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A ramble about various note-taking applications
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 12, 2023 at 07:56 PM
For the record, Reflect has E2E encryption… some of the others may as well.
NickG wrote:
I’ll add Anytype - it’s just on the point of moving to an open beta.
>Like Notion, it needs investment to get the best from it. Its main
>selling point right now is that it’s E2E encrypted and will (later this
>year) allow for self-hosting.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 12, 2023 at 07:57 PM
I am happy that you added these. I did mean to mention that my list is compiled of apps that can be used on either a Windows PC or Mac, mostly through being browser apps. But other options are very welcome.
satis wrote:
For open-source and free (though with pay versions available in the Mac
>and iOS app stores) there’s FSnotes
>
>https://fsnot.es/
>
>Apple Notes continues to be rock solid, cross-platform and with a web
>version, able to handle thousands (if not tens of thousands) of notes,
>and continues to be developed (new version coming this fall includes
>document linking).
>
>https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/06/apple-notes-create-links-between-notes/
>
>Agenda continues to be a very nice, well-supported app, and I’ve been
>using it for some things. Dev participates in the Discourse forum.
>Price/performance is terriffic, as is its unique freemium pricing model.
>
>https://agenda.com/
>https://agenda.community/
>
>As a hardcore outliner I want to use Logseq more than I do (which is
>barely). I prefer its design and plugin philosophy over Obsidian’s, and
>it is approaching version 1.0
>
>https://logseq.com/
>
>If I want to bang out some text I’ll sometimes reach for BBEdit, which
>I’ve used literally for decades now.
>
>https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
>
>But if I want to quickly work in Markdown I reach for MWeb Pro, which I
>picked up years ago for less than $5 (it’s now $20 on the Mac and $9 to
>unlock the nice iOS app).
>
>https://www.mweb.im/
>
>My longform text processor and repository on macOS/iOS remains Ulysses,
>but I don’t use it for notes.
>
>https://ulysses.app/
Posted by WSP
Jun 12, 2023 at 08:30 PM
I still use OneNote as my main note-taking app. It’s very annoying at times (occasionally the slow updating between my computer and my phone, and the weak tagging sytem), but it’s reliable on the whole and probably will not disappear in the future.
I also depend on UpNote: very elegant and speedy. Outstanding in many ways; its main weaknesses are that you cannot search the text of attached PDFs and a certain uneasiness about its long-term prospects.
WSP
Posted by satis
Jun 12, 2023 at 09:37 PM
UpNote is a truly cross-platform solution. It might be the closest thing Windows users get to a basic Apple Notes experience, albeit in the relatively-insecure format of an Electron app.
They have periodically changed the available fonts. They used to offer the serif font Lora (wrongly calling it Lato, its sans serif sister-font), before removing it completely. A shame!
The web clipper is a nice touch, and the links between notes, theming, backup options and output formats are well done. But after years the menubar ‘entry’ is still bogus - it only exists if the app is running, and you can’t enter anything from it (in macOS, at any rate) - all it does it invoke the app and bring it forward with a new entry window. (Other apps’ menubar apps persist when the app is quit, and you can enter/edit notes from a small window.)
Although I bought the Pro unlock a couple of years ago I’m still dubious about the developer’s ability to offer the promised lifetime of unlimited storage for that one-time $20 charge. This is part of the reason I don’t use the app - I think the penny will drop, sooner than later, and people will either have to start paying more or will have to migrate their files out of the app.
Posted by Amontillado
Jun 13, 2023 at 02:52 AM
There are some old standards that should get a mention.
- Devonthink
- TheBrain
- Tinderbox
I remain a fan of Curio, too. It takes very low effort to produce notes and thoughts in a polished format. Whatever it costs in a few extra mouse clicks it rewards with a pleasant arrangement of thoughts.
Has anyone tried TheArchive? https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/#the-archive