Note Taking in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#31

Post by waiseristy » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #18

Gotta get in the greatest (IMHO of course.) https://zim-wiki.org I'm continually baffled at how the rest of the world hasn't discovered this, but it could be because I sort of live at the margins of "ultra geek" and "normie." Local, self-hosted "wiki-like" tool. You write notes, it saves them, supports links and todos and calendars etc. Tons of plugins for math, git, etc etc. The killer aspect, I think, though. Any h…

ZimWiki was my favorite until I had mysterious performance issues on macos, so now I'm back to looking at browser-based solutions, ugh.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#32

Post by jonpurdy » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

This is going to be one of those threads where everyone rattles off their own note-taking setup, which is great and all. So: There's a lot of things people tend to want from note-taking setups: easy entry, navigation and organization, wiki-like linkages, export to various formats, encryption. What I've found actually matters for my day-to-day and gets me to actually take lots of notes, though, is just (1) search and…

Evernote was very sticky for me since 2009, but started quickly looking for alternatives once the new app was Electron-based. I tried Bear a few years ago but didn't like it. Also tried Obsidian and a few others but they were too finicky for me. Finally tried DevonThink but it was overkill for my purpose, formatting was weird and different with all the note type variations, and their pricing model killed it for me (max two devices).

I basically needed something with great search, easy formatting, and inline image support. And I found it with Ulysses. I thought it was only for people writing long-form works, but it works fantastically for my use case. It ended up being the thing that replaced Evernote for me after 12 years.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#33

Post by rsyring » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

I want rich text editing and easy sharing with individuals or groups, like Dropbox paper, but local, fast, and encrypted sync.

Not found everything in a single app yet, please enlighten me if possible to something that fits that I've missed.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#34

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:24 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

This is going to be one of those threads where everyone rattles off their own note-taking setup, which is great and all. So: There's a lot of things people tend to want from note-taking setups: easy entry, navigation and organization, wiki-like linkages, export to various formats, encryption. What I've found actually matters for my day-to-day and gets me to actually take lots of notes, though, is just (1) search and…

The one thing I need that Apple’s notes doesn’t have, but thankfully bear does, is the ability to link to a note from outside the app. I like to be able to drop links to my notes in other documents of mine, and Apple notes makes this nearly impossible.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#35

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #19

blairbeckwith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed the same trajectory as you from Notes to Bear, but have ended up on Craft. It might do too much for you, but I’ve honestly never used an app that is both so featureful and some beautiful.

Craft is like a macOS-native Notion, right? My notes are stored serverside?

I think craft can store your notes on-device? Not sure. The one big difference between it and Notion is the databases — craft doesn’t have them. If not for that, I’d switch to craft in a heartbeat

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#36

Post by gexla » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

The trouble with notes is that it's a huge territory and people are talking about their tools without further context. Talking about preferences between a Land Rover and a Corolla isn't productive until you start breaking down your specific needs.

I like Tiago Forte's approach for his PARA system. The system stands alone and may be adapted to any of your tools. This includes note taking, project management, calendar, etc.

The tools for note taking are basically view layers for me.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#37

Post by blairbeckwith » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #19

blairbeckwith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed the same trajectory as you from Notes to Bear, but have ended up on Craft. It might do too much for you, but I’ve honestly never used an app that is both so featureful and some beautiful.

Craft is like a macOS-native Notion, right? My notes are stored serverside?

It gets a lot of comparisons to Notion, but I don’t think that’s really accurate. It feels much more focused on writing and note taking for me than Notion - it doesn’t do all the fancy page types, etc. But yes, it is Mac native.

The default storage location is their web service, but you do have the option of storing all files locally. You do lose some collaboration features if you do that.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#38

Post by sandgiant » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

This is going to be one of those threads where everyone rattles off their own note-taking setup, which is great and all. So: There's a lot of things people tend to want from note-taking setups: easy entry, navigation and organization, wiki-like linkages, export to various formats, encryption. What I've found actually matters for my day-to-day and gets me to actually take lots of notes, though, is just (1) search and…

After Evernote went Electron and stripped the context-feature, DevonThink won me over. I use it for its flexibility in indexing, file-like-organization, OCR, encryption and flexible synchronization. Also the devs are very respondant and I like not having to pay for a subscription.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#39

Post by stewbrew » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

This is going to be one of those threads where everyone rattles off their own note-taking setup, which is great and all. So: There's a lot of things people tend to want from note-taking setups: easy entry, navigation and organization, wiki-like linkages, export to various formats, encryption. What I've found actually matters for my day-to-day and gets me to actually take lots of notes, though, is just (1) search and…

WRT syncing, syncthing has changed the way I think about that problem that is no problem anymore.

WRT note taking, nothing beats a bunch of markdown files that are kept in sync with syncthing. Depending on the OS, I use different tools to edit the markdown files. It doesn't matter which app you use with almost plain text files.

Re: Note Taking in 2021

#40

Post by happyweasel » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #18

Gotta get in the greatest (IMHO of course.) https://zim-wiki.org I'm continually baffled at how the rest of the world hasn't discovered this, but it could be because I sort of live at the margins of "ultra geek" and "normie." Local, self-hosted "wiki-like" tool. You write notes, it saves them, supports links and todos and calendars etc. Tons of plugins for math, git, etc etc. The killer aspect, I think, though. Any h…

I migrated to ZIM from OneNote desktop. OneNote Desktop was everything I needed. Did not migrate to the OneNote cloud thing. Nowadays it's ZIM wiki using SVN as a backend. Not missing out on anything in particular. Ok, the table plugin for ZIM is still lacking IMHO.