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I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

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Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#171

Post by y4mi »

pault wrote: post #128
craftzdog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author here. > A much smaller (5-10MB) quota with no time limit That's interesting and I basically agree with your opinion. You will be more comfortable to try it. But I suspect that many free riders will come eat the server resources. This is not a startup. I would rather like to be small.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I am so excited by this. I have always kept my developer log in vim, and I basically run my life from it, but I've always wanted inline preview, a system wide hotkey, and cross platform file sync that doesn't require giving my unencrypted data to a cloud provider. I have found a lot of markdown apps with preview and sync, but none of them support vim bindings, which is a deal breaker.…

If youre a tinkerer it's always possible to just use plain vim and a repository. Of you want that repo end to end encrypted, keybase could be an option.

You'd lose out on mobile though and this project looks pretty neat if you're willing to pay

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#172

Post by rcdwealth »

TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #50

It looks good, and I like your pricing model more than the Standard Notes one (I don't want to drop $149 at once on a web app, but the 75% discount for doing so makes the monthly price seem way too expensive). Two things that stop me pulling the trigger: 1. I need a web app. I want to be able to call up my notes from a computer, anywhere, without installing anything. 2. A 60 day trial seems like the wrong way to test…

So you are likely to PAY to GIVE your data AWAY...

Mamma mia!

Why not pay US $5 to Digital Ocean and run your own NextCloud and you have all the notes in your own server. Encrypted.

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#174

Post by jamesgeck0 »

mdhughes wrote: post #99
zimpenfish wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every programmer should be capable of making certain basic tools of their own, such as note-taking, blogging, a calculator, and scripting languages. I'd counter that by adding "...and wise enough to know better than to actually do it."

Without the experience of making and supporting such tools, you'll never acquire wisdom, or many useful skills. Thought.py is maybe my 4th note-taking system, simpler and more precisely what I needed than any previous. Practice makes perfect. Doing nothing makes nothing.

> Without the experience of making and supporting such tools, you'll never acquire wisdom, or many useful skills.

There's nothing special about those specific tools. Instead, you'll acquire the wisdom and skills from the experience of making and supporting different tools. Ideally tools that don't already exist thousands of times over.

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#175

Post by fmjrey »

PikachuEXE wrote: post #7
xref wrote: post #3

I just switched to the Joplin markdown note app (from DS Note, and Evernote before that). It’s free, works on desktop and mobile, etc etc. Frankly I love it and wish I switched earlier. Anyone have a good comparison vs Inkdrop?

I switched from Wunderlist to Todoist + Joplin (and I switched to Wunderlist from Google Inbox...)

Any particular reason you still need Todoist even though Joplin can also handle some To Dos?

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#176

Post by TheGrumpyBrit »

craftzdog wrote: post #73
TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #50

It looks good, and I like your pricing model more than the Standard Notes one (I don't want to drop $149 at once on a web app, but the 75% discount for doing so makes the monthly price seem way too expensive). Two things that stop me pulling the trigger: 1. I need a web app. I want to be able to call up my notes from a computer, anywhere, without installing anything. 2. A 60 day trial seems like the wrong way to test…

The author here. > A much smaller (5-10MB) quota with no time limit That's interesting and I basically agree with your opinion. You will be more comfortable to try it. But I suspect that many free riders will come eat the server resources. This is not a startup. I would rather like to be small.

Certainly this model would result in a lot more people who would create accounts to test and never come back after deciding it's not for them. The answer to that is a clear dormant account policy - for example by deleting free accounts after 60 days with no login. That helps make sure that all your trial users are actively engaged in using the service, and also gives you an opportunity to follow up with dormant users at defined points to remind them that their account will expire if left unused, and giving the opportunity to upgrade to a paid account which has no such limit.

Another person mentioned that 5MB is a lot for text notes, which is quite true - following the notion.so approach and having a limit of 100 notes or so might be more sensible. I personally just don't like the idea of a time limit on a note taking app, especially when all the other options provide a free quota instead.

That said, your pricing looks just right for me, and the lack of the web app is the main thing stopping me from giving it a try. I really like the fact that you have both folders and tags, instead of just one or the other - that's really the one thing I feel is missing from both Standard Notes and Notion

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#177

Post by Improvotter »

otachack wrote: post #127
Improvotter wrote: post #111

This definitely looks great. But I feel like 5 USD a month is a bit much for _"just a note taking app"_. Like I pay 5 USD a month for Spotify and the value it gives is substantially higher than a note-taking app, and I do not mean to offend you with that. Maybe I'm saying this because I'm still studying, maybe it will different coming September when I'm working and got an income. I don't know.

The notes are markdown and in the FAQs he mentions the location of the local data cache. I imagine you can simply copy all your notes from the cache, clean up any incompatible metadata, and import them to your next note app. Don't let paying for software stop you if you can afford it. This looks like quality software and we should support it, if able. If you're looking for free note software that's tied to a company,…

I'm all for supporting the things that are good. But at what point do we say "enough!"? All of these subscription services start to add up, going from free to 5 USD a month is a bigger jump than I'm willing to take. Why aren't there any services out there that offer 1 USD/EUR plans?

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#178

Post by samel88 »

stockkid wrote: post #28

Running a project for three years alone on the side takes a lot of discipline. So often we become 'passionate' about some projects and quickly abandon them once the initial excitement wears off. Congratulations to the author! Eerily, I have also been building a Markdown note-taking app alone for 2 years [0]. It is also e2e encrypted, but compared to Inkdrop, needs more work on the UI. But it works perfectly as a CLI.…

> Running a project for three years alone on the side takes a lot of discipline.

My congratulations!

I could not agree more! I also worked on a Markdown editor for many years (in my case 5). But, the unique perspective I take at this was requiring that much time. In my case, it is really an editor for developers that know their Web stack... Stylo[0] supports styling the Markdown using CSS, live. It allows to do things such as highlighting tagged text parts that we want to concentrate on among other things. Only for Mac though as I also am an independent developer and want to concentrate on features that actually matters for producing texts.

It took me every bit of discipline I had, and it continues...

[0]: https://www.textually.net

Re: I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

#179

Post by yyhtotyuou »

gerbilly wrote: post #154
sriram_malhar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your note made me confront my own self-doubt. Time to dust off that old code-base

You don't need to get all the customers, you just have to find your customers. As long as you find enough of them, you'll be ok. You are wise to avoid trying to make an everything for everyone app. No one will want to use it.

You just have to duck your own trick, that is the key to it, and also the conclusion of the parent post above. Keep it simple my fellow truck riders
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