replace with an x when it's done)

There's an alias to print the notes file and one to edit it.

The notes file is synced bidirectionally to a server from my laptop.

My android phone is doing the same sync. The phone displays the notes in a widget which lets me edit it with one tap.

This way I can add notes from the command line and they get synced to my phone. When I edit them on my phone they get synced back.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#66

Post by intended »

vijucat wrote: post #12

My theory about handwritten note-taking is that the bandwidth difference between thinking (fast) and writing (slow) is somehow extremely beneficial to the process of generating creative and evocative output. There have been so many journaling sessions which I started with the absolute conviction that I had nothing new to say, and after 4 pages of extremely creative and detailed ideas, surprising even to me , I had no…

That’s my issue with the Microsoft surface stylus work- and a lesser extent Apple.

They don’t compare to written, and a decent amount is the pen tip friction.

Wacom comes close.

However the apps themselves ?

I’d like to use one note more, but PDFs don’t become copy-able text. Searchable but not copyable.

Writing on a surface device is ugh. And I had really high hopes that they would push on the tech.

Procreate -iOS- has the best redo and undo features and gestures - which may as well be a lost art since no one else seems to be copying them and saving us manhours of annoyance.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#68

Post by rcarmo »

I moved from Evernote to OneNote six or seven years ago and use that for a mix of work notes, document scans and the occasional TIL-style note (as well as a few things I want to keep track of between work/real life).

Everything else goes onto my public wiki/blog (taoofmac.com), which is just Markdown inside a git repo.

But I am struggling with web page snapshots (the OneNote clipper is horrible when compared to Pocket, which I also use) and more structured notes, since OneNote has become quite slow on iOS of late and it is a pain to draft anything beyond a few paragraphs.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#70

Post by qzx_pierri »

residualmind wrote: post #65

I'm mostly using text files at the moment: I have a 'global' notes file in my home directory and then sometimes project specific notes in project directories. My .envrc in project directories prints the project-specific notes file when I cd into there. I have aliases and scripts that make adding a line to a file easy: m foobar # (m for memo) appends "* foobar" to my global notes. t foobar # (t for task) appends "o fo…

this sounds neat
Post reply on HN