DEV Community

Discussion on: How do you take notes?

Collapse
 
vinayhegde1990 profile image
Vinay Hegde

I've developed a habit of writing stuff that I wish to learn in my own words with reference URLs (blog posts, official documentation, how-to guides, etc..) that I often gather via mobile or desktop and sync in Google Keep and/or Start.me , the latter is a great app requiring an individual post in itself.

The ones saved via mobile make their way to PC but If I've access to a desktop already, here's how I create & maintain my documentation:

  1. First, I use reStructuredText to write my notes in .rst files (segregated topic-wise) in a Git repository.

  2. Then, Sphinx (a one-time setup) comes in to build all my documentation into static content (HTML, CSS, JS etc) using a single command.

  3. Afterwards, I push my changes and a Git web-hook (again, just a one-time setup) deploys it to ReadTheDocs onto a publicly accessible URL (you can choose this)

  4. Done! While the learning curve is a bit steep but once you get the hang of it, all you'd need to create documentation is a Text Editor and Git commits.

If you need an example, you can browse the one made by LetsEncrypt or the one I made here. Renders flawlessly on mobile without the additional overhead of any app (as it's just a URL) as well :)

PS: BoostNote appears to be amazing but according to this, the Android/iOS apps seem to be temporarily closed.

Collapse
 
ewoks profile image
Beeblebrox

Good point about BoostNote, lacking of mobile (Android) client while they update code base is deal breaker for me :(

Collapse
 
vinayhegde1990 profile image
Vinay Hegde

I agree! Having a Android client is as important as a Desktop one or a Web-app. This was the reason I moved onto Google Keep from ColorNote

However, both of them fall thoroughly short in rich-text formatting thus making me find an alternative described in my original comment.