What is the best cross-platform note taking tool? | Hacker News Reader

What is the best cross-platform note taking tool?

slant.co

66 pointsStuieK55 comments

Pen and/or pencil and paper. Mead, Moleskine, Rhodia all make great paper notebooks along with Staples, OfficeMax having house brands. Pens and pencils are available from a variety of sellers as well.

Lacks text searchability, distributed backups and portability (it's not on your phone all the time).

Has multiple tactile benefits. Can always be scanned for digital backup if need be. Far less likely to be hacked, never has a version that randomly deletes a note. Forces you to keep notes in an actual place not essentially a series of memory addresses of local and/or remote computer.

As someone who's played with nearly every item on this list from tiddlywiki to vim wiki to the mind mappers evernote, .plan files, etc etc. Paper is still the most flexible. I just think differently when I'm not limited by keyboards and/or almost OK drawing interfaces (aka penultimate, paper (the app), etc).

A little DoxieGo scanner and paper is the place to be. Otherwise you'll find yourself looking back at your vast cache of notes in cloudnot.es (or whatever new YC15 startup comes up with the new hot note app that revolutionizes your life) that document your thoughts from 2014-2019 and you'll end up wondering... what really mattered here? How do I save this... Why did I save this? Do I need this note on what I wanted to buy my ex-boyfriend for valentine's day 2017? Etc etc.

The ephemeral nature of paper is perhaps its biggest feature, forcing you to save it or delete it. Or just go full Warhol and save everything: http://edu.warhol.org/aract_timecap.html

I love pen and paper, and use it a lot. But I'm still struggling for a solution to capture things like bookmarks/mobile thoughts in a way that I can use alongside paper. Right now I use a combination of Google Keep and Pocket, which are great for capture but I fail to review them regularly enough IMO. Paper you can't help reviewing every time you use it :)

Tomboy¹ with Tomdroid² and Rainy³ for sync. I know, mono, but it's free, open-source, self-hosted, and a Gnome classic.

EDIT: added http://www.slant.co/topics/697/viewpoints/12/~what-is-the-be...

¹ https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy

² https://launchpad.net/tomdroid (.apk, not the Play version)

³ http://www.notesync.org/

Does sync really work well for you? I had crazy problems syncing Tomboy in the past, but that was ~4 years ago.

Rainy didn't exist 4 years ago. I had some occasional problems with notes losing their categories or causing conflicts for no good reason but it has worked relatively well.

Workflowy is one of the best I've come across and one I use personally for text. The interface is super productive and the degree of depth possible with that simplicity is just stunning.

The real downside for me is that my notes are on their server. I really hate that. So .. I keep getting back to org mode .. which isn't available everywhere.

It's on the three major desktop platforms (Linux, OSX and Windows), and it's on Android. Not saying it's super easy to use on Android, but I've been rocking org-mode on my N900 for over three years. Combined with git+ssh and my own private server (you could easily setup on a cheap VPS), it's been a lifesaver many a time. I've been too lazy/busy to look into it, but something like git-annex assistant (http://git-annex.branchable.com/assistant/) seems like another good stepping stone.

Me too. I am quite reluctant to keep any data plaintext in cloud services, but I couldn't live without Workflowy. I asked them about the possibility of self-hosting, but unfortunately it wasn't in the cards at the moment. I'll keep using it anyway, because it goes with my mind like PB goes with J.

Is there a real demand for this? I made https://zetabee.com/text in 2010 and have been using it myself every single day since there. My app is plain-text and has lots of keyboard shortcuts. I could most likely convert it to work with any JSON key-val store, including localStorage (which will disappear if you clear your cache).

After almost 4 years, my app is currently used by less than a few hundred people so I never thought there is a big demand in this area. I just made it for myself. It'll take me some time to re-code it (and most certainly open-source it) but if enough people like what it does and how it works, I'm all up for it.

The thing about Workflowy is not the saving/backing-up/etc functionality per-se, which is the easy part. It is the user interface design that makes it so productive. It's like you can zoom in to any aspect of your life and you can have your whole life as a single tree on it - so yes, there is only one list per account on Workflowy (afaik), and this is the beautiful part.

The closest I've come is to use org-mode in emacs with the foldout package enabled [1]. This works well actually and I even wrote my thesis this way (which I can't do using Workflowy btw ;) .. but you got to manage the syncing etc yourself.

It is valid to argue that a tree structure is not the ideal mind-map, but the speed advantage of editing a tree structure way more than compensates for a more complex graph structure ... and you can always hyperlink.

[1]: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2007-10/msg0...

Nice work, I like it

For those looking for a physical alternative that also converts to digital notes (and synchronizes notes with a audio recorder on the pen), LiveScribe is particularly amazing: http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/

It uses a special dot matrix notebook (5 pack for like $25-30) that allow it to record all notes written and synchronize with audio so that you can press the pen anywhere in your notes and replay what was said while you were taking notes. Comes with some smartphone app integration and desktop sync stuff.

Org-mode in Emacs, hands down.

This submission looks like it's to promote slant (and checking, the submitter is from slant). Nothing wrong with that!

I think because comparisons often cause a flurry of opinions, experiences and religious wars, slant seem to have instant publicity baked into the very essence of their idea (of comparisons).

Interestingly, nobody has commented on slant itself - suggesting that the interface is seamless, invisible. Arguably, the very best feedback possible!

I am making use of StackEdit https://stackedit.io/ - brilliant and works fine across devices.

nice. open source too according to this: https://github.com/benweet/stackedit - so it stores the files locally and then you can share / store docs across drive and other storage sites including wordpress and more. this one deserves another look.

Does anyone know of a good tree structure notepad for OSX? Something like MyNoteKeeper [1] on windows. The key features I have been looking for are a tree structure where each node can have text and files associated with it, and can have children nodes.

[1] http://www.mynoteskeeper.com/

One nice option is KeepNote (http://keepnote.org). It's written in PyGTK and is portable across Linux, Windows, and OS X. It stores things in HTML. It's pretty flexible and has a handy screenshot tool built-in. It's not sexy, but it's flexible and does the job.

Check out NoteCasePro. It's the only solution I could find that allows me to sync an encrypted file myself that I could open in Android and Linux (/windows/mac). It has a ton of advanced features, but I just use the basics like hierarchies and image embedding.

http://www.markdownnotes.com/

would be perfect if it's packaged as an offline chrome app. and can sync with online server of users' choice (s3, dropbox, ... etc)

I use https://evernote.com and the we clipper add-on for chrome is perfect...

Is there anything that can be used as a "research notebook"? Specifically, I need to embed graphs/images within the text.

Evernote is pretty good at that. The text can contain inline images, video clips and binary attachments -- the note editor is basically a small word processor.

That's what I currently use. However, the recent HN post about Evernote had paying users complaining about data loss!

Scrivener's actually an interesting tool for research, depending on your exact needs. Not as cross-platform as it should be though.

You might try looking at iPython Notebook "http://ipython.org/notebook.html". I haven't actually used it (I prefer org-mode) but according to the web site "you can combine code execution, text, mathematics, plots and rich media into a single document".

Check out https://gingkoapp.com . I think they can embed images, not sure about graphs. Overall I find this an interesting way to structure and create documents -- sort of like mind-maps but more textual.

Simplenote is great: works in the browser, has OSX apps (Notational Velocity is great and free), and a free iOS app too

Although Simplenote now has an official OS X app [¹] I'd strongly suggest nvALT [²] which is essentially Notational Velocity with some nice additional features and under active development.

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simplenote/id692867256

[2] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

One interesting aspect of a paper notebook is that you know exactly what information you're carrying across a border. Of course paper notes have security issues, but all of those issues are known and easy to understand. The front door is open, but there are no back doors.

I find a notebook and pen works best for me :) Otherwise I save markdown files to dropbox.

That's exactly what I do. I go through lots of Miquelrius notebooks like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Miquelrius-Wirebound-Notebook-6-Subjec...

I use Freemind sometimes, too, for example when I have a huge project in front of me and I need to get a quick sense of the various parts and their sub-tasks. I apply little icons like a bomb with a lit fuse for "waiting on client", green checkmark for "done," etc.

I've used those notebooks too! Now I use Muji notebooks. They are pretty nice http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-paper...

As an aside: $13.99? Seriously?

I'm willing to pay more for quality, but that seems rather high for what one is getting. The description does not even include acid-free/buffered paper.

I understand that Moleskins and the like are a thing, these days. But what makes this item worth $14 per 300 page notebook?

I don't mean this as some sarcastic, rhetorical comment. I'm genuinely curious as to what makes this notebook worth that price.

(A question from someone who has e.g. spent more than he might need to on "the right" pen... :-)

I love the Miquelrius/Paperchase style notebooks but haven't paid quite that much for them, I think. The grid/line-height is a good size and the multi-colour paper in the subject notebooks makes them really handy for multiple projects. I also find the paper nice to write on, but that's quite subjective.

I've never paid that much for one, but if a local store sold them I'd be more than happy to oblige. They are very thick as notebooks go, so I get a lot of use out of them. I know what you mean about the pen thing, too :-) I review pens and pencils from time to time on my personal site: http://www.friendlyskies.net/category/stationery/

favorite notebook for me by far is a whitelines slim. it's tall but slim and provides a lot of versatility to me. Pretty durable too. The grid is white color and the page is a light gray. It's there when you need it but not distracting to read when you don't. http://whitelines.se/products/category/wire-slim/?item=wl89

Love whitelines. I'm kind of a notebook fanboy though, so I'm always trying others. :)

Whitelines are the most unique by far.

Paper notebooks for me too. I like little bound ones that I can fit in a jacket pocket.

If I look at what notes I can still access after 1, 10, or even 20 years, it's all paper.

I love Freemind too. I use it for the "what do we know about this thing" phase of problem solving.

[Clicked the wrong reply link. I've now moved my comment to the correct location. Sorry.]

I just can't get used to note taking without a keyboard. I recently bought a nexus 7 and I really wanted to use it for note take but I just can't do it (Evernote, Google Keep, Swiftkey, etc.) - it's too annoying to capture thoughts.

I use a pen and paper and write the notes in Emacs (org mode) later.

Does Google's Voice Dictation work for you at all?

I've never used it for taking notes. I might try it out.

This is a nice design for reviews where each product has individually voted features.

Would be cool to be able to facet search on aspects like you might on an ecommerce website. (So you could compare products from different perspectives.)

org-mode Emacs

I have been working at learning Emacs and have just recently started using org-mode and love it. I tend to not trust anything but a VPN or SSH connection these days and being able to just ssh into a box of mine (down with the cloud) and quickly take notes is not just handy and fairly secure, but it's cross platform because SSH. (putty if I'm stuck at a windows machine)

org-mode + emacs.

I'll give Wunderlist a vote, its simple and cross platform. When taking notes never over complicate.

Not fucking Evernote. This poll is already tainted by Valley startup Mac hipsters moving to Vietnam taking only their iPad Mini and a pair of trousers.

Gedit + git.

ssh to emacs org mode

Wunderlist

Vim to Dropbox with markdown files.

You get encryption for free with :X.

You can also easily set up Vimwiki.

You can do real-time collaboration with Floobits.

You can store them in git repo and access them via Github (or http://prose.io), and manage with git-flow.

I'd also combine Vimwiki with todo.txt, the commandline tool. You can pipe your todo list with tags and categories to Vim, thus wikifying it, or pipe it to pandoc and export as PDF, HTML, LaTeX, slideshows, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com