I've been reviewing the relatively new app Heptabase. It still has a long way to go to be fully functional for me, but I am very intrigued by the potential.

With Heptabase, you write notes in cards... which can be anything from short shippets to long documents. You can format your notes using markdown. You can view your notes in a timeline, with the newest notes on top. Or you can view your entire card library, which can be filtered down quickly, as needed.

But the big feature is that you can add notes to whiteboards, which are canvases on which you can freely move your notes about, including tying them together with links to form flow charts or diagrams.

I wrote a bit more about Heptanotes in a Heptanote whiteboard, which you can view here:

https://app.heptabase.com/w/e303f3cb35f5a2130bbc6adef1a5cbd9c0f87fb72c5188958a39b692fb475a91

Be advised that this whiteboard is pretty inert on the web. But you can read each card in a side panel by clicking on it. I also kept it very plain, not using optional color or links. And what look like links (and are in the desktop version of the program) do not appear to work.

The app has a ways to go. The biggest deficiency that I've found so far is that once you've created your whiteboard, there is no way to export it to a reusable format. It sort of makes the process a lot of bother for nothing. But I expect that export options will come along.

Here's the link to the website, if your interested: https://heptabase.com/

Steve

The idea behind the app looks genuinely interesting - there is a lack of noting apps with a visual dimension.

But the business model concerns me.

Unless I'm missing something, they want to charge me a monthly fee for accessing the new public beta of an unfinished app. They don't even offer a free trial before grabbing my payment details - merely offering a refund after a scant 7 days.

I've been helping companies with beta testing for decades, and no-one has ever tried to charge me before, and the trial period is derisory.

This is a very competitive market with high churn - most of these little start-ups simply don't make it. They have many competitors who offer generous free accounts, or a low-friction free trial at the very least. They are making it harder to experience their app that any other player in the field. So I do wonder if they have the commercial smarts to survive. Which makes committing your mission-critical info to their app a significant risk

Very sad, because I'd love to try it. But not under these conditions.

Thanks Steve!

The basic premise of Heptabase reminds me of the –now defunct as far as I understand– CRPA, Constructive Recollection Philosophy Application (previously PMM, Personal Memory Manager) discussed here in the past https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/2996/

As with CRPA, one can create various visual combinations of selected items (cards in Heptabase). CRPA didn't have a timeline (which I find very useful), but it had a similar library of all items created.

Heptabase can be considered as a rich text Zettelkasten system (each card to link to others), combined with concept mapping. I use Brainstorm in a similar –non visual– manner, but I do see the advantages of visual implementation, provided that it can scale well.

Overall, I like Heptabase. I also have concerns with the business model, but given that it's backed by Y Combinator, I believe that there is reason for it.

While exporting is not yet supported, Heptabase creates daily (?) local .zip backups which seem to include all cards and boards as markdown files, so there is no risk of lock-in.


Stephen Zeoli wrote:

With Heptabase, you write notes in cards... which can be anything from
short shippets to long documents. You can format your notes using
markdown. You can view your notes in a timeline, with the newest notes
on top. Or you can view your entire card library, which can be filtered
down quickly, as needed.

But the big feature is that you can add notes to whiteboards, which are
canvases on which you can freely move your notes about, including tying
them together with links to form flow charts or diagrams.

I agree that charging $7 a month at this point in the development is a bit presumptuous. They do offer a one-week money back guarantee... not very generous, but it does let you give the app a try out without being overly committed to it. You will need to send a request to their support (support@heptabase.com) to get the refund.

Steve

Just to be clear, the $7/month figure is the early bird pricing when you pay for a whole year. With monthly payments, it's $10/month, which is slated to become $12/month without the early bird discount.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, my onboarding interview left me quite impressed with the developer, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one. By I would want to see it evolve to work more on a per-block basis rather than just on a per-card basis.

Thanks for mentioning this app -- I hadn't seen it. I love the idea of the spatial whiteboards... it's a little like a web version of Eastgate Tinderbox in some ways.

Wish this was an Obsidian Plugin. I'd 100% use then. I'd be interested to see if Obsidian ends up allowing for "premium" plugins.

I thought of Tinderbox too.

Chris Thompson wrote:

Thanks for mentioning this app -- I hadn't seen it. I love the idea of
the spatial whiteboards... it's a little like a web version of Eastgate
Tinderbox in some ways.

Extremely interesting. The subscription plan nudges me away, but I guess I have to get used to subscriptions.

Heptabase addresses what I consider a missing feature in Curio. An idea can be relevant in more than one place in a map of ideas. I really wish Curio would support replicated figures (text boxes, index cards, whatever) in the manner of Devonthink replicants. That would be cool.

I came across another new visual thinking tool that is getting ready for public beta. It is called Kosmik.

https://www.kosmik.app

Heptabase vs. Scrintal

I onboarded with Scrintal a couple of weeks ago. Scrintal and Heptabase are very similar in that they allow you to be whiteboards of documents. I think Heptabase is a little further along the evolutionary chain at this point, but I am confident the developers of Scrintal intend big things for it. And, as it is, Scrintal is very usable even at this point in the process.

But I must say I also like Heptabase very much. It seems to have advanced quite a bit since I introduced the topic a couple of months ago. Here's a YouTube video that does a good job of showing Heptabase's benefits:

https://youtu.be/oVXQx9sz_Wk

It will be interesting to see how these two new apps evolve. We sure are living in a vibrant note-taking era!

Steve Z.

I signed up for the wait list for Kosmikl at the beginning of the year, still waiting.

I did get an email thanking me for my patience and giving me a free first year.


Darren McDonald wrote:

I came across another new visual thinking tool that is getting ready for
public beta. It is called Kosmik.

https://www.kosmik.app

Just signed up, found I'm #22xx on the waiting list. Guess I'll wait a while, as I don't intend to speed up the process as the devs ask by getting others to try to join.

Heptabase is improving in leaps and bounds.

They just transitioned the Timeline view to the Journal view, a familiar daily notes-style view. And you can now nest boards within boards (still a beta feature).

If you were intrigued by the app, it is worth keeping an eye on. Here's a link to their Notion-based change-log:

https://heptaplatforms.notion.site/Heptabase-Version-Changelog-29ea6db0b4ff4127b83d454742de86ad

Steve Z.

I've been using Heptabase for a few days (I decided to keep it and not make use of their money-back option).

What I like
* the visual display of notes and connections,
* the ability to compile notes in whiteboards
* the fact that a note can reside in more than one whiteboard).

I'd rather have Heptabase use and store files in the file system as Obsidian does. But exporting notes as individual Markdown files works fine so there is no lockdown to Heptabase. The auto-backup also creates ZIP files containing MD files for the notes.

Looking forward to seeing features from their roadmap released (block linking, templates, and the improvements to the whiteboards).

steveylang wrote:

I signed up for the wait list for Kosmikl at the beginning of the year,
still waiting.

I did get an email thanking me for my patience and giving me a free
first year.


Darren McDonald wrote:
I came across another new visual thinking tool that is getting ready for
>public beta. It is called Kosmik.
>
>https://www.kosmik.app

I completely forgot I'd signed up for this app's beta until I received an email invite this afternoon. It was so devoid of details I had to search here to see that I'd signed up to get into the beta the same April day SteveyLang wrote the above post.

The email instructs you to download the app from the Mac and/or iOS App Store, then apply a supplied 16-letter code.

The email also says, "As a reward for being one of our first users, you will get a year of Kosmik for free!"

I subscribed. Checked it out for around half an hour and decided to cancel and ask for the refund. No reply from the developer whatsoever.

I did the same last spring. He did eventually get back to me and gave me my refund.

bvasconcelos wrote:

I subscribed. Checked it out for around half an hour and decided to
cancel and ask for the refund. No reply from the developer whatsoever.

This is why developers who charge for trials or alpha/beta software should be shunned. There should be no "eventually" in getting your refund.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I did the same last spring. He did eventually get back to me and gave me
my refund.

bvasconcelos wrote:
I subscribed. Checked it out for around half an hour and decided to
>cancel and ask for the refund. No reply from the developer whatsoever.