Inkdrop – Notebook app for Hackers

Markdown (.md) is the format and outputs what is essentially a text file. The translation to nice and proper formatting that you see on the right hand side is what the apps are for. Granted there are in-line symbols throughout if you just look at the raw file, but I don't think markdown converters will die out anytime soon.

With Simplenote, you can use Notational Velocity (or nvALT) to maintain a plain text copy of your notes locally.

...which is why I moved all my notes to quiver from evernote. The format is open and is extremely well designed (https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/wiki/Quiver-Data-Format). And someone's used it to build an android app. So with the notes stored on google drive and the notes folder set to sync, I have access to my notes on all devices.

I second org-mode, being using it for years. I had to write a couple of scripts to update my notes to newer versions, but it went mostly painless. I however found myself using more and more plain text recently without much markups. There is certain mental ease and simplicity in writing:

    ed
    a
    Just write what's in my mind.
    .
    w now/figure/a/path/to/save
    q

It appears to store data on their server, not in local files as Quiver does. It also looks like it may be (this could be mistaken, I haven't tried Inkdrop) an Electron app, in which case performance & memory usage is likely to be significantly worse than Quiver, which is not only native but very well optimized in my experience. On the plus side, it does have cross-platform support, which Quiver does not.

ETA: yup, grabbed the release and it is an Electron app - can't test without a beta invite, but for comparison on my machine it's about 3-4 seconds on launch before it gets to login screen, and uses 190mb of RAM at login screen. For comparison, Quiver is effectively instantaneous (a lot less than a second) to launch and uses 64mb of RAM displaying an empty document.

Quiver uses cells, similar to Jupyter/IPython Notebook, and supports inline LaTeX, which is a very useful feature for when you need to display something outside the scope of Markdown (like an equation).

Quiver looks great. If only it ran on an OS I used.

If I hold an event in Chicago called "An evening for families," that doesn't mean my definition of family somehow includes living close to Chicago. Just that this event happens to be in Chicago, and this app happens to be for Windows/Mac because of implementation/demand/whatever reasons, not because of some definition about hackers.

Sounds like marketing, not engineering. The "DBaaS operated by IBM" backend also doesn't sound hacker-friendly...

Welcome to the new meaning of "hacker": the Macbook packing hipsters churning out web "apps" at your local coffee place.

In short the advantage is the same as sublime over vim / emacs.

Or the disadvantage is the same that sublime suffers against vim/emacs.

For what it's worth, they claim to support vim & emacs keybinds (haven't tried).

The only thing missing from nvalt is support for better organization. Tags are supported but not searchable for instance. With hundreds of notes it starts getting harder to search.

Count me as upset.

It says "get access to the beta", and then not only it doesn't give that after I gave my name and email, but it additionally asks to send a link (spam) to your friends to get the "priority invitation" whenever that's due.

So, that would be one less potential customer -- and I have bought both Quiver and Dash in that category...

It's the cost of having beta access, I guess. :)

To test how familiar you are with browser dev tools I suppose.

Nothing like forcing user consent to opting in to email marketing.

I whished for the syntax highlighting with big headlines. Seems to be impossible to hack in to atom.

Maaaaybe possible with some hacky double line-height stuff?

Built-in syntax highlight support, viewer, file management, tags, etc... Isn't it obvious?