Show HN: Temporary Note – Convenient way to use a browser tab as a notepad | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Temporary Note – Convenient way to use a browser tab as a notepad

temporarynote.com

45 pointsjfoster46 comments

Hi HN! I realize there's no shortage of note-taking apps, but I wanted to make one where you don't need an account, don't need to download an app, and your notes won't be sync'ed to the cloud, etc. I used to use Windows Notepad for this, but now I use a Mac and everything from Notes gets pushed into iCloud.

If you just need to write a shopping list or jot something down quickly instead of a note that you'll need to keep for a long time, Temporary Note might be useful for you:

- Accessible from any device with an internet connection & web browser

- Notes are not uploaded to the cloud, but keep in mind that they're in the URL, so they might make it into your browser history

- There's a few features for dictation, speech synthesis, fullscreen

- Am considering adding saving notes as txt files, but won't be adding any cloud sync or accounts; it's not that kind of note-taking app

Would love to hear any feedback on whether it's useful or not, or any feature suggestions.

> Am considering adding saving notes as txt files

Why prioritize that instead of saving notes as editable notes (just the way it feels to use temporarynote.com, but from a file on your disk)? Output an HTML file instead of plain text.

I love this idea. Will get it done soon.

Html is fine, but txt is really useful. Txt would also allow easy porting and reuse. But no harm in having multiple options.

Plain text is useful, but getting it in that form is trivial—it's just a textarea (nothing fancy like contenteditable, so it's already in plain text) and every system that you could expect to use this from should have a functioning clipboard.

A note with the look and feel of temporarynote.com calls for coordination from the author to modify their app to be able to output itself as a self-contained file.

On an iPhone, I turned on dictation but there was no indication on how to control (or stop) it. After giving permission, what is expected behavior? How do I cease dictation?

Permission is controlled by the browser. If you go into your browser settings, there will be something for controlling which websites have which permissions.

Why not just use localstorage rather than using the URL as a hack?

Having the note text in the URL can be good in some cases. Storing the note as a bookmark becomes possible, as does storing a note in a URL shortening service. Opening a fork of a note from a different device also becomes possible this way. (eg. on Chrome, using "Send to Your Devices")

Localstorage (as far as I know) isn't easy to move across devices or share, and notes being a bit ephemeral is part of the idea of this. I think anyone who wants to save notes indefinitely is probably better off with one of the cloud-based note-taking apps.

One idea is that the url makes it immediately shareable. You can send your note to your phone in a text message without any uploads due to it being encoded in the url.

We've done it all before:

* the original: htlm.org

* my own attempt: original.littr.me

Worth pointing out that MacOS (all versions) has a built in application called “stickies”, which I have found many proficient Mac users to not be aware of.

It supports translucency, “float on top”, and is generally great for jotting things down without using a dead tree :)

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/stickies/welcome/mac

On the new versions there’s something popping up whenever you move your cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen. I’ve so far managed to avoid it

That just opens a dialog that saves the draft to the Notes app. You can configure whether it goes to the same note each time or a new note every time.

You can turn that off.

Windows has Sticky Notes, same story basically -

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NBLGGH4QGHW?hl=en-US&gl=U...

Essential for whenever I’m starting a new job.

Or Notes.app.. or Reminders.app, both of which are available by default on every Mac, iPad and iPhone. Heck Reminders.app is even on Apple Watch.

I get that not everyone uses a Mac (I'd imagine HN audience is probably more likely to than the average population though), and I haven't used a Windows machine for anything besides browser bug testing since XP was relatively new... is there really not a basic note taking/reminders app built in on Windows.. whatever?

There's something built in somewhere. I accidentally press the wrong keys sometimes and a yellow box pops up where I can take a note. But then I close it and don't know what keys I pressed. I should write it down in my paper notes somewhere.

there is Sticky Notes and Microsoft To Do. though, depends on the definition of basic in this context.. To Do requires a 365 subscription i believe.

EDIT: i guess you could also add OneNote to the list, but again not sure how “basic” we could call it since it also requires a subscription

> To Do requires a 365 subscription

It does not. I was briefly using MS To Do as a desktop interface for my Alexa todo and shopping lists, before I decided that I prefer Todoist instead. But To Do and OneNote are free-as-in-beer for all. 365 could have some extra integration features with the other Office apps, I'm not sure.

> To Do requires a 365 subscription i believe.

Requires to use, or requires for syncing/extra features?

You can also make a notepad with a bookmark - Create a new bookmark and set the URL to:

    data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

This is actually what inspired Temporary Note.

My thinking was to recreate this on a domain with a few simple features on top; adjustable font size, dictation, monospaced font, fullscreen, etc.

You can also define your fonts.

data:text/html, <html contenteditable><head><style>body { font-family: "Roboto Mono", monospace; }</style></head>

For the few, not the many though

This is really nice to have for ChromeOS. The main selling point of ChromeOS for me is that the environment is secure because I’m not installing anything. I don’t want to install some app in ChromeOS just for simple notepad usage.

a worthy descendant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expensive_Typewriter

Opening a draft email takes me a minimum of 3 clicks and this takes no more than 1. I had never bothered to optimize this myself, but I love it.

Looks good, congratulats!

I've used zenpen.io for years, it persist just to local storage in your browser so the content is there when you open the page back up. Wouldn't count on it for persistence, but it's my absolute go to for quick ephemeral note taking

I made thinktype, which you can use just like that, but which also lets you save and search your notes, also locally: https://thinktype.app/

Hey really minor request! If you could set the document title to the first few lines of the note, it would make it a lot easier to pick out which notes I'm looking for with multiple tabs.

Sounds good. Will have that done soon.

Could this be made into a "self hosted" local html file?

Not OP, but I've been using a similar HTML file (local at first, now hosted on GitLab) that does the same thing, though I use it with Firefox and Tree Style Tab to organize hundreds of tabs.

Info about the HTML page: https://gitlab.com/PavelSafronov/tools/-/tree/main/separator...

Page itself, bookmark this: https://pavelsafronov.gitlab.io/tools/separator-page/index.h...

The approach I follow is to be able to set the title of the page as well as the contents, and the tab now acts as a labeled container of other tabs. The contents are stored in the URL, same as OP, so the same caveats apply.

It probably can be. I'm using React at the moment, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to bundle everything into a single file.

Also, as mentioned below, there's also one line that you can put into your browser (or bookmark) and have something similar. I used that for years before I decided that I wanted it on a domain so that I can just easily open it anywhere.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38597957

It's nice, I like these. But for whatever reason, I just can't break away from using <editor> to save a .txt to a synced folder when I need to persist some note.

I'm thinking about adding a "Save as txt" button, but this is really intended more like a post-it note in your browser tabs. For long-term persistence something synced is probably a better choice.

The suggestion i'd make is to save into browser localstorage, that would at least provide some persistense.

There is some persistence now via browser history, but it's a pity that literally every key stroke is saved in there.

nicely made though, congrats !

I wonder, with Google Ads included, if the note (here the URL content after the hash) is also submitted/collected as referrer?

Nothing after the hash should every be submitted anywhere.

Yes, not via the normal browser referrer stuff, but Google Ads runs as JS into the site.

Is it possible to zip the content and use the hex string instead of plain text in the URL?

Certainly possible, but would be trading off URL readability for that. I usually prefer a URL as readable as possible, even if it is 2x longer.

How can people live without emacs open?

I think I have an unhealthy obsession with dark themes where I not even consider using an app when it is not there.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll experiment with adding a dark theme.

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