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The note taking space is interesting to me. You say the problem is solved, and yet, every time I see a new app in this space, I perk up because I hope that maybe this is the one that will resonate/work for me.

Note taking is a deeply personal process. Physical notebooks as a medium are infinitely flexible but apps are not. This means that 100 different people writing notes on paper might be doing so in 100 different ways.

I’d argue that this is why this is such a crowded (or rich) product category.

I often find that <very popular “ultimate” note taking app> is not for me, and I find myself hoping for something that fits my particular needs and habits. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to build my own.

All of this to say: I don’t think the cynicism is needed here. Even if this is a solved problem for you, it’s not for all of us, and I think the evidence that this is true is found in the fact that developers keep looking for new ways to solve this problem.

My opinion is slightly different - I don’t think note taking is about the app, but rather about the process. Because of that, all of us will always be looking for something to make that process something better than we currently experience.

To me, it’s either paper, Notepad(or any simple text app), or Excel. Everything else is about the process.

But then, maybe I’ve become old and crusty and just don’t know it yet. Sigh.

I've come to think the missing piece is a system or process of helping each person experiment through different note taking styles or systems, until they find what resonates best with them, or exposing them to various systems, different ones which they may realize work best for different contexts of what they're doing - for different projects or mental contexts, etc.

I too have an idea for a "note taking" app - essentially better streamlining, automating, and extending what I currently do - but maybe the process or steps I currently take are integral to what I currently do working. Who knows. Will I ever get the chance to create the custom "note taking" app that I envision? Who knows.

For now, because of my situation with severe chronic pain and how it impacts/disrupts my executive function, I will have multiple TODO lists on q-cards, and dozens and dozens TODO lists in various notes on my laptop and phone, none of which are synchronized - most of them lost to the past and therefore inherently part of a backlog of relatively unimportant things that otherwise would surface again in my mind or life if they were important enough.

> Note taking is a deeply personal process.

Yes. All the more reason not to encumber it with large dependencies, proprietary code, or fragile, transient technologies.

I switched to using git as a repository of structured notes. The schema is simple. I can pull notes to various machines, I can archive the repository, I can track changes.

"Everything should be as simple as possible and no simpler." -- attributed to a rather good physicist.

It depends on the definition of a simple thing. Is your system so simple that you could teach your parents how to use it?

The process requires typing a note using the keyboard and then pushing the new/revised text to git. Git works on every computer and CPU architecture that I have used... and I have used a wider variety than most.

If one's parents are the acceptance testers for usability... I think I might recommend that they use something that they understand fully. That might be git, but it might also be a Moleskin notebook and an ink or graphite writing instrument. ^_^

Ok I agree, different types of people have different kinds of systems that are the most simple for them. But in that case, is it also possible that for some people the most simple system has a lot of large dependencies? (Maybe people who are young, used to writing by typing on a smartphone, not used to pen and paper, and never used git or a command line)

Totally! I made tap and I still use org-mode for a lot of stuff! I think we all think slightly different things when we hear "notes" It is both an artifact and also a system for capturing the artifacts. the artifact is often, but not always, just some boring text -- but the way it is captured and used can be really interesting and as varied as the artifacts themselves. _so. many. possibilities._!

I’m an avid org-mode user, all of my work happens there.

Can you give me the elevator pitch for why I would pay for tap over my existing org-mode + captures + agenda?

Not really. But _some_ part of my motivation to build tap was the difficulty convincing anybody to use emacs.

Here are a couple points anyway:

- I love getting email summaries of different note categories. I email myself a list of all my programming related reading saturday morning, it's great.

- Entering a quick note via sms is hard to beat, especially because /tap sends me text messages every day and so it's always pretty high up on the recent messages list

edit: formatting

I think there is probably some opportunity for an Emacs distribution that is specifically targeted at these potential users. However, not as a way to try to get them to join the Church of Emacs[1]. Emacs would be no more than an implementation detail for a great note taking app. I imagine something along the lines Nicolas Rougier's notebook-mode[2], but without the focus on literate programming. Just nice formatting, quality variable pitch fonts, and familiar keybinds. Maybe some kind of slick configuration of artist-mode too.

[1] Of which I am a proud member, btw.

[2] https://github.com/rougier/notebook-mode

I have to say this makes sense to me, and I've always known that I'm just not in the target audience for these apps, but if you'll allow me to poke some fun at your comment for a second, I'd paraphrase it as "my note-taking needs are so intricate that nobody has hit the right spot yet. I need a perfect soup of features coded and exposed to me in just the right way so that when I finally write down a note I have a mental orgasm" :)

Joking aside, I personally think it's more important to focus my attention on the substance of the note, rather than the process of taking the notes, though the two aren't in conflict with each other, except for the times when they take away from your time and mental bandwidth.

I assume most note-taking apps originated with someone figuring out what system / process resonates for them. But ultimately that system / process is optimal only for that person. I've given up on adapting an off-the-shelf app... in part because I lack the self awareness here to know what's optimal for me. It's only in the process of working it out for myself on a basic canvas (e.g. a spreadsheet, text files, pen and paper) that I'll have any idea what will work and stick. I'm many iterations into that process. I'll look to /tap for inspiration! It looks awesome, props.

See, the thing is-- MANY times in the past I've "perked up," nearly 100% that I'll switch from the thing I started with -- and end up ALWAYS going back, forgetting how much I have to put in.

This is why I think some cynicism here might be healthy; I think software has a LOT of wasted repeated effort by developers; mostly due to a little too much "let me make a product" mentality and not enough "free/open source" mentality*

and again before the pitchforks come out, I'm emphatically not saying FOSS is always superior, but I do think this balance is presently off.

So ... what features do you often miss/would you like to see implemented?

Oh my, I've gotten similarly cynical as of late for practically the same reasons.

But before anything else, congratulations on the launch!

I've narrowed down to pen and paper[^1] and Obsidian for later remixing and publishing[^2]

Having gotten used to how usable and fast pen and paper is, I wanted the same feeling: Take a quick markdown note while working without having to keep Obsidian running in the background, switch to Obsidian to write and to leave my keyboard.

None of the existing note-taking menu bar apps[^3] had what I needed. So I made my own that fits my needs perfectly[^4].

A single global hotkey ⌘-⌥-N opens the note popover, ⌘-S saves the note into my Obsidian vault.

If you want, check it out! It's the simplest, least-frills way I could come up with to jot down a markdown note

[^1]: My pen and paper notebooks: https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/%E2%AD%90%EF%B8%8F...

[^2]: My digital garden: https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/

[^3]: Note-taking Menu Bar Apps: https://www.macmenubar.com/note-taking-apps/

[^4]: QuickDown.app: https://github.com/akaalias/quickdown

Congratulations are indeed due, so ditto there.

I have to say I have the same response - dammit, not another one - but I'm rather more interested in our complete fascination with these tools. Like - I have my note taking / knowledge stuff pretty much nailed [+] but STILL I always find myself clicking through on posts like this. Like many others on HN, I'm absolutely, unbearably, totally addicted to considering and re-considering my methodology in the notes / to-do space, even though I'm really happy with what I've got.

When I try to analyse this I realise there's a part-dopamine level thing (I love a beautiful, clean UI and idea), partly a wishful thinking (man, if only I could remember X, maybe this is the tool to help me!), and partly (this is the hard one to admit to but I would bet money on many other HN types as being here with me) an addiction with process, pure and simple. Anything to not actually have to DO that thing I need to do - oh look, I could review a tool that'll help me procrastinate a while longer.

It reminds me of the me when I was 16 and "revising" for GCSE exams. I spent about 90% of my time re-formatting and colouring in my revision timetable rather than actually doing the work of revision. That me is still here, only now it's notes apps rather than colouring in...

Finally - I think admitting that there simply isn't a perfect tool that will enable All The Things and Make Me A Much More Effective Person is much, much harder than the alternative which is to keep the Holy Grail somewhere in my consciousness, and keep on clicking those damn notes app links :-)

[+] In case anyone cares, I've used them all but I'm really happy with current 3-pronged approach: Evernote for transient / meeting / throwaway notes. TickTick for to-do's. Dokuwiki for longer term / journaled / documentation type stuff. All connected together via the common beauty of hyperlinks. Hook for Mac is amazeballs for this...

I second TickTick. I've used tens of to-do apps and it resonated with me the most.

Thanks! I made /tap and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The thing is, working on tap has been and continues to be fun! I think there are so many note-taking apps because a. they _can be_ easy to make and b. because everyone has their own way they want to take a note. I think of tap less as a note-taking system, more like the system to make the system. Sure there's a long way to go to _fully_ realize that, but I think we're headed in the right direction.

I like seeing tap used for stuff I didn't anticipate. And that's what it's all about for me. Like, you could just use the API and never log into /tap at all.

Also, maybe you're not into this kind of thing, how many note-taking systems have S-expression formulas that support nested functions?

> how many note-taking systems have S-expression formulas that support nested functions?

Obsidian, Workflowy, Roam Research, Dynalist, Quire, Asana and Org Mode, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Do you know how Obsidian does this? I can't find reference to it.

> I feel like everyone's just trying to make a buck with their tiny spin on the same idea.

Lol, exactly. My first thought after seeing the landing page was "there has to be a Pricing link in the top right menu".

From a rational perspective, there's absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to get financial reward for their work. But subconsciously there's something about it that really annoys me, I'm not sure what.

I know what it is, it's the idea that someone can write code once, and someone else should pay to maintain it forever using a subscription model. The craziness of this space is that people think that maintaining a tiny footprint on a server somewhere is somehow worth $10 a month boggles my mind. You can buy access to most basic file-syncing services for that much. Why isn't a note-taking app, even a very advanced one, not just a simple one-time payment? If you want to haggle about paying for new versions, sure, but most of the "services" space is full of rent-seeking people, which is probably the thing that rubs you the wrong way.

Another way of thinking about it: Most MMORPGs that charge monthly fees are around $10 a month too, does a note-taking app somehow involve as much work as maintaining the massive-infrastructure and maintenance nightmare of running a MMORPG? If not, why is the pricing so similar?

I like seeing new ideas, and I'm one who has already settled on one note-taking technique. Discovering new ideas helps me incorporate new methods and also see some flaws to my techniques. That's all fine.

It's understandable we sometimes feel fatigued on watching these assembly-line of apps coming our way, but it's new ideas and not products that excite me.

So, having also spent LOADS of time and energy in this space, I basically agree, but I feel like there is a "solution" out there that requires a slightly different "level of abstraction." Let's take two "extremes" that I know, At one end ( pretty much always is Emacs) and at the other, perhaps something like Obsidian or Zim-Wiki.

I think the missing link here is "programmability" or "extensibility." Feels like there should be something as extensible as Emacs by the individual user that could also be as initially user friendly as an Obsidian or Zim-Wiki -- but why those might not be good enough is that there's really no "extensibility built-in," which I think is distinguishable from mere "tons of plugins?"

Note taking is solved, find me an app that solves note organizing and note retrieval and I will pay for that

I wonder sometimes if note organizing isn’t a lost cause. If we could just solve note retrieval, who cares about organizing? I want to make a note when I find out something useful, and I want to retrieve that note when I need the information (or when I find out more, so I can amend the note). Organization seems orthogonal to that desire.

Solving retrieval was Evernote's original idea, and then they became enterprise spaghetti instead.

> The note-taking apps are good enough. Even pen and paper is good enough.

It works for me too! I have a working piece of paper that I jot down notes on, plus whatever I need to do. If the "to do" is "long-term" enough, I have a lined A4 piece of paper for this purpose. I add it to the list.

For note-taking, I write stuff down in my "lab book", or on my personal website. Easy.

It's like the time I cobbled together a couple of ESP32's to act as an alarm system. The problem is, the Wifi was a bit marginal, and Wifi is always subject to drops anyway. My dad's solution: use a whistle.