Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App • Hacker News Board

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#61

Post by eternityforest » Sat, Aug 05, 2023, 2:34 AM UTC

Two big questions: How does it store notes and will there be an Android port?

I currently use Google Keep partly because of all the platform integration with Wear and Assistant, and the fast opening speed.

My ideal Notes system would have Keep's UI, performance, and deep integrations, maybe with a little more advanced organization and calendar support, and just store files as SyncThing compatible markdown.

A platform has to really offer a lot before I would want to put notes in some proprietary format that won't be easy to switch to some other tool.

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#62

Post by eternityforest » Sat, Aug 05, 2023, 2:40 AM UTC

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #39

qwerty456127 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fundamental problem of using simple text editors for note taking is you can't easily click-jump from one note to another. If only TextEditor, Notepad, GEdit etc could make clickable hyperlinks whenever they encounter a string which is a name of a file existing in the same directory - then yes, they would be enough. And people who want a graph could just have it as a separate simple app in that case.

I used to think this was quite important and I still like the idea of interlinking notes, particularly for when I am using my phone. But it is ultimately just more gardening. I tried all sorts of systems like that and they all disappointed. What really matters is absolutely instantaneous search. Edit to add: Apple Notes has finally added note-to-note linking, but at the moment I don't have all my Apple devices suffic…

It seems like such a useful feature but in reality I have a few pinned notes for to-do and shopping lists and ideas, and otherwise just make completely unstructured random notes, never using anything but tagging and setting the colors for pinned notes.

I have Calendar for reminders, and markdown files for things anyone else will see. I just need it to work, open really fast, search, and that's mostly it.

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#63

Post by ukuina » Sat, Aug 05, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #49

ukuina wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems concerning: "The Service should not be used to store sensitive information such as bank account numbers, credit card information, or passwords." Why would a notes app dictate what content can be stored in it? From: https://simplenote.com/terms/

It’s not dictating. It’s disclaiming. They are saying they do not believe their cloud-first tool is the appropriate place for that sort of content. Simplenote is run responsibly by serious people. They are telling you what is absolutely common sense, in my mind: it’s not normal to store sensitive information on cloud notepad services you do not (and cannot!) pay for. I suspect the reason is that their continuous-sync…

This is from their terms of service. Storing sensitive information in Simplenote is therefore a breach of ToS.

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#64

Post by bemusedthrow75 » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 1:28 AM UTC

ukuina wrote: post #63

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not dictating. It’s disclaiming. They are saying they do not believe their cloud-first tool is the appropriate place for that sort of content. Simplenote is run responsibly by serious people. They are telling you what is absolutely common sense, in my mind: it’s not normal to store sensitive information on cloud notepad services you do not (and cannot!) pay for. I suspect the reason is that their continuous-sync…

This is from their terms of service. Storing sensitive information in Simplenote is therefore a breach of ToS.

OK, whatever.

They are trying to tell you not to do something risky (for you and for them I guess).

Complain about it on some abstract rights-based level all you like if you feel that it's a strange "concerning" issue. They are good people and they are doing this for the goodwill only (really: read the story about how Matt Mullenweg bought the simplenote.com domain for $29,000 and gifted it to them before he even discussed buying them out).

Me, I just won't use it for sensitive stuff.

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#65

Post by d4rkp4ttern » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 3:34 AM UTC

footlose_3815 wrote: post #54

d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve tried all sorts of notes apps but for some reason always gravitate back to native apple notes 90% of the time to quickly save stuff.

The same Apple notes that makes it hard to export? Why would anyone use this?

Those who don’t care about exporting their notes I guess? I mean I get why people may want to export notes but sometimes (often) you have a native app that just works and notes be accesible on other platforms in the ecosystem. Sure, Logseq and obsidian do this but at least with Logseq I’ve often seen janky behavior where the damn thing hangs because it’s syncing with icloud. I just get tired of these sorts of hiccups and want something that seamlessly just works whether I am on Mac ir iPhone.

Re: Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

#66

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:14 AM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #32

rpgbr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, I keep using TextEditor (macOS default text editor) in plain text and, when syncing is needed, Simplenote. Sometimes people overcomplicate things that are, in essence, pretty simple.

A fundamental problem of using simple text editors for note taking is you can't easily click-jump from one note to another. If only TextEditor, Notepad, GEdit etc could make clickable hyperlinks whenever they encounter a string which is a name of a file existing in the same directory - then yes, they would be enough. And people who want a graph could just have it as a separate simple app in that case.

By the way, an obvious idea just hit me, taking 2 days like obvious ideas usually do: perhaps a slightly less basic text editor like Notepad++ or Sublime can do a great lightweight yet powerful note taking app if you write an extension for it (or if somebody already has done just that).

But these have another problem Notepad hasn't: they apparently don't support Windows' auto completion. I use Windows at work where I am to type in languages I am not perfectly fluent in so I make heavy use of autocompletion to prevent spelling mistakes.