VNote: A pleasant note-taking platform | Hacker News Reader

VNote: A pleasant note-taking platform

app.vnote.fun

76 pointsinternetguy53 comments

I currently use zim-wiki for structured notes. It's also plain text/folder based. It doesn't use markdown though.

I'm glad to see this is offline local first. I like that it can be made portable too. It seems more complicated than zim-wiki (but that might just be my knowledge of zim).

I'll be taking a look. Hopefully when the pro version comes they don't restrict useful functionality.

Another Zim-Wiki user here -- been using it for something over 5 years, now, and have yet to find anything that could replace it for me. That it doesn't use (the bloody horrible) Markdown is a feature, not a deficiency.

I'm torn because zims markup is straight forward and simple but I use pandoc for conversion to other formats and pandocs markdown is pretty powerful

I used Zim for over a decade but recently migrated to Obsidian because of the mobile support. Definitely a big change but I can say that after a year it has worked for me and I don't miss Zim as much as thought would.

VNote, an open source markdown note-taking app with Wiki page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23547056 - June 2020 (1 comment)

Show HN: Viki, a simple Wiki page in Markdown from notebook of VNote - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18556938 - Nov 2018 (1 comment)

Show HN: VNote 2.0 – PlantUML editing via Preview Tunnel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18049100 - Sept 2018 (9 comments)

Show HN: VNote, a fresh Markdown note-taking app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16149821 - Jan 2018 (86 comments)

I like the idea of not using heavy electron UIs, but really, I does not matter much nowadays, at least for me. Important features are synchronized notes, with mobile and desktop support, and syncing should be end to end encrypted. I should be able to link a note to another, include some media, and use markdown, that is easily importable/exportable. I still to this day couldn’t find a good foss alternative to Joplin with WebDAV or Joplin Server (or cloud offerings).

Do you mean encryption decryption happens locally of each individual note and only the encrypted string is stored online? How would you trust to sync the decryption keys across devices?

Yes. Joplin supports this (although sync gets slow when the number of notes is large). Syncing the encryption keys is your responsibility. I transfer them over the wire to devices I use without sharing them with a third party service.

Now with Joplin Server it’s getting better (compared to WebDAV), in terms of syncing speed

If you don't require support for teams, it sounds like you might like AnyType. Think Notion, but FOSS and p2p.

https://anytype.io/

It's not FOSS, it's source-available[1].

[1] https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-ts/blob/main/LICENSE.md

I don't like electron bloat but notes are something I absolutely need to be on every platform for portability, I'm willing to accept the trade off. To be fair to electron, the software I use (trilium), runs like a dream.

How much would you like to pay for a such an app? Let's say, 2 USD per month? What if it's FOSS, but you are using official company's servers?

Sounds good to me.

I am not using Joplin’s cloud offering but hosting it on my own. But I think their cloud pricing is fair (2.40 euro/month for yearly payment, for the basic plan). I’d pay for that

This is "Chinese". I personally don't mind, especially if it is open source. But I've seen another China (and electron) based note-taking app vilified for this reason.

FYI It is Siyuan [1]. What is unique about it is the logseq-like block-level granularity (ref/embed/query) and (soon) the notion-like databases.

[1] https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan

It would be trivially easy to fake a free github account as being from the US. Not hiding the fact that they're Chinese makes me trust them more.

I think CN intelligence agencies set their espionage sights a bit higher than "generic outliner app" users.

Genuinely curious…I get the trepidation of using a closed source product from China but if the code is open for all to inspect, what is the concern then?

Cognitive dissonance. We're used to the Silicon Valley model of closed-source subscription apps (Dropbox) that silently opt-in your data into their AI training models.

https://nitter.net/Werner/status/1734890651378975007

Do you build those yourself or just go to the Releases tab on Github?

Releases tab

What is note-taking exactly? Like notes from meetings, or like a replacement for a journal, or? Why not just use a text editor?

I’ve been operating for years without a “note-taking” solution. What am I missing?

Same here but I have seen people are/were using evernote, Microsoft one note etc for

1. Note sync across devices 2. Easy search 3. As to-do list, read/use it in future 4. Capture audio/video/images from mobile 5. Store visiting card etc

To use this app's (peculiar) descriptor, it is more "pleasant" for those who deal with a lot of text "information". This includes (but is not limited to) students, academics.... At the core level, it is about using many "doc files" without juggling between multiple windows, file managers, etc. Then, in addition, some may feel the (real?) need for other features. You can look at this extensive list [1] and see if you feel you are "missing" any of them, although feelings could be deceptive :)

[1] https://noteapps.info/features

IMO, notes are anything that's worth writing down.

I have cheatsheets full of Excel formulas for complex transformations. Without it, I'd be forced to look up the ad-ridden website I originally pulled it from, on a work computer that doesn't have an adblocker.

Same goes for stuff I do rarely enough that I need to look up instructions each time. For example, I don't deploy websites except for personal use, so I usually need to re-read Digital Ocean docs to set up my stack on a Linux VM, assign SFTP users etc. Those articles are extremely long and full of related page links. Once I have my core setup steps down, I can just put those into my note.

Besides that, I have notes with images for clothes shopping. Instead of wasting time browsing in-store, I can quickly see whether they have any of the 10-12 types of clothing I usually buy (tops, bottoms, shoes, 4 subcategories for each).

A couple things happen in notes for me:

* Practice through writing: a way of consolidating what I learn by writing about it in an environment I don’t care about editing.

* Chicken scratch: Small important todos or trigger words to remind me to remember or do something

* Spaced repetition: memorizing elementary concepts

* Journal: this is mainly therapeutic and happens with pen and paper or something and is largely throwaway once it is written.

It looks so much like Obsidian, except for the Vi.

You can also enable vi editing in Obsidian. I don't think you can enable vi navigation though.

I'm interested to hear what the advantage over Obsidian is?

It being FOSS is an advantage to some folks. Obsidian doesn't allow you to use it for business for free unless you meet specific criteria like having 2 or less employees.

I never understand this argument when it's used against Obsidian. First, free != FOSS. Second, while the app is closed source, Obsidian has a large open source community that develops plugins for it. Third, the format (markdown) is open, so you have much more freedom than what you have with other FOSS applications that use custom formats.

Open plugins are meaningless when the platform itslelf isn't open. There are also lots of markdown centric note software so its not too much of a draw for obsidian. Personally I'd never use a proprietary note app, having to switch if the company shutters is too much, at least FOSS apps can be forked. Though, I've not heard anything bad about the obsidian team, maybe they open source it if they shut down. They also don't seem like the type to rugpull their customers. But you know how many companies people have said that about.

Open plugins do have a meaning for many developers even if the platform itself isn't open. The meaning is: developers can easily find reference code to develop their own plugins and can easily patch open plugins when they break.

Gratis vs libre.

You openly acknowledged that Obsidian isn't open source. There's lots of open source software for Windows and macOS, yet neither Windows nor macOS are open source. Strange counter-argument in which you proved my point.

Name these FOSS apps that use custom formats. There's so many Obsidian-likes that are not only FOSS, but also use non-proprietary flat markdown files. It sounds like you're drinking too much of the Obsidian community Kool-Aid and trying to convince yourself of these things that simply aren't true.

Unlike obsidian, it doesn't appear to have a plugin system (yet?)

Curious how this compares to obsidian

nice, has mac version too.

It’s Electron.

Isn't QT already cross-platform?

They don't use electron but they do seem to use webviews for showing the rendered output.

Good, like VSCode then ;)

I would be more surprised about being Linux/windows first there is a plethora of mac only notes apps.

Nice, but as others pointed out, this uses a webview to render the underlying text. My note-taking app, Plume[1] is written in Qt C++ and QML, without resorting to webview, rather, rendering using my own custom QML components. Plume's model is written in C++ while the view in QML, allowing for a very performant (benchmarks on the website) yet fluid experience with beautiful animations.

[1] https://www.get-plume.com/

Your note-taking app is not released. While I appreciate that I can download and self compile the premium version of your other Notes app (for some reason my build turns out to be a glitchy buggy mess. That's probably QT being QT), Plume is not released, so is not an alternative to anything.

1. Mind opening a new issue on GitHub? Would love to take a look.

2. Fair. The release is just around the corner (2 month-ish). I can send you an alpha version soon if you'd like.

1. That was months ago and i have also had some problems with qt6 version of qBittorrent on that system. 2. I will wait. It really looks promising. As long as you can disable that huge first capital leter, or make it only 2 lines high.

Thanks! The Drop Cap is optional. And yes, it adjusts based on the number of lines being rendered. Here, I've created a recording for you (the Kanban a little buggy since it's still work-in-progress): https://www.loom.com/share/b40009316f6b420b9ece15a1f99e987c

Seen you pop up multiple times in a variety of threads here mentioning your app.

My initial thought now is it’s starting to feel spammy. Might wanna lay off a bit

I would lay off if I saw my comments get downvoted, but they always get upvoted (many times to the top). Many people reply that they've never heard of it and eager to try it out. I never spam, I always reply to comments/submissions that have direct relevance to my app. Either when speaking about the same category (note-taking apps) or discussing different GUI frameworks. Plus, the quite large influx of people signing up for the wait list shows me it's a net positive.

EDIT: I see people have been downvoting the parent comment since you posted this, so I'm getting the hint. Thanks for letting me know, everybody. I'll comment less frequently in that manner.

Your net positive is not HN's net positive. There could very well be a 100 annoyed readers for every sign-up to your waiting list.

I'm not judging you, nor saying you shouldn't post about your app anymore. This is just a general observation that applies to all online marketing.

But I do want to make this observatioj which applies to all online marketing:

I've been very sensitive to the upvotes my posts get. I don't think any of my comments have been negatively downvoted. Doesn't it seem like a fair measure?

I also always reply when I have something relevant to say, related to the conversation. Specifically, in this thread, this note-taking app (VNote) is built using Qt C++. Same tech stack as my note-taking app (Plume). So I think it's very relevant to share another app built with the same tech stack but offer a more performant/advanced way of rendering the underlying markdown/plaintext without using webviews.

I just tagged you as annoying spam.

See my edit above - I've got the hint and will change this way of posting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com