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Tired of note-taking apps

akkshaya.blog

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Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#411

Post by dunham »

submeta wrote: post #298
justsomeuser wrote: post #283

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)

> You cannot export all your notes in a standardised format. This! When I tried to export my notes I realized how hard to impossible it was to get them out. An absolute no-go for me. So I gave up on accumulating notes in this otherwise beautiful and practical app.

Yeah, being able to get my data back out is a hard requirement for me too. It's one of the things that put me off of OneNote.

A few years ago I wrote a few python scripts to export the Notes.app database to html and bear formats. I haven't really maintained them (although I still run it in a cronjob for backups), but I put them up on github in case it was useful to someone.

https://github.com/dunhamsteve/notesutils

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#412

Post by Wazzymandias »

I've tried so many options for note taking but I can never find a good solution that fits all my needs. I find writing things down helps with comprehension and retention, but using a physical notebook has its limitations when you want to reference images or snippets found online.

In the end I landed on OneNote, but I find it to be slow for larger notebooks, and it doesn't have an intuititive method of linking different notes from different sections for easy reference. However I like the handwriting recognition far better than Apple variants, and I felt like with apps like Notion I spent more time customizing and grokking the app than actually taking notes.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#413

Post by YetAnotherNick »

I take notes with Apple pencil on iPad. I feel more creative when writing. Plus, I tried to enforce structure using various apps including org mode, but it turned out either I am bad at using structured note taking or my use case of ideating and planning is not very structured. And it feels less effortful than typing to me.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#414

Post by hajimemash »

Terretta wrote: post #307
justsomeuser wrote: post #283

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…

People like you who drop valuable links like #2 are the reason I keep clicking around in Hacker News :)

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#415

Post by hajimemash »

alex_free wrote: post #401
submeta wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot export all your notes in a standardised format. This! When I tried to export my notes I realized how hard to impossible it was to get them out. An absolute no-go for me. So I gave up on accumulating notes in this otherwise beautiful and practical app.

You can export to plain text by saving notes to the files app.

Does this work if you have 1000 notes?

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#416

Post by sullyj3 »

rajesh-s wrote: post #193
dmje wrote: 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…

I see you didn't mention Markdown. My solution for the last couple of years to this problem is to have all my notes organized into folder and .md files. A couple of advantages: - I can move around different IDEs/apps since there are a lot of different solutions for every platform there. - Same goes for search and links between folders. Rely on git for version control of the files themselves. - It gives you the flexib…

Making a commit and pushing every time I edit a note would drive me nuts. I've gotten used to notes auto-saving and syncing. Additionally, reading md on android would require a specialized app anyway.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#417

Post by sturakov »

rcarmo wrote: post #68

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 Pocke…

I recommend webrecorder.io for web page snapshots.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#418

Post by hajimemash »

foobiekr wrote: post #341
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 agree with this and notes is what I use - apple notes with cloud sync, especially on the phone. Every now and then, I move it all out of notes into standalone text files in a directory tree in Dropbox. Why? Because several times now I've lost notes due to Apple's cloud "sync." On a few occasions, the note turned up in the trash (with no action on my part) or simply disappeared. Putting aside the spontaneous deletes…

This delete issue happened to me as recently as 2 months back and I lost a year-long running note.

Edits also sometimes result in a bunch of duplicated notes.

Re: Tired of note-taking apps

#420

Post by fphhotchips »

dmje wrote: 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…

Maybe I'm just not so picky, but I love OneNote. I just wish OneCalendar worked cross platform. But otherwise I find cloud sync between my different devices to be seemless and fast enough that I can use a tablet to draw while screensharing the same notepad on desktop. It accepts images exactly as I want (screenshots mostly) also.

The only problem is that sharing is a pain.

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