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Comment by fbnlsr | Hacker News Reader

Like many I've been looking for the best note-taking app for years. And somehow I always come back to a bunch of markdown files inside a Git repo.

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> And somehow I always come back to a bunch of markdown files inside a Git repo.

Others have mentioned this but if you want to keep this workflow, the best app I've found is Obsidian + Git Plugin. It works fantastically well on desktop though it does require a little work to get it working on iOS.

Are there options to see the current state of the repo? What I mean is, for example, I like that in VS Code I instantly know the current state because the git sidebar icon shows a notification of uncommitted changes. If I don't have a visual reminder, I'm more likely to not make commits when I should, and I also don't want an auto-committer firing after each change. I find the visual reminder keeps me anchored to my git status.

Heck, maybe I should just use code for notes. One plus would be web access with code server, since Obsidians only docker image that I know of uses VNC.

Anyone compared these two tools and have a decent write up? The biggest item which comes to mind would be referencing other notes and the features built on top of that?

> Are there options to see the current state of the repo?

Yes...always visible in the status bar. Fyi: https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-git

> Others have mentioned this but if you want to keep this workflow...

If I want to keep this workflow why shouldn't I just continue using this same workflow?

How do you use Obsidian + Git on iOS?

There are a couple methods - I use Working Copy to manage the git stuff on iOS. Far from perfect, but it works.

a-shell is another way you can do this. Takes a bit of finagling to set up and wire in plugins and the like but is relatively stable afterward.

An example solution, well explained: https://meganesulli.com/blog/sync-obsidian-vault-iphone-ipad...

Compared to something with automatic bidirectional sync between all devices, something where one has to manually commit/push/pull a new/edited note feels archaic.

OTOH you get version history, with commit messages if you care to write them. And the full power of git to explore the history. You can edit the same file on two (offline) devices, then resolve the inevitable merge conflict.

"Automatic bidirectional sync between all devices" scares me. How does it deal with merge conflicts? How am I sure I'll be able to revert to a previous version? Can I see the full history of a file? I don't know, perhaps it'd be ok. I certainly wouldn't learn git just for note taking! But, I know how to use my hammer, so everything look like a nail...

But you can still have the full power of git with Obsidian still, since they're just MD files at the end of the day.

You can automate commits and push on save. I had a similar setup for vimwiki before migrating to a web-based wiki system (dokuwiki).

I thought it would be a problem as well but it turns out I absolutely never edit my notes on two machines at once. The commit/push/pull is done via a simple bash script that I'm running as a build command inside VS Code.

I like it as I consciously enjoy sort of checking in.

I also store in a onedrive folder for automatic sync and backup in case I have a crash before I do a git commit.

Is that really useful? How often do you need to revert a commit?

Might be worth trying this free and open source note-taking app (disclaimer: client of mine).

https://github.com/cybersemics/em/

"em is a beautiful, minimalistic note-taking app for personal sensemaking."

No webpage. No screenshots. Not even Releases?

I'm not trying this app.

The readme is more about the technical details of the code than the actual features of the app. Where do I go to see what this thing can actually do?

Do people expect me to run the program just to see if I want to run the program?

There are some demos in the Docs [1] linked from the README, but I believe that's still very useful feedback. I will pass it along. Thank you!

[1] https://github.com/cybersemics/em/wiki/Docs

I did take a look at that, which is probably more than most people would have done, and by take a look I mean a skimmed for images because I'm not reading 2000 words of text for an app I don't even use yet. The only images I found showed how drag and drop works.

I know this is common with projects that think Github is a replacement for a website, but I genuinely wonder how does it get so bad that a 5 year project with 9000 commits and 60 contributors doesn't have a single screenshot. Nothing personal or particular about this project specifically, just... the whole open source culture of dropping something on Github and not even doing the bare minimum to have other people get to know the project.

It feels like such a waste. It could be an amazing project but who is going to bother with it if they can't see what it looks like?

For me, it's the same way, except that instead of Markdown, I use plain org-mode files sprinkled with a bit of org-roam tags when needed.

I oscillate between Apple Notes and a bunch of markdown files, which is a pretty painful thing to do.

I like how future proof a folder of markdown files is. But I like the design, simplicity, and deep features for capture and media support offered in Apple Notes.

The more a markdown app supports extra stuff, the more proprietary it starts to feel, as any app to read it will also need to support those things.

A while back I told myself I was going to stick to Apple Notes, as going back and forth to other things is painful, and doing it proactively means more pain, rather than maybe having some pain in 10 years of the app goes away. However, where I am again, in the middle of a largely manual migration back to Obsidian for my folder of markdown files. I used an export, but the formatting is so bad that I need to clean up every single note.

The inability to export, as well as the lack of anything more than the bare basic formatting options (at least at the time a few years ago) pushed me off apple notes.

I’ve been able to export since early, early iPhone. They’re just txt files. Surprisingly, Apple notes have been the most durable as Apple has migrated them from every iPhone I’ve had for the past 15-20 years or whatever.

Basic formatting is a plus for me. Although now notes has really advanced formatting and even sketching.

Have you found a solution to mass export notes?

I built a tool for this a while back: https://github.com/dogsheep/apple-notes-to-sqlite

I just tried it and it still works:

  uvx apple-notes-to-sqlite /tmp/notes.db
  # in another terminal while that's running
  uvx datasette /tmp/notes.db

I ended up using Exporter from the App Store. I didn't work great. I have an export, but there are a lot of issues with it. I'm finding it is often easier to copy the note and use the Rich Text to Markdown action in Shortcuts, then paste into Obsidian. If I spent more time with Shortcuts there is probably a way to automate this way a bit more.

I think https://github.com/threeplanetssoftware/apple_cloud_notes_pa... might do the trick. This is "user friendly" as long as you are a programmer or work in digital forensics. :D

There are plenty of tools for exporting, and I’ve tried to leave Notes several times and had no issue getting the notes out.

But trouble free sync between machines, the ability to ‘scan’ documents, adding basic maths support, the ease… it always sucks me back in.

I wish it kept the date of creation and edits readily available, and supported markdown. But it’s damn close to what I want.

Why can’t Apple Mail do search as well as notes?

Strong rec to keep using markdown files in a git repo -- and start using Obsidian to edit and manage them.

I switch between VS Code and MarkText. It does the job perfectly.

org-roam inside git

...accessed through Obsidian (esp on mobile) -- On Android, you can "Open folder as vault"

Or neovim with FzfLua (on laptop)

I have an idea. Coming soon!!

Obsidian + Git plugin? :)

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