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Tired of note-taking apps

akkshaya.blog

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Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#231

Post by amelius »

claudeganon wrote: post #84
intended wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

They make screen films to recreate this friction on the iPad Pro. A lot of my artists friends use them: https://paperlike.com/

I always get bubbles under my screen protectors. And I don't use Apple. Not for me, I guess.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#232

Post by 13415 »

I'm using Leuchtturm 1917 Notebooks with enumerated pages and a table of contents. I've tried many electronic notetaking solutions but none of them have the flexibility, especially not with regards to formulas and diagrams.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#233

Post by dicytea »

tedmiston wrote: post #25
koheripbal wrote: post #9

I've tried many different systems, and the one I settled on is a single simple doc. It's the only method I've used for over a year. You can do google doc or office doc, but the key for me was having one doc that I just keep prepending to. Each day i'll add the date yyyy-mm-dd (dow) in bold and then list my work for the day... I use hyperlinks to dedicated docs or online guides for more involved projects (quick ctrl-k…

An outliner app like WorkFlowy (YC S10) or TaskPaper is nice for adding nesting and the ability to zoom in and out. You can also directly link to any node, at least in WorkFlowy. My approach is similar to yours except it's one hierarchical entry per day. https://workflowy.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner

I'm sad there's still no good offline and native clone of Workflowy/Dynalist after all these years. I've tried many other outliner-like note-taking software, but I haven't found anything that is more comfortable to use than the outliner system in Workflowy/Dynalist. To paraphrase a quote I've heard online, "it fits my brain like a glove."

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#235

Post by arendtio »

boskop wrote: post #229
arendtio wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to use it on a different platform? I like to use Linux systems and even though Microsoft sells Windows, OneNote allows me to use it in a browser. Apple still seems to favor their walled garden so that you have to live with all their downsides in order to enjoy the good parts.

Yes, you can use it on iCloud.com

Thanks, I didn't know iCloud includes applications.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#236

Post by Abtin88 »

I like to look at notes-taking as a broader way of capturing information you have seen. The value of keeping notes is to eventually make use of them. The tool should focus on serving this core workflow, not creating overhead.

We created a tool that tries to minimize the cognitive load for capturing things. We were inspired by messaging system and email to yourself, and build a tool for capturing infos on the go for ourself. We're testing it with small group. If you are interested and willing to write us feedbacks, drop me a line and I will invite you to the beta community.

abtin.setyani@gmail.com

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#238

Post by tristor »

I feel mostly the same as the author of this blog post. I have been through so many note taking apps and nothing has yet completely replaced just having a pen and a notepad with me at all times. But, I have gotten close. For me, I am very word-heavy, I don't need to draw (and if I do, I want a whiteboard, not a notepad).

Just this month I started doing notes on my computer again after being introduced to an app here on HN in another thread that seems to have hit the high points for me. More than anything, it seems to work for me because it just gets out of my way. Try Standard Notes if you haven't yet. I like writing in Markdown, so I use it as I would a text editor, but rather than needing to search at the command line and maintain a git repo, it has tagging and search built-in as well as encrypted cloud syncing, but otherwise just stays out of my way. It works really well.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#239

Post by jjice »

I searched far and wide for a good note taking app a few years ago, only to find that the best solution for me was right in front of me the entire time.

  git init fall2020
Git lets me keep track of everything, and I have free hosting at multiple different websites, or my own server if I want to. It's simple and customizable, and depending on what type of notes, I have different scripts to automate new notes and searching.

Next semester, I'm going to run the above command and then make a directory for each course I'm taking. In there, there will be a series of markdown documents numbered 'nn.md' with a header at the top of the file with the date and the subject. After that, it's just plain markdown. I alternate between VS Code and Vim, but both get the same job done. When I'm done, I just 'git add . && git commit' and move about my day.

Since I currently use GitHub private repos for hosting, if I'm walking to class, I can view the rendered Markdown right on my phone. This is nice for getting a quick recap about what the last class covered.

I also use a Git repo for my journal, but with different ways of formatting entries. The entire thing is very extensible, but not as friendly as some other note taking apps if you don't like plain Markdown. Writing a web interface for this setup wouldn't require much work, and it's something that's on my list of things to do.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#240

Post by tammer »

tomduncalf wrote: post #81

Personally I find Apple Notes the most convenient for quick jotting down of ideas etc. It’s not the most advanced in terms of features but it loads instantly, is quick to use and is available on all of my devices. Have tried numerous alternatives but they’ve never stuck e.g. they’re slow to start up or are fussy to use or don’t work well on one platform. For deeper sketching out of ideas, diagrams etc I really like C…

I would argue that in a number of ways Apple Notes is one of the most advanced in terms of features.

Yes, it doesn’t bombard you with its functionality and at first glance is a simple place to jot notes (perhaps its greatest strength). But dig into the feature list, and perhaps help me find a similar application that:

1) can combine tables, rich text formatting, and in-line sketches 2) can store any file type in-line 3) can encrypt protect notes 4) can bulk share Notes + live edit 5) has a built-in complex document scanner

I know there are some alternatives that cover most of these but I think Apple Notes is king precisely because of these many layers of functionality.

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