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Comment by sly010 | Hacker News Reader

As a vim user I don't use org-mode, but I take notes in way too many places: google keep, docs and random text-files. Then I always forget about where they are and trying to find them in the wrong place.

So I spend a lot of time daydreaming about something like org-mode that is available across all my devices, perhaps something I can share with my family so we can coordinate.

What I am slowly realizing is it's not the features that I am missing from existing productivity/note/todo mobile interfaces ... it's the keyboard.

I am a keyboard oriented person, so no matter how snappy or feature rich a mobile interface is it will always feel sluggish to me. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to, but for now I am stuck being un-organized. And tbh, I don't know if there is a solution other than having an open laptop with me at all times. Anyone else feels this way?

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> What I am slowly realizing is it's not the features that I am missing from existing productivity/note/todo mobile interfaces ... it's the keyboard.

That's extremely valid. Our brains are often highly contextual and the context of having a physical keyboard is different from a soft keyboard on a touchscreen (or trying to use voice dictation).

I picked up a bluetooth keyboard (from Microsoft's hardware division incidentally) that folds up in half and can fit in many of my pockets when not in use, and there is something to be said about carrying just that and my iPhone and being able to write with a physical keyboard just about anywhere. It's an easier way to bring that particular writing context along with me than needing a laptop in a backpack or messenger bag. It's certainly impacted my writing productivity (for the better) for projects like NaNoWriMo.

Have you tried vimwiki? It's vim, it's text so you can copy stuff from wherever.

Org mode is good and all but my god listening to people talk about it makes it seem they are building a fucking rocket by themselves based on how convoluted and massive their notes are. For regular people who just want notes that are searchable and connectable VimWiki is awesome.

vimwiki is pretty good, but it uses a proprietary vimwiki format.

You can switch it over to Markdown but you lose a couple features IIRC.

I have a pretty extensive vimwiki, but it's only available on my laptops. I sync it via Git and have to remember to commit and push or it won't be available on another device.

I did hack up a simple React/Go app a while back to give it a web interface with a simple WYSIWYG editor I could access from my phone, with auto-commit/auto-push, but I ultimately haven't really used it.

You'll usually lose features resorting to Markdown and who knows what features you'll have with all the 'flavors'. I really wish it started losing ubiquity to competiors that are more usable and more standardized.

Contrariwise, I absolutely love org-babel. When I’m taking notes learning a new system I can embed runnable examples and their results in my notes.

Honestly if you just want linkable and searchable notes plain text with tags and whatever flavor of grep floats your boat will get you there.

> Org mode is good and all but my god listening to people talk about it makes it seem they are building a fucking rocket by themselves based on how convoluted and massive their notes are.

Lol. So you mean that airport and rental car agents are really just typing away in org mode in Emacs back there? :p

Org mode is wonderful and I use it any time I'm on the computer. However, I'm not satisfied by any of its mobile interfaces. That's the major weak point in my view.

Have you tried orgzly?

perhaps a combination of logseq, syncthing and jekyll for read-only publishing is an option?

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