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Comment by WesleyLivesay | Hacker News Reader

At this point there are enough note taking app options out there that are really just a fancy interface on top of text/markdown files that I have a really hard time ever considering any ecosystem that locks my notes into their own data system. I do see an export function here, but it is unclear whether or not that export to text files or just to the PDFs.

I use Obsidian, and I would love for it to be Open Source, but I take comfort in the fact that at any moment I can just delete the app and start editing my notes in any application that can interpret text files.

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And yet, I keep using TextEditor (macOS default text editor) in plain text and, when syncing is needed, Simplenote.

Sometimes people overcomplicate things that are, in essence, pretty simple.

A fundamental problem of using simple text editors for note taking is you can't easily click-jump from one note to another. If only TextEditor, Notepad, GEdit etc could make clickable hyperlinks whenever they encounter a string which is a name of a file existing in the same directory - then yes, they would be enough. And people who want a graph could just have it as a separate simple app in that case.

I used to think this was quite important and I still like the idea of interlinking notes, particularly for when I am using my phone.

But it is ultimately just more gardening.

I tried all sorts of systems like that and they all disappointed. What really matters is absolutely instantaneous search.

Edit to add: Apple Notes has finally added note-to-note linking, but at the moment I don't have all my Apple devices sufficiently up to date so I haven't tried it.

Notes also has tagging support which is another one of those things I was sure I'd use a lot more than I actually do.

It seems like such a useful feature but in reality I have a few pinned notes for to-do and shopping lists and ideas, and otherwise just make completely unstructured random notes, never using anything but tagging and setting the colors for pinned notes.

I have Calendar for reminders, and markdown files for things anyone else will see. I just need it to work, open really fast, search, and that's mostly it.

By the way, an obvious idea just hit me, taking 2 days like obvious ideas usually do: perhaps a slightly less basic text editor like Notepad++ or Sublime can do a great lightweight yet powerful note taking app if you write an extension for it (or if somebody already has done just that).

But these have another problem Notepad hasn't: they apparently don't support Windows' auto completion. I use Windows at work where I am to type in languages I am not perfectly fluent in so I make heavy use of autocompletion to prevent spelling mistakes.

Never used nor needed linked notes, but ymmv.

And overcomplicating is inevitably why they stop using the tool, losing its value.

I used Simplenote for a good while and only switched to Apple Notes when my setup went all-Apple (because Simplenote’s sync could be glitchy).

It is becoming less homogeneous now so I may switch back.

I’ve tried all sorts of notes apps but for some reason always gravitate back to native apple notes 90% of the time to quickly save stuff.

The same Apple notes that makes it hard to export? Why would anyone use this?

Those who don’t care about exporting their notes I guess? I mean I get why people may want to export notes but sometimes (often) you have a native app that just works and notes be accesible on other platforms in the ecosystem. Sure, Logseq and obsidian do this but at least with Logseq I’ve often seen janky behavior where the damn thing hangs because it’s syncing with icloud. I just get tired of these sorts of hiccups and want something that seamlessly just works whether I am on Mac ir iPhone.

I wish everyone who builds their own note taking app would take that time and effort to contribute to Joplin [1].

I use Joplin for personal and Obsidian for work.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joplin_(software)

I just use SyncThing and whatever editor I have handy.

Yeah, I'm just using my own markdown repo

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