No support for math.js or katex
Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
11–20 of 97 posts
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#12> Supports Go, JSON, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Markdown What is required to add additional language support?
It's based on Monaco Editor, which is the open source base of VSCode - you can see the full list of supported languages by clicking the dropdown on the bottom right (similar to VS code: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/overview#_chang...)
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#13This is remarkably similar to Calca.app, which I still use occasionally. http://calca.io/
I love that yours is web based! Can see it being much more reusable in a number of use-cases.
Calca was originally MacOS/iOS, but has since been ported to Windows.
I think that the notation in Calca to use a `=>` to display results maybe adds a bit more clarity to the math expressions, but your display style seems to work pretty well too.
The only advantage Calca seems to have is they’ve had almost a decade to add things like extra functions (compound interest, trig, …), constants, operators, etc.
I’ve always thought that style of simple but highly visible calculation is a far superior alternative to spreadsheets. Jupyter, LiveBook, Mathematica, etc… have shown that it works, but the world is still enamored with Excel, despite its propensity to hide mistakes.
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#14This is a really cool idea. I especially like the math blocks where you can add blocks of information that actually do things. I could see this potentially even growing beyond math, but other types of functionality as well. One optimization that might be interesting is to simply use Markdown as your main document all the time and then when you want to add special functionality like the math block to simply have that…
Yeah, so far this behavior is inherited from Heynote.
I've been thinking about making math an option within markdown.
The type of the block is shown at the bottom, in the status bar.
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#15Is desktop on the roadmap? I use HeyNote (desktop) every day and the only feature I _really_ want is multiple notes. You added that, but I need desktop because of corporate rules.
Desktop would be easy to do but seems a bit pointless.
You can install a PWA shortcut which gives you even more desktop experience in the sense that it looks like an app separate from the browser.
That is what I do.
What are those corporate rules and how are they enforced?
Is it about storing data? Because Edna stores the notes on your computer, it's never sent to any server.
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#16> Supports Go, JSON, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Markdown What is required to add additional language support?
The above is a partial list, Edna supports about 30 langs.
To add another one, you need to find library that implements CodeMirror mode for that language, add it to package.json and update languages.js
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#17Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#18I like the idea of a developer focused note environment, but I've got such deep muscle memory for emacs that any other editor is a non-starter for me.
Edna actually has Emacs mode which you can choose in settings.
You can see implementation: https://github.com/kjk/edna/blob/main/src/editor/emacs.js
I can't say how well it works. I just noticed that I would need to change some keybindings because they conflict with Emacs keybindings.
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#19I will check this (and Heynote) out. I have long wanted to get into something like Obsidian, but have always had trouble finding a good example of a workflow in the development world that makes good use of their features. Almost all example workflows I've seen are from people whose job it is to work on and evangelize note taking tools, and it's mostly things like organizing their notes on how to take notes. Seemed li…
This is one of the uses for me as well: jotting temporary notes when programming.
One of the default notes is `scratch` for exactly that and you can summon it quickly with `Alt + 1`
Re: Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
#20I was going to say this looks exactly like Heynote, but then saw you said you forked it. Is there a fundamental difference in vision between the two apps? Both taglines are notes "for developers", so I'm a little confused on why the separate project.