I've been intrigued by Craft for quite a while, but it has been limited to the Apple ecosystem, which has meant it has no value for me at my paying job, where we work on Windows PCs.

But Craft just announced that they are starting a beta trial of their new web editor. If it works well, that will open Craft up for a lot more of my notes and writing. I hope they do a good job.

This morning I got access to the web version of Craft and I am already overjoyed. This could be the note-taking solution I've been hunting for (CRIMP over-optimism at work?). Anyone else working in the Craft web version yet?

A bold statement coming from someone who basically invented CRIMPing.
But I noticed that recently external folders have been added, thus enabling you to sync with your own server

I accidentally sent off the last post before adding the smiley (not for the first time I wished we could edit our posts for a limited time). So here you go:

:-)

Bonus question: What do you use Craft for in addition to note-taking proper? Todo lists?

I assumed the smiley face even before reading your second post...

Craft seems like it could be an ideal journal, and that's what I'm going to use it for first and foremost.

Steve

The other thing Craft is amazingly good at is producing seriously well-structured PDFs. I haven’t experimented with this in the web version yet, but if you have a complex Craft document with multiple embedded subdocuments, it will turn the whole thing into an elegantly cross-linked PDF, complete with table of contents. It’s astonishingly capable.

I must take a look at the web version, although I’m embedded in the Apple ecosphere so don’t really need to use it.

For an alternative model, just take a look at Andy Matuschak’s notes (actually, I’m sure it was somebody here who put me onto them). Alas, he hasn’t released his amazing model as a piece of software yet, but I notice there’s an Obsidian plugin that attempts to replicate it. There are some close similarities to Craft, however (but also to e.g. Gingko, FlowList etc.).

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNotes=z3SjnvsB5aR2ddsycyXofbYR7fCxo7RmKW2be

There's also a TiddlyWiki plugin which implements Andy's Gingko-like slide-out notes.

https://crazko.github.io/krystal/

but the number of recommended plugins, which require attention and periodic updating, makes it quite fiddly.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Craft seems like it could be an ideal journal, and that's what I'm going
to use it for first and foremost.

I really like what they've done with it, and I've paid for a month's trial to connect Mac to iOS, and it makes good on its promise to improve options for structured notes and linked notes. I supposed that a stumbling block for me personally is that these are early days for these types of apps, and I don't want to pour in volumes of text and become dependent on their internal linking should a more robust alternative arise. Aside from that I'm not itching for more structure in my notes.

But as a superset of Apple Notes (which is an astonishingly good free, cross-platform app with a web interface) it appeals to me, with its Keep-like card views and its sophisticated and beautiful format options that are easy to use.

But I struggle to see how that works for me right now. I'm more focused on (a) notes and longer-form writing that offers folding/zooming/hoisting, as well as (b) notes apps that bidirectionally do one-click transforms to mindmaps, a la Transno, ZenKit, and (c) for an upcoming project I'm also slowly evaluating visual whiteboard-type apps that contain mindmaps/lists/text (which seem to all be relatively expensive subscription services).

Craft looks so beautiful and works so well at what it does I just wish I had more use for, and faith in, it.

I think a lot of people have been seduced by the sheer gorgeousness of Craft’s interface, only to realise that they’re not sure exactly what to do with it.

I’m still wondering myself (although I’ve successfully built a business admin system with it, which works pretty well). I think some of the additions lurking on the roadmap are needed before Craft becomes the sine qua non of macOS/iOS apps.

satis wrote:

I really like what they've done with it, and I've paid for a month's
trial to connect Mac to iOS, and it makes good on its promise to improve
options for structured notes and linked notes. I supposed that a
stumbling block for me personally is that these are early days for these
types of apps, and I don't want to pour in volumes of text and become
dependent on their internal linking should a more robust alternative
arise. Aside from that I'm not itching for more structure in my notes.

But as a superset of Apple Notes (which is an astonishingly good free,
cross-platform app with a web interface) it appeals to me, with its
Keep-like card views and its sophisticated and beautiful format options
that are easy to use.

But I struggle to see how that works for me right now. I'm more focused
on (a) notes and longer-form writing that offers
folding/zooming/hoisting, as well as (b) notes apps that bidirectionally
do one-click transforms to mindmaps, a la Transno, ZenKit, and (c) for
an upcoming project I'm also slowly evaluating visual whiteboard-type
apps that contain mindmaps/lists/text (which seem to all be relatively
expensive subscription services).

Craft looks so beautiful and works so well at what it does I just wish I
had more use for, and faith in, it.

The fact that it's got Markdown and lets you choose between saving files locally/iCloud/Dropbox (the latter Mac-only) and outputs such nicely formatted files makes it a real replacement for a lot of text editors and shoebox apps for a lot of people.

For most users Apple Notes has obviated the need for something like Evernote, but with Craft and NoteJoy and similar services/apps there appears to be a niche for paid apps that offer something between Notes and Evernote, with unique features (like bidirectional linking), for half the $90/yr price of Evernote.

And a $50-$70 tier seems to be the sweet spot for a notes/files app that offers a respectable replacement for typical task managers.

So I think Craft, which has come shooting out the gate with a good product and a good privacy & files policy, has a solid future. Even if it probably isn't in mine.

Personally, I’m urging them to consider making it possible to use Craft as a static website authoring tool. It produces gorgeous collaborative websites already, but on Craft’s own server. I’d be perfectly happy to use Craft to create independent websites – the output is that good – but it’s not currently possible. Also, a nice online search function would, I feel, be an essential addition (also to their current collaborative setup).

They are thinking about it, I’m glad to say!

Something between Hey's 'Hey World' email-to-weblog service and Notion's publish-to-web would be attractive. (That said, I would still recommend people create a free managed blog at wordpress.com and publish from web or Wordpress's apps, or apps like Ulysses, IA Writer or MarsEdit, and not have to worry about link-rot if they stop paying for Craft.)

Or use one of an increasing number of exceedingly good static website generators like Publii, Automad or Bludit (I know, amazing names, but Automad in particular is seriously cool!)

Cheers,
Bill

I find the static site generating tools to be interesting but you still need to host the files yourself (Dropbox is a common option, but it's not always trouble-free). I prefer have greater flexibility from a service with a free plan that hosts and offers additional optional pay features, and lets you use writing tools you may already own to publish (eg IA Writer, Ulysses, Drafts) as well as being able to post-by-email. And using Wordpress gives you greater SEO reach.

That said, Hey's implementation is simple and easy and can integrate images nicely in attractive blog posts, like this one

https://world.hey.com/shanechase/design-thinking-fast-and-slow-f4fddf34

Back to Craft: Drafts app now has an Action that integrates with it.

https://actions.getdrafts.com/a/1kp

Ah, that’s interesting – cheers!

satis wrote:

Back to Craft: Drafts app now has an Action that integrates with it.

https://actions.getdrafts.com/a/1kp

Dang, I had no idea Hey allowed you to generate a whole personal blog based on e-mails.

That’s really quite neat!

Hey co-founder Jason Fried wanted to offer users more room than a tweetstorm, while sidestepping contentious or raucous commenting. He ays the blogs are an experiment for now, and the company is going to “play for a while,” with the feature. Additionally, as “a shoutout to simpler times,” Hey World pages feature “no javascript, no tracking, no junk.”

https://world.hey.com/repairforchange

A nice clean implementation that just requires users to email themselves to a special address from their own account. If it catches on I imagine it could offer pay features like analytics 'junk', or spun off to offer a cheap Ghost/Medium/Substack alternative.

And back to Craft again ;-)

I’ve just logged on to the (beta) web editor and I’m very impressed – does more or less exactly what the desktop app does, at commendable speed.

Except, alas, for the search function, which is extremely limited (document names only, it appears; no search within docs).

But as a quick ’n’ easy way to access your (online) Craft repositories via the web, a very useful development.

For info: I also keep a Craft repository offline (or quasi-offline, in iCloud), which syncs perfectly satisfactorily between my macOS devices and iOS devices.

Craft has now incorporated a Calendar view which makes it easy to create daily notes. This is an excellent addition. I don't know if this has been implemented in the web version yet, but I doubt it. Once the web version catches up to the Mac version, Craft could be a real solution for note-taking for me.

Why Craft and not Obsidian or Roam? Would be interested to know.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Craft has now incorporated a Calendar view which makes it easy to create
daily notes. This is an excellent addition. I don't know if this has
been implemented in the web version yet, but I doubt it. Once the web
version catches up to the Mac version, Craft could be a real solution
for note-taking for me.

I am a fan of both Obsidian and Roam, but I don't like writing in either app a whole lot. Craft feels more like a genuine word processor with note-linking skills. But I have not yet really committed to Craft. I like it and hope it evolves enough to lure me over completely. We'll see.

Simon wrote:

Why Craft and not Obsidian or Roam? Would be interested to know.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Craft has now incorporated a Calendar view which makes it easy to create
>daily notes. This is an excellent addition. I don't know if this has
>been implemented in the web version yet, but I doubt it. Once the web
>version catches up to the Mac version, Craft could be a real solution
>for note-taking for me.

Heh, I confess I’ve just been playing with the Calendar feature, which is very well conceived. Especially impressive is the ability to create an instant “meeting notes” subdocument from the event details in one’s Calendars. For example, I have a Microsoft Teams videoconference set up for Tuesday – I simply clicked on it in Craft’s calendar view, and it offered to generate a new “Meeting Note” for me; the resulting note is created as a subdocument within the Daily Note, and contains an elegantly folded outline with the following top levels:

Notes from Calendar
Attendees
Location

and finally a link preceded by “Join Call:”, after which there’s a divider and you can type your notes, agenda or whatever else directly into the page.

That is sensationally convenient.

On the downside, there’s currently no obvious way of linking notes elsewhere (or indeed tasks in notes) to the Calendar view (à la NotePlan), other than copying and pasting them into the Daily Note for a given day.

You can, of course, copy and paste entire documents as subdocuments in a given Daily Note, but this is a strong argument for something I’ve been urging for a while, namely transclusion – Craft is such an obvious candidate for it!

But a very impressive step forward for an already impressive tool. Especially since, unlike Agenda, Craft allows you to open documents/subdocuments/notes etc. in separate windows.

Cheers,
Bill

Having said all that about transclusion, I’ve also been experimenting with Craft’s internal links. And they are also very impressive.

Craft recently made it very easy to link directly to specific “blocks” (= paragraphs) in different documents simply by selecting a word and then choosing the “markdown link” option from the pop-up menu – this will produce an instant search box with the relevant word highlighted in (a) this document, (b) other pages and (c) blocks. Or you can spontaneously create a new document from the link. The mini-preview that appears as you hover over each link makes it immensely easy to decide exactly what to link.

This offers a very easy way to link a Daily Note to any other note in your repository. I’ve not seen such an efficient mechanism in any other notetaking app (although Roam and Obsidian have similar concepts, the Craft execution is just mind-bogglingly elegant and clear – in fact, “elegant and clear” pretty much defines their philosophy).

Again, profoundly impressive…

Cheers,
Bill

The only downside to the backlinks feature is that it treats each “block” as a page, so you only see backlinks to a block (paragraph) if you “go inside” the block (as Craft users will know, any block can be treated as a sub-page/subdocument, i.e. you can “enter” the block and create extensive content within it – if you do, the top-level block will be treated as the page title for additional content).

So you only see backlinks at the top level (i.e. in the master document itself) if they link to the master document; if they link to blocks or subdocuments within the master document, they will only show up in those blocks or subdocuments, and not at top level.

There are, of course, pros and cons to this approach!