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Emacs org-mode. Take notes, create actions, track time, plan work, view agenda, view to-do list, and all in text format. The single greatest change I've made to my productivity is keeping my brain in emacs.
The biggest reason that made me do the switch to emacs :D
I've been using org mode for about 2 months at work & couldn't agree more. Still working on a way to try to edit files from mobile - do you have a solution for this?
Never tried it but maybe something like Orgzly would do the trick : play.google.com/store/apps/details... . It seems to be the most talked about.
TiddlyWiki
I came from the Vim era: it's a popular text editor, mostly used by technical people. I tried out different ways to store my thoughts, for example: plain text (Asciidoctor) files, Jekyll (blog platform), Boostnote (note taking software). Whenever I tried out new ways, these was my most important requirements:
Whenever I tried out new stuff, it turned out that it doesn't have some of these features, thus I switched back to old, but good plain text (Asciidoctor) format (because it's the most flexible) + Vim editor (syntax highlighting, search and replace, basic file navigation).
The problem with file based note taking is that
So I continued searching for The Notetaking Software, then I found TiddlyWiki and fell in love with it, because it knows almost everything that I want, besides this it's incredibly hackable: you can turn it to any kind of software, not just notetaking (todo list, book, GTD, project documentation, family tree, photo gallery with categories and tags, etc.)!
For a better understanding of what is the real power of TiddlyWiki, please read Joe Armstrong: My Eureka Moment with the TiddlyWiki then have a look at these examples:
If you have additional questions, look for the TiddlyWiki mail group, there are very helpful people (seriously, this is the best community I met on the net).
Amen! :) Great to see you here as well :) And really awesome sum-up of Tiddlywiki's capabilities.
@bimlas I was going through comments to see if someone has mentioned TW5. Your comment deserves to be a post in itself.
BTW, good to see you here. I use a few of your TW5 plugins.
Emacs org-mode and sync with private(encrypted using git-crypt) github repo.
Termux and decrypt on mobile and view in orgzly.
Granted this is not easy to setup and has manual step to push and pull on mobile but everything is encrypted end to end and free 😄
Were you required to root your phone to clone the repo in a directory accessible to orgzly? I looked into this a few weeks ago, but recall running into hurdles with security restrictions
No I have not rooted. Just install Termux and then run
termux-setup-storage
in termux to access device storage. Now you can install git, openssh from termux command line. Navigate to sdcard and you can clone any project and access it in Orgzly. I wrote two functions in .bashrc to push and pull to my private repo. That is the only manual step I was talking about.Joplin
Open source, markdown, sync, encryption, dark mode, cross platform.
It looks very interesting, thanks for sharing
This is what I use. It's great, and really easy to get used to
I'm replacing Markdown by Asciidoc.
Markdown is broken, it's sad
It has all the right ideas to start with, so everybody starts with it, and then everybody notices it's not enough and do its proprietary extension of Markdown.
There are so many Markdown to choose from that after getting once too much in that rabbit hole, I decided to switch to Asciidoc.
Asciidoc is basically markdown done right.
I never used it, could you elaborate more on daily use cases where you found markdown to not be enough/be broken?
Well everyone has a different Markdown.
GitHub has its extensions, some of which makes sense for everyone, others only on GitHub.
Dev.to has liquid tags. They are great but again not part of a standard format.
Static website generators have a yaml front end matter. Why not?
What if you want a table of contents? Just add another external tool.
What if you want to use variables? Nope.
What if you want to structure your work by including another file, or a part of another file? Nope.
The syntax for inserting an image is mostly worse than plain HTML.
Ever tried to maintain a table in markdown? That sucks as lot.
Common Markdown tried to find a common ground, the Markdown Creator was not happy about it, but also it turns out it's not possible.
Everyone use a different Markdown plus something.
Asciidoc is my Markdown++
See here and the comparaison with markdown
asciidoctor.org/docs/user-manual/#...
Oh yeah, I agree with your points. I'll give asciidoc a try, thanks.
The key is to find a converter Markdown to Asciidoc, to start with what you already know. I am doing this in IntelliJ idea but there is probably a lighter alternative 😃
Pandoc comes to mind.
what about google keep??
It's good to quickly write down ideas, but I don't see it as a good option for proper notes
Keep tops the list for me because it allows collaboration. I use it for code snippets, blog posts, links to check out later. My wife uses it for notes and grocery lists. It's easy to add each other to notes we want to share.
I use Microsoft OneNote.
Cant speak for markdown support from MS Onenote but another great tool with lots of features and obviously easy sharing, sync etc. It does have password protected tabs or sections.
It’s not the greatest for code, but usually gets the job done. I could use something else, but I have a lot of stuff in OneNote already and don’t really feel like adding yet another piece of software.
Exactly. I use trello plus OneNote to typically lay down my priorities of tasks, personal projects, learning etc.
Simplenote by Automattic.
The clients are open source though they use a proprietary cloud to store data.
I like simplenote too, it didn't make it in my top 5 though
May I ask why? :)
No syntax highlight mostly. I still use it to take some quick notes, but not programming stuff, mostly recipes lol
I work exclusively on Mac OS-X. My favorite is the built-in Notes app. It syncs across the iPad and phone IOS apps (through the iCloud). It has just enough formatting and the ability to categorize notes. Just enough and not too much.
I use VS-Code because I like to write notes using AsciiDoc. I used to use Markdown but I've switched because AsciiDoc is a lot richer. There is an AsciiDoc extension that lets you preview your notes side-by-side. marketplace.visualstudio.com/items...
I love the side-by-side previewer. I like to link my notes together. The Markdown previewer allows you to click links and browse to your other notes within the previewer.
Clicking links in the AsciiDoc previewer doesn't work, so I browse them in Chrome using the AsciiDoc live preview chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/... (also available for FireFox)
My team tried this workflow, and we had a lot of trouble getting GitBook to consistently sync to our repo (plus the error reporting wasn't that great), so much so that we abandoned it altogether :/ It was nice while it lasted, though.
Oh that sucks, do you know of other solutions similar to it?
Unfortunately not for that specific workflow. We ended up just building a custom solution where we edit our docs using custom markdown in any code editor with Markdown preview (most of my teammates just use VS code but I use MacDown), push that to a Github repo, and then deploy that to our live site.
I don't really use notes per se, if then google keep (not very happy sharing any data with google), but for things that need to stick I use bookmarks.dev to manage my dev bookmarks and code snippets.
Great article in comparing different note taking solution!
I am also the kind of dev that "take note in VS Code'" because i like the simplicity and the syntax highlight (because some time, i will use it as a temporary space for checking log and server response)
But lack of sync and mobile access really bothering me.
With that concept in mind, I am working on a note taking app for developer. (get.stashany.com)
I would love to hear more feedback from experience note app user like you and hope it can be something that really suitable for developer :)
Great list AlbertoM. I'd like to suggest one more tool in your list - ProofHub. It helps you create notes, organize them, collaborate on them, and work smarter. You can create notes, select colors for them, subscribe people to them, keep them private, attach files, collaborate on them smarter, and store them in notebooks at one place. Please visit this link (proofhub.com/features/notes) to know more.
I use Evernote for note taking but I don't think it has markdown. Thanks for sharing the resources
I used to use Evernote and recently switched to Notion - it's so much better for drafting notes that can be copied to markdown or keeping code snippets! The best part is you can import any existing Evernote notebook into it, so if you do decide to switch it's super easy 😁
Thanks, Notion looks really good!
Yeah, writing notes in a format that you can easily copy paste on different places is great.
Thanks, glad I helped!
Our free Knowledge Base webapp, Clibu maybe of interest, clibu.com It works on Desktop Browsers, Tablets and Smartphones.
I'm working on Clibu Notes which will have Markdown support, full offline capabilities, a streamlined UI, built using Web Components. Early demo's and more information on our Blog blog.clibu.com
+1 for Boostnote, that's what I use on my Linux machine.
I use Vim or a physical lined notebook. In vim, I tend to write notes in a kind of pidgin markdown, with headings as hashes and so on but not bothering with link wrappers, etc.
I enjoy Standard Notes although you need a paid subscription to use the extensions, which their are a lot of. standardnotes.org
The encryption is the main selling point in standard notes for me!
I have been using Boostnote and it is awesome!
Ulysses - I write everything using it.
I like Bear, but in order to sync between devices you need to pay and I think there are free solutions that are just as good
I have not used any of it, but am a programmer, thanks, let me lay down 👇 my hands on your recommendation
I like Workflowy.
Good tip! thanks
You should check out Tiddlywiki. It is an awesome serverless note taking one-page app. It can run on a server, it has a npm package. It is totally customizable and programmable
Boost note for sure!
You forgot giuspen.com/cherrytree/, which is actually free and open source not unlike the first one on the list. I just clicked the link and saw a 'Pricing' page
I am also building a notes app specific for software engineers.
Just released the initial beta.
upnotes.io
Does anyone have a suggestion for a tool with all of these features?
Notion is an really awesome app
I love using BoostNote
Inkdrop!!
I checked out Notion and think I really like it. It's like a cross between an editor and WorkFlowy, if you've tried that.
Notable github.com/notable/notable
Is free but recently he's indicated this has become his full time job so may not be free in the future.
boostnote.io/ anyone?
Notational Velocity for life
Microsoft OneNote
Our team uses OneNote for pretty much everything, keeping quick notes, meeting minutes, project ideas etc.
It could definitely be better if it supported code formatting, but it does the job.
Emacs org-mode + orgzly + (dropbox|github|rsync|ftp|whatever) are all I need for all my daily note taking needs (both work and everyday life related).
Very good, I really needed a tool like that. Currently, I'm using OneNote but it's not being effective.
I use Bear!
vimwiki
Thanks a lot, I tried out Notion, liked what I saw, and I think it will be an important part in my workflow!
Boostnote only downside is that it doesn't sync anywhere. If you lose your machine, everything is gone!!! :(
I put Boostnote storage location inside OneDrive.
How do you do that?
Just go to preferences => Storage => Add storage location (then pick a folder inside OneDrive folder)
I discovered boostnote.io just yesterday.
VSCode is a great app...
Boostnote is a good one! I have all my notes there.
What features do you especially like?