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Comment by dmje | Hacker News Reader

Funnily enough, I don’t think there is a really good one. There’s lots that almost do it but not quite. - Evernote: no note linking - Bear: lovely but no web or android version - OneNote: appalling in the way only MS can be - SimpleNotes: too simple - Zoho: too ...urgh - Keep: too Googley - Apple notes: too Appley - Standard Notes: too buggy

I’m clearly a fussy sod. But really, just a nice, oss, local files, ability to encrypt, x-platform apps: surely not too much to ask....?

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What I really don't understand about OneNote is the default to a white-board-like free form placement mode for text blocks. If you move it a little, accidentally, it's not aligned the same as the other notes.

This really put me off when I first started using it, and at a client site, it's really the only option. Otherwise, the organization system is something I've come to like/live-with, but still -- why the boxes that can be moved around? Is there a "turn off free-form placement" mode that I haven't found?

That stupid placement thing is the "feature" I hate the most about onenote. Sometimes that is a benefit and the kind of note you'd want to make. But this seems like an easy fix of having two note types and being able to pick a global option of which way to default, and giving a drop-down option of what kind of note you wish to create if you wanted a one-off different than the default . Having it always be up to the user to place text frame objects is annoying when most of the time generic text notes is what you want.

I personally don't care for the skeuomorphic organization of notebooks, tabs, and pages. But maybe that's just me :)

Yes and if you type one backspace too many it will delete the whole box and place it at an off-centre location when you click to make a new one.

There's a workaround though: Click on the title and then press enter and it'll create one again in the right spot :)

But yeah OneNote is bloated, slow, has the typical MS UI boneheadedness... But it's what I have to work with at work :'(

As much as I hate onenote, the ease of just hitting [super]+N to start a quick note is the lowest friction way to go from 'i need to write' to 'i am writing'. I've tried a few of the competitors but I guess I found my killer feature.

exact reason why I moved from Onenote to Typora (for Mac) and Notability (for Ipad)

I see you didn't mention Markdown. My solution for the last couple of years to this problem is to have all my notes organized into folder and .md files. A couple of advantages: - I can move around different IDEs/apps since there are a lot of different solutions for every platform there. - Same goes for search and links between folders. Rely on git for version control of the files themselves. - It gives you the flexibility of using plugins to turn into PDF or host as a gitbook private site for example.

Knowledge base organization gets discussed frequently on HN. I understand your frustration though, I've always longed to see a one fit for all platforms though. Onenote sure shows a lot of potential but is probably limited by the fact that MS wants to keep it as close to their office suite as possible.

Same, I've settled with a multi-OS IDE for taking notes. The main issue is trying to get shortcut keys for Markdown such as toggling a list. I haven't found a good extension either on JetBrains or VSCode ... maybe the only way is to personally write the extension haha

Making a commit and pushing every time I edit a note would drive me nuts. I've gotten used to notes auto-saving and syncing. Additionally, reading md on android would require a specialized app anyway.

Have you tried [Joplin](https://joplinapp.org/)?

It's FOSS, works on local files, has encryption and supports note linking.

It also has apps for several platforms.

I have, and something about it didn’t gel, but I’m gunna have to go install it again to remind myself - or maybe discover it’s the holy grail :-)

> works on local files

This is only sort of true. You can import/export markdown(or text) files, but the source of truth is in a sqlite database. When you sync with webdav or another folder, that's also markdown - but it's not recommended to edit those files directly.

Other than that, Joplin is great. It's my main note taking app outside of spacemacs/org-mode.

Would you mind elaborating on why Standard Notes is too buggy? Only thing that comes to mind is the use of React Native and Electron (suboptimal performance / UX) but I've never had any issues myself.

I'd like to hear of alternatives that apply the same e2e encryption model.

My main issue has been the editor(s). The model of having multiple choices of editor should be great but I’ve found it flaky when switching, particularly switching to mobile. Sometimes my whole note seems to disappear, but is ok if I flip back to simple editor, sometimes mobile shows html preview rather than plaintext.

I also am on Standard Notes and haven't noticed it being buggy. But I'm presently a free user and never switch editors.

It was after buggy experiences on Simplenote that I had to jump ship. I don't know if I just had too many notes, or what, but it became slow, updated in weird ways that lost things or copied the same line multiple times, jumped to the top when I tried to scroll down, etc. Just all manner of strange behaviors.

I have the same frustration. The real split seems to be on local files / encryption. I ran into a couple that had encryption stapled on as an afterthought and handle the encryption/decryption in storage, which misses the point. Some use keepass for secure notes, also a clunky hack. The closest I found was Tiddlywiki, which can encrypt local files (but only if it's a single html file). I don't like Tiddlywiki, but that's what I'm using.

> nice, oss, local files, ability to encrypt, x-platform apps

Every single box is checked by Trilium (https://github.com/zadam/trilium), plus you can self host a server if you want to sync between as many clients as you want, and you can password protect only specific notes if you want to. Only "disadvantage" is that the client is electron; if you can live with that, I think you should check it out. (I'm not affiliated, but I've been using Trilium for a while.)

Maybe I'm just not so picky, but I love OneNote. I just wish OneCalendar worked cross platform. But otherwise I find cloud sync between my different devices to be seemless and fast enough that I can use a tablet to draw while screensharing the same notepad on desktop. It accepts images exactly as I want (screenshots mostly) also.

The only problem is that sharing is a pain.

> Evernote: no note linking

What about this:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313588-How-to...

Yeh, it does that, but when you’re in context writing a note, you don’t really want to jump out, trawl through all your other notes, find the link, go back to original note and apply... Really, you want a context menu, or the double square bracket notation to bring up a list, or similar. See. Said I was fussy :-)

double square bracket notation : this is exactly how Passfindr https://passfindr.com implements linking to other notes. Passfindr has a powerful search and searching can be inlined in notes like [[search term including tags, regexp, etc.]].

at the risk of doing some self promotion, I've had the same problem and ended up creating my own tool. https://dendron.so, is a new note taking tool (launched a week ago) that lets you take local-first markdown notes and supports links like roam. it's open source and built on top of vscode.

That looks pretty interesting - thanks, will give it a go!

Happy inkdrop (inkdrop.com) user for over a year now ! Has e2e, local backups, and many features including through plugins

This is why I’ve come full circle and just use a small notepad now. I still don’t type writing by hand, though.

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