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Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

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Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#61

Post by zimpenfish »

laurent123456 wrote: post #54
piokoch wrote: post #51

Big no-no to Joplin for me is that it is using some custom data format (sqlite I think). Why bother? Just give me an app that can handle nicely markdown files, syncing I can do myself e.g. (Synology, rsync) or use some file syncing service (Dropbox, OneDrive, whatever). Zettlr does the trick for me without interfering with what I write.

"Custom" would be the way Apple Notes or Evernote stores their data in opaque binary blobs. SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of third-party tools, but I see your point about plain text files being more convenient for certain tasks.

> SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of third-party tools

Tends not to play well with things like Dropbox or Syncthing though. Although I guess you can use litestream or something for the replication instead.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#62

Post by q-base »

bartvk wrote: post #32
q-base wrote: post #31

I have tried to switch to Joplin from Evernote twice. But each time I have ended up being frustrated with the synchronisation. It is just too slow in my opinion. Perhaps I have too many notes, but I will be looking for another alternative to Evernote that can work on my phone and Ubuntu.

Is SimpleNote something for you? It only supports plain text notes (with Markdown rendering), but I've got years of notes in there, and it works on every platform. It's also owned and supported by Wordpress.

I haven't looked at SimpleNote before. So I will look into whether that might be a good fit for me. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#63

Post by laurent123456 »

q-base wrote: post #58
laurent123456 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which backend did you use for sync? You usually get better sync performance by either self-hosting or using Joplin Cloud. I don't know of any good WebDAV provider, let alone a free one, and even the paid ones have limitations that make them unusable for sync. OneDrive and Dropbox have a free tier and work with Joplin, but they throttle the connection. But I guess it depends on how many notes you have and how you use…

I sync to Nextcloud. But I can see another responder to my original comment suggests a config change that I will try.

Nextcloud has a surprisingly inefficient WebDAV implementation. It's not clear how they got it so wrong compared to, say, Nginx or Apache WebDAV, but they did. Maybe they are doing some processing on each request, creating thumbnails, checking for shared files, locks, or something that's not really necessary but it is slow as a result. Perhaps some config changes could indeed help though.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#64

Post by anta40 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #61
laurent123456 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Custom" would be the way Apple Notes or Evernote stores their data in opaque binary blobs. SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of third-party tools, but I see your point about plain text files being more convenient for certain tasks.

> SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of third-party tools Tends not to play well with things like Dropbox or Syncthing though. Although I guess you can use litestream or something for the replication instead.

What's the issue? I guess it's just as simple as uploading the .db?

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#65

Post by dunco »

wanderingmind wrote: post #38

For those that want to crosslink anything and everything I suggest Logseq[1]. Its journal and graph view are fantastic. And it has many useful plugins. I use it along with git-sync [2] and syncthing [3] now I can sync the notes across my work, personal desktops and my mobile. [1] http://logseq.com/ [2] https://github.com/simonthum/git-sync [3] https://syncthing.net/

I looked at logseq as an alternative to joplin but there were too many little flags that suggested to me that privacy and being free might not be forever. I don't have a problem with paying for software, but I don't like getting embedded in it when I don't know what the cost will be. Privacy wise, statements like "The aim of Logseq is to establish a better environment for both learning and collaboration, enabling us to form a network that connects our ideas and enhances the collective knowledge of humanity." worry me. I don't want my ideas connected with humanity and I certainly don't want my notes used to train someones LLM. Maybe this is an unfair reading, as they do claim to be privacy focused, but I am worried that they will discover far to many interesting and fun things to do with user data and I just don't really like where that sounds like its headed. If Joplin could do better sharing (with eg a colleague or spouse) on mobile and better separation of work/private notes (like different storage locations) it would be just about perfect for me for a note taking app, but then my needs are pretty simple.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#66

Post by Tomte »

anta40 wrote: post #64
zimpenfish wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of third-party tools Tends not to play well with things like Dropbox or Syncthing though. Although I guess you can use litestream or something for the replication instead.

What's the issue? I guess it's just as simple as uploading the .db?

You're changing some note on device A and the same note differently on device B.

Both sync. You now have a conflict.

With text files, you at least have obvious merge strategies. With SQLite it isn't quite as easy.

I still don't mind SQLite in Joplin. It has advantages, as well.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#67

Post by Tomte »

dunco wrote: post #65
wanderingmind wrote: post #38

For those that want to crosslink anything and everything I suggest Logseq[1]. Its journal and graph view are fantastic. And it has many useful plugins. I use it along with git-sync [2] and syncthing [3] now I can sync the notes across my work, personal desktops and my mobile. [1] http://logseq.com/ [2] https://github.com/simonthum/git-sync [3] https://syncthing.net/

I looked at logseq as an alternative to joplin but there were too many little flags that suggested to me that privacy and being free might not be forever. I don't have a problem with paying for software, but I don't like getting embedded in it when I don't know what the cost will be. Privacy wise, statements like "The aim of Logseq is to establish a better environment for both learning and collaboration, enabling us…

> I looked at logseq as an alternative to joplin but there were too many little flags that suggested to me that privacy and being free might not be forever.

Exactly my thoughts when I looked at it a few weeks ago (minus the privacy angle that I didn't feel).

I also bounced off the slew of influencer-type blog posts and videos that promise you that Logseq will change your {life, studies, PhD, work} forever when all I saw in those videos were very, very simple outlines. The whole community (including the subreddit) seems very... promotional.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#68

Post by anta40 »

msravi wrote: post #27

I tried many note-taking apps and finally settled on Notable[0]. It's simple and you can point it to a folder with markdown files and attachments. Plus, you can just sync the folder using any syncing service, and use Noteless[1] on Android. The tagging support is superb, you can cross-link notes, render math using katex, and export to pdf. Because of the simple folder structure, you can also use vim+fzf to search/nav…

Notable looks cool. The mobile apps are not ready, though. OK, let's try it.

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#69

Post by anta40 »

Tomte wrote: post #66
anta40 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the issue? I guess it's just as simple as uploading the .db?

You're changing some note on device A and the same note differently on device B. Both sync. You now have a conflict. With text files, you at least have obvious merge strategies. With SQLite it isn't quite as easy. I still don't mind SQLite in Joplin. It has advantages, as well.

Ah the multiple devices issue. I see...

Re: Joplin – An open-source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation

#70

Post by dunco »

laurent123456 wrote: post #52
pseufaux wrote: post #48

I really want to like Joplin, and I've tried to switch a number of times. But the mobile experience just isn't there for me. The iOS app is simple and reliable, which is good, but it's missing some of the touches that make mobile computing feel like it's made for mobile. Specifically, things like swipes for navigation and for selecting or deleting notes. Also, many of the buttons are just too damn small for my sausag…

Thanks for the feedback. We plan to update the mobile app so it's good to know what needs to be improved.

just jumping on this to say I'm a Joplin user and I love it, thank you for building an awesome app. I currently also use notion because of Joplin's lack of note sharing on mobile; if good note sharing came to the Joplin mobile app I wouldn't need anything else. The only other feature I'd want that I think is missing from Joplin is the ability to define different storage locations / encryption keys per notebook to allow good separation of work and personal data. Overall though, wonderful app and I am so happy that something like it exists. I really feel like the intentions of the app developers align with my values, and that it will continue to go in the right direction for years to come.
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