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Comment by ahmedfromtunis | Hacker News Reader

What I really miss right now is a chrome extension that replaces the new tab page with a note taking space.

I used to use an extension called papier that had a simple interface, just the right amount of configurability and a beautiful design (particularly good color schemes). The extension got removed because of its incompatibility with the new manifest V3.

The current alternatives are either too involved with too much configuration options (i.e. distractions) and not very attractive, minimalist designs.

With your app, you're almost there. If you can get the correct balance right, you could fill the gap in that niche.

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I use a variation of this as a bookmarklet, perhaps you'll find it useful:

data:text/html,<html contenteditable>

You could probably set that as the URL of your home page to get the behavior you described.

I add a style="height:100%" in the HTML tag so that clicking anywhere puts focus on it for editing. You could add other styling and initial content as desired.

Love the simplicity of this

Oh wow that's cool! How do you use this since I presume the tab will forget everything once its closed? Just temporary notes?

Yeah, I operate it like I would a dry-erase board. Ctrl-S doesn't work unless you add some scripting, but I usually copy-paste it if I'm drafting a note, or close it without saving if it was meant like a sticky note. It's good as a longer-term clipboard or a place to privately note down something before deciding whether to keep it.

For notes that I've refined and want to hold on to, I tend to use a physical notebook. I enjoy the kinesthetic process of writing by hand so I still use that for more permanent notes.

I do too. I've been wondering if there's some short JavaScript I could add to retrieve text from local storage when loaded, and update local storage after every change. Not so it persists for months, but just so it survives a tab close or a browser restart.

EDIT: mm, localStorage API is disabled inside data URLs, understandably

There are local-first file based solutions (like classic TiddlyWiki) that could work for you,.. but at that point maybe you meant to open your favorite text editor or IDE.

I kind of like that this simple solution always opens a scratch buffer and I have to put it somewhere else to save it (never saved accidentally).

It also keeps the source formatting (or with ctrl-shift-V ignores it), which can be useful aside from the note taking itself.

Yeah it's what I use as a scratch buffer too. I'm just so used to being able to reopen a tab if I close it by mistake. Thanks for the info!

If you're looking to save yourself from accidental deletion, I tested the following, it adds a confirm dialog when closing the tab.

data:text/html,<div contenteditable style="height:100%"><script>addEventListener("beforeunload", (e) => {e.returnValue = "?";})</script>

I love that! It never occurred to me. So simple. Thank you!

Wow! That's really cool. Thanks for sharing!

Your wish came true :)

I've made this a while ago for myself to take quick notes while browsing the web, so I'm publishing this in case anyone finds it useful:

> minimalistab is an extension for Chrome that replaces chrome://newtab with a blank WYSIWYG editor for taking notes.

https://github.com/hakaneskici/minimalistab

Here's the primary trick [1] behind the scenes that makes this possible:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43179649

Chrome Extension for NoteUX is now live! Thanks for all of your support.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dhgibmcoiahciekchd...

I'm using Brisk Notes: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/brisknote-new-tab-n...

Wow, I used to use Papier all the time. I sort of forgot about it when I migrated from Chrome to Firefox and didn't really find a good alternative, but man that plugin was legitimately a huge part of my life for a while. I'm sad to heard it's going away, it was an absolutely genius idea

As developers have to support themselves in some way, would you be willing to use a similar ad-supported extension? Or perhaps pay a small amount to support development more directly and go ad-free?

Back when I started using it I probably would have considered ads, but I'm not sure if I would turn them on

Nowadays? I would probably have chucked $5 or $10 towards the dev.

Oh yeah, it's one of those pieces of software that goes out of your way and just does its assigned job so well that you literally forget about it.

I remember switching to a new computer at work and noticing something was weirdly missing without being able to put my finger on it. It wasn't until one of those moment where I used to use the extension that I noticed it wasn't yet installed on this machine.

Thank you for your kind words, I am the founder here :) , give me feedback and i will most probably add them right away.

I will try to create a chrome-extention for NoteUX hopefully soon.

you can follow me or directly reach out to me on twitter too x.com/nabeelHQ

FYI Chrome Extension on the way, will publish the url soon as its published on the chrome store, thanks for your feedback.

Papier is still available in Brave it seems.

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