They have had at least one multimillion dollar funding rounds, two co-founders (one is CEO, one is CTO), a UK Director (they're HQed in Belgium) and a few data scientists with listed emails. But it's a small company with fewer than 50 employees.

In 2021 they gained an additional revenue stream by licensing their AI-based InstantML technology to Siemens for its MindSphere insights software "as an embedded component in MindSphere gives industrial users the ability to very quickly add AI capabilities to their MindSphere applications and solutions. With this approach, the IoT data stored in MindSphere can be instantly leveraged to generate actionable insights and prescriptive tools, enabling important industry use cases such as predictive maintenance, performance optimization, quality management and energy management."

I think Tangent Notes and Tangent Works are not related. (And yes I believe Tangent Notes is a one-person operation.)

Thanks. My question was based on this: https://www.tangentnotes.com/About I do use and support some one-developer programs, but I'm trying to be more cognizant of that aspect before I spend a lot of time on them -- especially where there seem to be relatively robust options with teams and funding.

It is a one-person operation, but Taylor Hadden is very amiable and responds quickly to feedback, queries etc. It's very much a passion project, i.e. he eats his own dog food!

I'm enjoying using Tangent alongside Obsidian – the map view in particular is always interesting, and it's a very quick app. There are some nice "hidden" features, too (i.e. features you have to find by exploring the app a bit!). He's got folding on his near-term roadmap ;-)

Although the current version of Tangent doesn't have folding (but it's coming!), it does have a great filter feature (the "Feed" filter, as opposed to the "Cards" filter) that allows you to see – and edit – multiple notes in a continuous stream. The notes can either be in a folder, or in a particular tag/subtag set. This is not dissimilar to Ulysses, although Ulysses also allows you to view/edit selected notes as a single, continuous stream. Taylor likes the idea!

Obsidian does have a couple of plug-ins that allow you to do the same thing with tags (either full notes or individual paragraphs), but the Tangent solution is much cleaner.

The default "Cards" filter is also very powerful, however, because the Cards are scrollable, meaning you can scroll through the entire note on the Cards screen (similar to, but much more powerful than, the Index Cards feature in other apps). And if you click on a Card, the actual note appears alongside the Cards list. Again, you can view folders, tags or search hits in "Cards" view.

Just a couple of things Tangent does particularly well.

Hi Dormouse - I am interested in what you wrote about using Mindomo in your writing process. I had not really thought much about using a mind mapping program in writing although I have used Mindomo for years in terms of brainstorming and planning activities. How are you using Mindomo? Thanks.

Dormouse wrote:

I find Tangent has the features I need for notes and doesn't intrude on
my thinking or writing. Simple and quite elegant.
I find that I spend 99% of my time in it thinking and writing - where in
Obsidian it sometimes felt I was doing well to hit 50%. And Obsidian is
always available if I need an extra feature, though I haven't so far.

I've relatively recently switched my long-form writing to Mindomo and
Word. Very smooth integrated workflow, and everything had to end up in
Word anyway. And it's easy to import .md notes into Mindomo if that
should ever be needed. In some ways I always felt that HB was better for
working with sources, but the evidence never quite backed that up.

mkasu wrote:

I think Tangent Notes and Tangent Works are not related. (And yes I
believe Tangent Notes is a one-person operation.)

My error. Sorry.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Hi Dormouse - I am interested in what you wrote about using Mindomo in
your writing process. I had not really thought much about using a mind
mapping program in writing although I have used Mindomo for years in
terms of brainstorming and planning activities. How are you using
Mindomo? Thanks.

I was pretty much like you with Mindomo. Had even given up my subscription because I wasn't using it enough. But when I decided that Heptabase and Scrintal, or even Canvas, weren't going to cut it for me in the near term, I wondered whether it might be an alternative option for the same need. Instead of a 'whiteboard' with notes on it, it has nodes with attached notes (though I'd never used them much before). I remembered the little Hepta mindmap being surprisingly useful. Being usable as a concept mapper, there was no need for all nodes(+notes) to be connected as in a mindmap, which made it more similar to Hepta et al. What sold me into giving it a real try was the discovery that the docx export put the notes into body text with comments as comments. I'd never tested that previously because I've done all my writing in txt/md for a very long time. But since discovering that Word had overcome the deficiencies I hated it for and was very practical for long-form writing in a single document (always my preference when practical), I had started writing in Word and so this was now very interesting.

So, I'm not sure how well my system works if you write in single sections/chapters. And I don't think the Mindomo export options are particularly advantageous for markdown.

But fwiw my basic system is to construct and organise the MSS as an outline or mindmap. I might write body text in a note, I might write comments, I might write a summary (usually this will be in a sub-node). When I think it's ready, I export it to Word and continue from there. There's an option for a table of contents at the start of the docx. Any coloured text in the note is exported (highlighted text coming soon). The advantage of Mindomo, for the preparatory work is that I can play out different options away from the outline, draw links, use colour and pictures & etc. - but I can, at the same time, in the same place also write text and note comments. It is, for me, a better system for working through the narrative structure than simply writing in an editor.

I'm not sure it would work at all well if you don't write in Word, which works well in its outline views, and has a very effective comments system. And even then it's a question of what suits your writing flow.

I can't find an edit option for posts.
I always seem to need to edit something - and above it was my response being tacked on to the quoted text.

Tangent Notes seems very interesting. It's also almost fascinating how niche it is. I couldn't find virtually any materials on it except their own website and Discord channel.

I played around with it for a bit and it seems kind of interesting, but it's also a workflow I wouldn't want to grow too accustomed to because I'd worry the app might be discontinued at some point. As a user, I think it would make more sense to have this kind of idea as an open source Obsidian plugin as it could integrate well into the rest of the Obsidian eco system. Also, then the author wouldn't need to make a whole new editor nor need to worry about features like sync or mobile clients.. But well, if it is a passion project I can definitely see the appeal.

Personally, I used to use TheBrain 13 until recently but I'm a bit annoyed by their recent focus on AI tools in v14 (there's so many issues and requests which should be fixed first, but it seems to make more business sense to jump on the AI hype...). I went back to Obsidian and use it extensively in combination with the ExcaliBrain plugin which is essentially reimplementing some ideas from TheBrain in Obsidian. You can make similar maps as in TangentNote with "previous note" "next note" relationships. It is also more structured than Obsidian's standard graph view because you can have different link types and then automatically have them appear in a certain direction ("parent links" always above, "child links" always below, previous/next to left/right etc.) Of course, it's much more manual because you need to define links and their types to get most out of it..

mkasu wrote:

Tangent Notes seems very interesting. It's also almost fascinating how
niche it is. I couldn't find virtually any materials on it except their
own website and Discord channel.

I played around with it for a bit and it seems kind of interesting, but
it's also a workflow I wouldn't want to grow too accustomed to
because I'd worry the app might be discontinued at some point. As a
user, I think it would make more sense to have this kind of idea as an
open source Obsidian plugin as it could integrate well into the rest of
the Obsidian eco system. Also, then the author wouldn't need to make a
whole new editor nor need to worry about features like sync or mobile
clients

iirc Taylor started developing it because he wasn't happy with the speed of Obsidian's keyboard entry, so he needed a new editor. It's easy to use Obsidian to plug any gaps, which mitigates concerns about sync or mobile or even discontinuation.

Philosophically it's at the other end of the spectrum from Obsidian's plugin heavy system. Options are few, it doesn't slavishly follow markdown specs (tab does not produce a code block).

I don't worry about longevity myself. Some of the longest lived projects I know are passion projects developed for the developer's own use. And experience has taught me that open source rarely produces a neat handover when a lead developer stops.

Thanks for that tip! Excalibrain sounds really interesting. I'm enjoying Tangent, and there are some nice ideas coming along in the near future, but I'm not anxious to move lock, stock and barrel away from the (very powerful, flexible) Obsidian just yet!

mkasu wrote:

Tangent Notes seems very interesting. It's also almost fascinating how
niche it is. I couldn't find virtually any materials on it except their
own website and Discord channel.

I played around with it for a bit and it seems kind of interesting, but
it's also a workflow I wouldn't want to grow too accustomed to
because I'd worry the app might be discontinued at some point. As a
user, I think it would make more sense to have this kind of idea as an
open source Obsidian plugin as it could integrate well into the rest of
the Obsidian eco system. Also, then the author wouldn't need to make a
whole new editor nor need to worry about features like sync or mobile
clients.. But well, if it is a passion project I can definitely see the
appeal.

Personally, I used to use TheBrain 13 until recently but I'm a bit
annoyed by their recent focus on AI tools in v14 (there's so many issues
and requests which should be fixed first, but it seems to make more
business sense to jump on the AI hype...). I went back to Obsidian and
use it extensively in combination with the ExcaliBrain plugin which is
essentially reimplementing some ideas from TheBrain in Obsidian. You can
make similar maps as in TangentNote with "previous note" "next note"
relationships. It is also more structured than Obsidian's standard graph
view because you can have different link types and then automatically
have them appear in a certain direction ("parent links" always above,
"child links" always below, previous/next to left/right etc.) Of course,
it's much more manual because you need to define links and their types
to get most out of it..

I also had trouble finding any materials. I kept coming up with lessons on tangents in geometry, which is most definitely NOT what I was looking for. Sorry to go off on a tangent...

mkasu wrote:

Tangent Notes seems very interesting. It's also almost fascinating how
niche it is. I couldn't find virtually any materials on it except their
own website and Discord channel.

I've been using Heptabase for a while now, and I think it checks all boxes. Except for email and a proper calendar, ie. Outlook.

They have added some more powerful features, such as the ability to add "folders" on the sidebar, which can hold whiteboards, cards, tags, etc. Then you can make "tag groups" which are essentially workspaces for things, ie. personal, business, etc. It has added another new dimension to the product! Here's an overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9eBuf9Lx30

The sidebar also has "Task" item now, which gives all unchecked checkboxes in your database. They still plan to add the two things I mentioned to them, namely 1) Tags need multiple select or all to see attributes that span tags and 2) Open files/email with native app. These are on their roadmap.

The ease of use is amazing. And the PDF features are also outstanding. I am using it for everything now, not just notes and learning, but for meetings, project planning, tasks, references, articles, goals, weekly review, etc. The tag items were very odd to me in the beginning; however, I've always thought that a properly planned tool wouldn't need tags. So in Heptabase, using tags to track those specific info items, like meeting notes, logging doctor's appointments, daily journal entries, etc.

Again, the only other organization app I'm using is Outlook (with NEOPro and Close Contact for enhanced features). I'm slowly moving over my notes from UltraRecall and RightNote. The main negative with Heptabase is that as a todo/project manager it is not particularly powerful, so Outlook with the now free Taskline addin can suit that need in my "two-app system".

I totally changed my mind on this. I'm going back to Obsidian.

Heptabase is great for organizing info for a huge knowledge manager. But they don't seem interested in Zotero integration, lack multi-tag select for organization, and you can't link files to open natively.

Fired up my old Obsidian and it just has many more options, although ease of use is not like Heptabase.

I also strongly considered Logseq. It was a close call as I generally prefer block structure and a more simple approach.

However, I do want to include an ample amount of free form information and larger webpages. Furthermore, I do like to structure things a bit more than working from the daily note - it's clear that is a more simple approach, but I find that too much mundane and superfluous information ends up being input.

My 2 cents. Hopefully Obsidian sticks this time around!