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Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

lowercase.app

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Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#121

Post by mspcommentary »

purple-leafy wrote: post #120
gitinit wrote: post #89

This seems amazing, except for the fact that it's not open source and can't be self-hosted. That, to me at least, is the most important part of a note-taking app.

It’s annoying when people pester developers to open source their hard work, and not at least give a justification as to why they should do it How do you suppose they protect their IP and what they’ve built from someone just stealing the code?

They aren't pestering the developers; they made a comment on HN about what, to them, is an essential feature of a note-taking app. The developers may never see it.

I happen to agree with them. The single most important aspect of a note-taking app is that I must own my notes. That means that I must be able to take them elsewhere if I want. Including, in fact, especially, if the company hosting them goes out of business or simply chooses to discontinue the app (looking at you, Google).

If I can take the plain text but lose the formatting or the cross-linking, that isn't good enough (hello Google Keep export).

But if lowercase can find enough customers who don't feel this way, all power to them.

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#122

Post by janandonly »

It amazes me that every few weeks a new note taking app is featured on HN.

What am I missing? For years I’ve taken notes in the Apple Notes.app on my tablet and phone and laptop and it just works.

Why would I want to switch to a paid app? Or why would I want to run a bash script that puts stuff on GitHub?

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#123

Post by infinitedata »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #13

Amazing work! Thank you for sharing here. A while ago, I made something exactly like this called writedown: https://writedown.app It is a free and open source, simple and easy to use Notion alternative. I had to leave it midway (it's ready to use and stable though) because my other projects needed attention but I'll get back to it someday :)

Interesting quirk I noticed when accessing your site:

1. The site was shown in a light-theme version and the sun icon on the upper-right corner. 2. When clicked on the sun, it changed to a moon icon but nothing else changed, the light theme was still on. 3. When clicked again, the moon changed to the sun but this time the dark-theme was engaged. The only issue is that the dark theme is displayed but the sun icon appears. 4. When the sun icon is clicked, the light theme is engaged and the icon changes to the moon.

For some reason it feels counterintuitive. Just sharing for reference but great site!

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#124

Post by wscott »

iseeyouseewesee wrote: post #24

some feedback: as a first time visitor, the pricing page is really confusing. if its free why is there a stripe faq immediately below? i am still confused whether this product is free or paid without signing up. the pricing page requires some rework imo

Reading the rest of the pricing page gives me the clear impression that it wasn't free initially and then changed it to free recently and the rest of the text on that page wasn't updated. If I am making donations why do I need to be reassured that I can have a refund if I don't like it?

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#125

Post by hahajk »

escapecharacter wrote: post #78
bartvk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about mobile? Or don't you take notes there?

For me, this is always the gap that feels missing. - I want to take and view notes on various devices: mobile, personal computer, work computer, randomly logged in ad-hoc machine. - I want notes to not require me to be online all the time while writing (I work a lot on plans, or in remote locations without reliable internet) - I want notes to make reasonable assumptions about syncing, biasing on the side of avoiding…

I went through the same process a few years ago. Your requirements are very similar to mine. Amplenote is what I settled on. Cross platform, quick UI, and very good in no-network and (even more commonly) poor-network conditions. Even the web app uses local storage and works offline.

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#126

Post by desmond373 »

bartvk wrote: post #75
pkulak wrote: post #55

I went through a bunch of note-taking apps before I settled on a git directory that's auto-synced once an hour. This bash script is all it takes. cd ~/notes if [[ ''$(git status --porcelain) ]]; then git stash save git pull --rebase git stash pop || true git add . git -c "user.name=Phil Kulak" -c "user.email=nope@kulak.us" commit -m "''$(date)" git push origin main else git pull fi

What about mobile? Or don't you take notes there?

Ive been using zettel notes, on fdroid. It can handle the git syncing. Keys are managed in app as well which i have mixed feeling about but overall its been great for moving from obsidian to a completly self managed system.

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#127

Post by desmond373 »

escapecharacter wrote: post #78
bartvk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about mobile? Or don't you take notes there?

For me, this is always the gap that feels missing. - I want to take and view notes on various devices: mobile, personal computer, work computer, randomly logged in ad-hoc machine. - I want notes to not require me to be online all the time while writing (I work a lot on plans, or in remote locations without reliable internet) - I want notes to make reasonable assumptions about syncing, biasing on the side of avoiding…

I made a comment about zettel notes on the parent, have a look. It fixes some of the problems you talk about. Not sure if theres an apple version.

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#128

Post by vouaobrasil »

janandonly wrote: post #122

It amazes me that every few weeks a new note taking app is featured on HN. What am I missing? For years I’ve taken notes in the Apple Notes.app on my tablet and phone and laptop and it just works. Why would I want to switch to a paid app? Or why would I want to run a bash script that puts stuff on GitHub?

I think that the reason is more psychological than anything. People who deal with information become unsettled psychologically because they are doing something that is very unnatural, and so new note taking apps is a meaningless gesture that makes them feel that they are under control. Of course, that's not the entire explanation but it does explain partially the proliferation of note-taking apps beyond the basic ones.

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#129

Post by siegers »

rsiqueira wrote: post #92
mattstrayer wrote: post #2

co-founder here: feel free to ask any questions!

REQUEST: Please add an option for a monospace/code font. I see that ... works very well (good monospace block style), but I have to inspect and edit the source. With this, we could be able to use it for code! THANKS!

Thank you for the suggestion!

Re: Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes

#130

Post by tomsmeding »

pkulak wrote: post #64
darknavi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sensible merge conflict resolution vs normal cloud saves.

Yeah, every year or so I get a merge conflict, and then the whole things stops syncing and it takes me a week to notice before I go in and resolve it. It's not perfect, but I can't be assed to fix something that happens once a year. :/

> it takes me a week to notice before I go in and resolve it

Perhaps the `|| true` on the `git stash pop` could have a bit more handling :)

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