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A significant development with Craft
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Apr 16, 2021 at 09:15 AM
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
Posted by satis
Apr 18, 2021 at 02:21 PM
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.
Posted by satis
Apr 18, 2021 at 02:43 PM
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.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Apr 19, 2021 at 11:42 AM
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.
Posted by satis
Apr 19, 2021 at 02:39 PM
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.