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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

#151

Post by dotancohen »

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

Same here. After going through different formats (Zim, Markdown, org-mode) I settled on org-mode and haven't looked back. I think that other note-taking systems only exist because whoever wrote them hasn't tried org-mode.

I also use vdirsyncer with DavX to sync my phone's calendar and contacts to my notes directory, so that is backed up as well - all in the same syncing script.

  #!/usr/bin/env bash
  cp -a ~/.vdirsyncer/calendars/ ~/Notes/pim/
  cp -a ~/.vdirsyncer/contacts/ ~/Notes/pim/
  git add \*
  git commit -am "$(hostname)"
  git pull
  git push
  echo ''
  git status

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

#152

Post by Plasmoid »

thedevtoolsmith wrote: post #150
largbae wrote: post #147

Please charge something. In order to trust my notes somewhere, I need it to be in someone's best interest to keep my data and not grow bored or overburdened by costs. I desperately want a simple, cross-platform, online or offline, fast note taking app. Evernote was this maybe 10 years ago before the bloat. I beg them every feedback opportunity to get Team features, chat, AI, and never ending upgrades out of my face.…

Have you tried Obsidian? It's a very bare-bones note taking app with a great plugin ecosystem. It has been my go-to for quite sometime now.

I also really like obsidian. I've got sync setup via Github but they also have a paid sync solution too.

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

#153

Post by gradientsrneat »

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?

Given their workflow, I assume they are either not using mobile, or are using something like Termux.

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

#154

Post by siegers »

largbae wrote: post #147

Please charge something. In order to trust my notes somewhere, I need it to be in someone's best interest to keep my data and not grow bored or overburdened by costs. I desperately want a simple, cross-platform, online or offline, fast note taking app. Evernote was this maybe 10 years ago before the bloat. I beg them every feedback opportunity to get Team features, chat, AI, and never ending upgrades out of my face.…

(cofounder here)

Thanks for the feedback! We have some ideas, and to be honest, the feedback here has been great to firm up some of our assumptions.

I'd like to follow up on this if you're interested. Feel free to email (lowercasehq@gmail.com).

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

#155

Post by blackhaj7 »

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?

Apple notes not supporting/formatting code snippets is the big blocker for me

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

#156

Post by chrisandchris »

siegers wrote: post #20

co-founder here: Just a little context on the "why" from the site - > We created lowercase as a side project to make it easier for folks to quickly share content without the pressure of having the perfect blog post. Sometimes you just want to share thoughts without worrying about styling and hosting. Ideas aren't always structured. And sometimes simple and easy is what you need. > A note-taking app that is simple, fu…

Congrats! Looks refreshing! I'm currently (or just recently started) with Craft and your app looks like all the things I need without all the additional stuff Craft has.

However, I would like my notes-app to be offline-first (with additional sync). Do you have any plans to support that ever?

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

#157

Post by system7rocks »

I really like this. I currently use Craft, but while Craft started out simply, it expanded to some more "power" features. People host their entire websites on it, although it requires workarounds to do that. And the guardrails/limitations end up making things you build kind of the same.

I love the simplicity of Lowercase. The price is good too. I will be giving it a test rise here and there, because I do send a lot of communications that I enjoy mocking up with very basic formatting.

I'd love to the Publishing toggle taken out of the settings panel or whatever.

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

#158

Post by EduardMe »

thedevtoolsmith wrote: post #150
largbae wrote: post #147

Please charge something. In order to trust my notes somewhere, I need it to be in someone's best interest to keep my data and not grow bored or overburdened by costs. I desperately want a simple, cross-platform, online or offline, fast note taking app. Evernote was this maybe 10 years ago before the bloat. I beg them every feedback opportunity to get Team features, chat, AI, and never ending upgrades out of my face.…

Have you tried Obsidian? It's a very bare-bones note taking app with a great plugin ecosystem. It has been my go-to for quite sometime now.

NotePlan is also a good alternative if you don't want to setup plugins and your own syncing system, but it has no free options.

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

#159

Post by siegers »

chrisandchris wrote: post #156
siegers wrote: post #20

co-founder here: Just a little context on the "why" from the site - > We created lowercase as a side project to make it easier for folks to quickly share content without the pressure of having the perfect blog post. Sometimes you just want to share thoughts without worrying about styling and hosting. Ideas aren't always structured. And sometimes simple and easy is what you need. > A note-taking app that is simple, fu…

Congrats! Looks refreshing! I'm currently (or just recently started) with Craft and your app looks like all the things I need without all the additional stuff Craft has. However, I would like my notes-app to be offline-first (with additional sync). Do you have any plans to support that ever?

Thanks! So we actually started with offline first originally (a standalone desktop app) and then rebuilt for the web. We had plans to revisit based on interest, etc. so it's good to get the feedback here and use that to shape the direction.

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

#160

Post by w10-1 »

siegers wrote: post #38
not_your_vase wrote: post #34

Low-key I have been looking for something like Obsidian-but-freeish to try since a while - I think this is exactly what I searched for. Going to give it a go during the weekend definitely. On a different note, what's the long term sustainability plan? Relying on donations rarely works... I guess it's not very expensive to host text, but still, its cost is not 0. "Unlimited free forever" is either not free, doesn't la…

(co-founder) Thanks for the comment and very valid points. When we initially started building we had subscription plans and more of a general revenue model. Over time we transitioned to the donation-based approach. We are open to revisiting the former if there is interest (and feedback) in the existing functionality or newer updates. I definitely understand the concern of "free forever" and open to input.

Given your model, consider publishing a time-to-live metric: if you get no further donations, this is how long the service will last.

Then people who care about 1 month, 1 year, or 10 years can decide accordingly.

And also describe the processes for extracting data, etc.

Finally, talk about your motivations. You raise the issue by pricing at $0 without addressing the concerns that raises, in a era when "free" means the user is the product and when LLM's are a giant content vacuum that copies without attribution.

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