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Tired of note-taking apps

akkshaya.blog

311–320 of 481 posts

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#311

To add mine into the mix, I went through all the apps imaginable before settling on Inkdrop. The electron-ness of it all annoys me a bit, but aside from that it does everything I’ve ever wanted (aside from inking) very very well.

Looks good. Do you use Inkdrop with cloud or can you store save it locally?

It's cloud only, end-to-end encrypted. Usable offline. You can host your own sync server if need be, its just CouchDB: https://docs.inkdrop.app/manual/synchronizing-in-the-cloud/#...

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#312
post #128

Funnily enough, I don’t think there is a really good one. There’s lots that almost do it but not quite. - Evernote: no note linking - Bear: lovely but no web or android version - OneNote: appalling in the way only MS can be - SimpleNotes: too simple - Zoho: too ...urgh - Keep: too Googley - Apple notes: too Appley - Standard Notes: too buggy I’m clearly a fussy sod. But really, just a nice, oss, local files, ability…

Would you mind elaborating on why Standard Notes is too buggy? Only thing that comes to mind is the use of React Native and Electron (suboptimal performance / UX) but I've never had any issues myself.

I'd like to hear of alternatives that apply the same e2e encryption model.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Apple Notes and would use it if it did not have the following limitations: - You cannot link between notes like a wiki (like Evernotes evernote://$note-guid) - You cannot export all your notes in a standardised format. - You cannot store notebooks in specific offline only encrypted disk images for privacy. - Cannot change background (must use paper emulation)

Workarounds / alternatives for the limitations: 1. You can link between Notes. On a note, click collaborate icon, click add people, in share options tap icon for Copy Link, and then dismiss the To: dialog with the “Copy Link” text top right. Paste that link in another note. Now they’re cross-linked like a wiki. Instead of doing all this, create/use a shortcut. 2. Use Exporter: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exporter/i…

Fantastic, thank you for #1. Earlier today I was bemoaning the lack of wiki-like linking in Notes. Glad to learn there’s at least this workaround.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#314
post #239

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 search…

I've found that its hard to beat plaintext markdown notes with git. been taking notes like this for the past ten years and now have 20k+ markdown notes. just launched a markdown note taking plugin built on top of vscode to help with this sort of workflow: https://dendron.so

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#315
post #128

Funnily enough, I don’t think there is a really good one. There’s lots that almost do it but not quite. - Evernote: no note linking - Bear: lovely but no web or android version - OneNote: appalling in the way only MS can be - SimpleNotes: too simple - Zoho: too ...urgh - Keep: too Googley - Apple notes: too Appley - Standard Notes: too buggy I’m clearly a fussy sod. But really, just a nice, oss, local files, ability…

at the risk of doing some self promotion, I've had the same problem and ended up creating my own tool. https://dendron.so, is a new note taking tool (launched a week ago) that lets you take local-first markdown notes and supports links like roam. it's open source and built on top of vscode.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#316
post #272

After this thread became a discussion of competing, sometimes extreme approaches, I want to add one alternative. Markdown files, organized in folder hierarchy and synchronized by the service of choice are fine for me - for notes and knowledge collection. Recently I started to add the superpower of tags and links to other files by using Apps like Obsidian[1] and Zettlr[2] which are very similar. The great advantage is…

if you are looking for an open source version of obsidian/zettlr, I would check out https://dendron.so (disclaimer, I'm the author). supports all the same features and built on top of vscode. use it to manage my personal knowledge base of 20k md files

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#317

I save my notes as text files (markdown format). It is universal so its not dependent to any app. It is searchable and future-proof. I save them in Apple iCloud so it auto-syncs to my iPhone and use iA Writer app to read/write to it. I used to use GitHub and git app (Working Copy app) on my phone to sync between devices.

since you're using markdown, I would check out https://dendron.so (disclaimer, I'm the author). its an open source, markdown-based note taking app that works with markdown notes on your file system. also supports back-links, hierarchies, tagging, and more. its built as a plugin for vscode so you also have access to vim keybindings and anything else you might need with vscode extensions

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#318
post #67

I've been using Notational Velocity + Alfred to quickly take notes for years. Recommended for anyone who wants something lightweight.

longtime notational velocity user. loved how simple it was but found that I needed some more structure as I took more notes. ended up creating https://dendron.so, a local-first markdown note taking app build on top of vscode. same modeless file lookup/creation as notational velocity combined with features like backlinks, tagging and vim bindings

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#319

What are people's preferred solutions for markdown + latex?

https://dendron.so has markdown and latex support (disclaimer, I'm the author). its an open source, markdown-based note taking app that works with markdown notes on your file system. also supports backlinks, hierarchies, tagging, and more. its built as a plugin for vscode so you also have access to vim keybindings and anything else you might need with vscode extensions

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Apple Notes and would use it if it did not have the following limitations: - You cannot link between notes like a wiki (like Evernotes evernote://$note-guid) - You cannot export all your notes in a standardised format. - You cannot store notebooks in specific offline only encrypted disk images for privacy. - Cannot change background (must use paper emulation)

Workarounds / alternatives for the limitations: 1. You can link between Notes. On a note, click collaborate icon, click add people, in share options tap icon for Copy Link, and then dismiss the To: dialog with the “Copy Link” text top right. Paste that link in another note. Now they’re cross-linked like a wiki. Instead of doing all this, create/use a shortcut. 2. Use Exporter: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exporter/i…

1. You can link to a note but it just seems like a second class feature - you need to share the note with yourself. Id like the ability to have off line only notebooks with links.

2. Thanks.

3. Per note encryption is useful, but it would be nicer to have the entire notebook stored off line on an encrypted disk. E.g. If I share my computer with people its easy to see what sets of files/notes are "open" by looking at Finders mounted disks list. If the data does not get transferred over the network it adds another layer of security - I do not have to rely on Apples implementation.

4. It is a limitation to me as reading/writing is the primary feature and its a personal preference to have a solid background. Same category as font size adjustment. Minor inconvenience.

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