19 ms·
Quiver: Programmer's Notebook for OS X
- moonlighter 11y agohttp://yaoganglian.com/2015/12/06/What-is-Quiver/ http://yaoganglian.com/2015/12/06/What-is-Quiver/
- kelsolaar 11y agoGreat work! The Evernote importer will make the transition easy :)
- cogwheel 11y agoThe Apple monoculture is strong with this one. When will trendy developer startups realize other environments exist besides iOSX?
- moonlighter 11y agoWhat's your point? That it's not available for Windows or Linux? The developer behind Quiver is a one-man shop and happens to be an iOS, OS X and web developer. So what?
- cogwheel 11y agoThere seems to be a trend among certain groups of developers to act as if their preferred environment is the only one that exists. Calling this "The Programmer's Notebook" makes it seem like a broadly applicable tool for programmers in general, when it's actually fairly exclusive and specific. There's nothing particularly egregious about this example, but it's part of a larger pattern that is aggravating for any non-kool-aid drinkers. Edit: to be clear, this isn't specifically about Apple's kool-aid, either. I have the same reaction when people assume every developer is or should be active on GitHub and other similar monocultures.
- mcmillion 11y agoSimple solution: Make your own tool for your own preferred platform.
- tvanantwerp 11y agoThat solution doesn't sound very simple, particularly for non-programmers.
- jtreminio 11y ago> Quiver: The Programmer's Notebook
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zeveb 11y agoI didn't have to: I have emacs, and thousands of people made it for me. I do, of course, customise it for myself.
- Larrikin 11y agoIf this was an actual startup, your point would make sense. But the portfolio is very obviously one guy making tools he personally thought would be useful, polishing them, and then selling them. It isn't fun to create things that you can't actually use, at least in my opinion. I'm sure if he was making a lot more money he wouldn't hesitate to release for other platforms, because he would be able to to hire someone to do the other platforms
- its2complicated 11y agoI think it's fun to create anything, especially if it involves programming by myself, outside of a stupid agile environment with Scrum idiots running around preaching the gospel.
- 11y ago
- danellis 11y agoI think his point is that if someone writes something, he's entitled to be able to use it on his preferred platform. Or, at least, that's how it comes across.
- cogwheel 11y agoThen you didn't read any of my follow-ups.
- jessaustin 11y agoThanks for saving me some time!
- CodexArcanum 11y agoSpeaking of monoculture: people on other OS could always check out emacs org-mode! The Babel component of it allows one to similarly mix code into theirs notes. I've been getting good use out of it lately for doing presentations.
- falcolas 11y agoFor the vimmers out there, I also suggest looking into vimwiki. Not quite the same as org mode, but a good 80% solution which is integrated nicely into vim.
- mih 11y agoI hope people start including information on platforms when posting apps that are not cross-platform. Some hint such as 'OSX only', 'iOS only' or 'Windows only' in the title would help uninterested ones among us tone down our expectations or avoid the topic altogether.
- YngwieMalware 11y agoDamn, you've really opened my eyes to all these other environments that exist besides iOSX. I'm crying now because you've lit the way for me, and I feel so foolish for all the work I've accomplished in my monocultural environment.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoIf it's any consolation, there are plenty of games that are available ahead of time, or only, on PC. I happen to prefer the balance afforded by running OSX, but you're entirely welcome to make that decision however you want.
- diego_moita 11y agoI agree. This thread is a party for Apple fans to massage their egos. For Windows/Linux there are plenty of better alternatives: tiddlywiki, OneNote, etc.
- mirekrusin 11y agoOneNote is available for OSX from Mac App Store. And it's simply the best app in this category for me. It's also free. Much better than Quiver. If Quiver had similar, simple, fast editing capabilities it could be better - by feeling less heavy, lighter plus maybe some extras for programmers.
- st3v3r 11y agoI could say the same thing for a lot of stuff that's Windows only.
- eddieroger 11y agoHow lucky you are to not remember when all software was Windows or bust. Talk about a monoculture. Users of anything that wasn't a Windows box were outcasts.
- mrmondo 11y agoFrom what I see in Melbourne at least, most Devs and iOS people use OS-X, if they're not using that they're running fedora or arch. I'm yet to see anyone run Windows other than project managers in places I've worked over the last 4 or so years.
- klum 11y agoBeen using this for a few weeks, and it is great! I'm sure that, compared to Evernote, it misses features that are important to some, but it adds a few of its own and is so much faster to use it's in another league entirely. Looking forward to the upcoming iOS version. The one feature I miss the most, besides that, is something like Evernote's menu bar app, for quick entry/scratchpad.
- joshstrange 11y agoIf there is an iOS version I'll jump from NVAlt/SimpleNote to this plus dropbox and write a migrator
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- knite 11y agoI would love to migrate away from NVAlt, really hoping that Quiver is the answer. NVAlt is great, but the combo of no tags + no iOS version has been a thorn in my side for years.
- joshstrange 11y agoIf you sync to simplenote you can use the simplenote iOS app which I've had good luck with. I'd rather use dropbox as my syncing layer though...
- michaelmcdonald 11y agoLast I checked NValt DOES have tags...
- mercer 11y agoI would switch to Quiver in a heartbeat, but aside from iOS or at least some syncing functionality, it would have to do the following as well: 1. implement search just like nvALT does it. The particular interface to search is one of nvALT's best features, and I prefer it over the 'dropdown' interface that Quiver uses. 2. support for basic vim keybindings to switch between notes (j and k at least).
- grimborg 11y agoAh, a Ulysses clone for developers.
- its2complicated 11y agoLookout, here come the down votes! Your comment wasn't full of praise or cheerful enough or generally not acceptable according to a consensus of HN users with down voting privileges. By the way, I'm at -1 karma for the same bullshit reasons...
- bovermyer 11y agoOr maybe it's because your comment doesn't add anything constructive. I mean, even your username is a complaint...
- its2complicated 11y agoAs if yours just did. It's still a comment and it is constructive in that it shares my thoughts. Imagine we're all standing around bullshitting; I think that puts my comments in the proper context. C'mon, let your hair down and say what you really think! Lighten up a little.
- dang 11y agoPlease stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News—especially about downvotes, the gold standard of unsubstantiveness. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013113 and marked it off-topic.
- its2complicated 11y agoSome people do like my style of comments. I think it's only the people like you, with their nose in the air and a sense of duty to protect the "boys club," that don't like them. Don't talk about HN? Fuck HN and fuck you too!
- Larrikin 11y agoLove Quiver. I've been using it in grad school and has made it much easier to write out any non-lab assignments that require code snippets or references to code. Haven't use the LaTex cells yet but the Markdown and Code Block cells have been great.
- tomahunt 11y agoI really enjoyed starting this up out of the box. I love that I can export and that I can write in latex. I'm curious if I can set this up as a notebook for scientific simulations including plots etc.
- mbreese 11y agoMe too. The simplicity seems very refreshing. I've been keeping all of my main notes as separate Markdown documents for a long time. This will be a big help. I've been looking for an Evernote replacement that was more ahem concise. I've been using Evernote to help plan experiments and track papers, but it can't seem to get out of it's way... particularly when trying to share a notebook with collaborators. Honestly, the biggest downside that I see with Quiver is that it is Mac only. This isn't an issue for me, but might be for some collaborators. Then again, the alternative would be to use some other tool or shared Google Doc or something like that, so Quiver probably isn't too much of a hassle in that regard. You should be able to script writing new data to a note for simulations / plots, given that the notes are JSON files. I love that the DB is an easy to read / edit / backup set of JSON files.
- mcgaffin 11y agoI've been using Alternote (alternoteapp.com) for awhile and really like it. It syncs via the Evernote API so I don't have to import anything and can access my notes on my phone with Evernote. I think they're making a mobile app to eliminate the need to use any Evernote app at all.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- song 11y agoThat looks very good, I just wish I could buy it outside of the mac app store. I really dislike buying for the app store and much prefer buying directly from the company...
- jsjohnst 11y agoCan you explain why? Curious as this differs from most people I've seen.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoI agree. I've downloaded the trial, and if I like what I see (and, of course, the price is right) I'll buy a copy, but only if I can buy one directly from you, not via the App store. The App store has many technical limitations, and it also means the consumer is effectively just licensing software from Apple rather than owning it outright.
- chrisseaton 11y ago> it also means the consumer is effectively just licensing software from Apple rather than owning it outright Isn't almost all software licensed rather than ownership sold? This isn't unique to the App Store.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoSure, most (if not all) software comes with a licence. Maybe I'm not using the best terminology. Maybe I mean "subscribing to", although that implies regular payment. Either way, what I'm referring to is the fact that Apple becomes a point in the critical path to just running your software. Whether intentional, or accidental, Apple can remotely prevent you from running the software you've paid for (e.g. [1]). And I'm not even beginning to cover the terrible App Store app itself or the enormous cut Apple takes from independent developers. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/12/apple-user-anger-mac-apps-break-security-certificate-lapse http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/12/apple-user...
- 100k 11y agoI was skeptical, but looking at the features it could replace Evernote for the way I use it. The main reason I don't use a directory full of text files is I like being able to drag in images.
- EnochSquareRoot 11y agoI've been using this for a couple months after having become annoyed with Evernote always pestering me to move to their paid model. I was able to import all my Evernote content very easily. I love the ability to use Markdown to take notes and the support for VIM commands in code blocks is nice. The only thing I miss from Evernote is access from my iOS devices.
- u02sgb 11y agoCan you give a quick "steps taken" to migrate your notes? I'm gettign fed up with Evernote too, particularly the awful syncing (conflicts mainly).
- whonut 11y agoI haven't done exactly this myself but exporting all of your notes as HTML would be a start. The header has all of the metadata about the note.
- dangoor 11y agoI just exported an Evernote notebook in the evex format and Quiver imported it without issue. It has a specific Evernote import feature.
- moonlighter 11y agoThe author claims to be working on an native iOS app right now: "An iOS app is currently under development. A web-based viewer (read-only) is also planned, which will work on Windows, Linux, and possibly Android." http://yaoganglian.com/2015/12/06/What-is-Quiver/ http://yaoganglian.com/2015/12/06/What-is-Quiver/
- fastball 11y agoWhat exactly are the limitations on the free trial? All I am seeing is a green "Free Trial" banner in the bottom left. Is that it?
- apocalyptic0n3 11y agoIf I remember correctly (I bought Quiver a long time ago), there is no limitations except a trial period and there was an ad below the content/editor area
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoThe tutorial notebook is full of individual notes with multiple 'cells'. When creating my own note, it's not immediately obvious how I achieve this. Hitting ENTER just creates a new paragraph/line within the same cell. I've discovered, through trial and error, that hitting SHIFT+ENTER creates a new cell, but this should maybe be more easily discoverable. Some of the UI elements are a bit out-of-place. I'm not sure if it's just because they're not native controls; I'm still running on Mavericks and it's quite possible these are El Capitan-style controls. Still, it's a tiny bit disconcerting. On a more positive note, I think this is a wonderful concept which can potentially inform future tools for 'code management' (for want of a better term). I think there are plenty of ways in which the integration of code and other content can improve our discipline, so any work in this area is very interesting.
- decisiveness 11y ago> I've discovered, through trial and error, that hitting SHIFT+ENTER creates a new cell, but this should maybe be more easily discoverable. This is in the tutorial, Section 3 - Cell Operations.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoThat's great, the tutorial notebook is a nice addition. To its credit, the app is usable without wading through a manual first, as all software should be. I still feel a toolbar icon or a more obvious way to create a new cell would be beneficial.
- moonlighter 11y agoActually, it says so right in the 1st note "Getting started": "Click inside a new note and start typing. Press “shift+return” (⇧⏎) to create a new cell and use “backspace” to merge cells. That’s all you need to know to start using Quiver."
- coldtea 11y ago>When creating my own note, it's not immediately obvious how I achieve this. Hitting ENTER just creates a new paragraph/line within the same cell. I've discovered, through trial and error, that hitting SHIFT+ENTER creates a new cell, but this should maybe be more easily discoverable. Well, from the menubar: Cell -> New Cell. Which also shows the shortcut next to the menu option.
- eclout 11y agoDefinitely using this over Evernote. This will come in handy when writing notes for any programming courses as well.
- jchendy 11y agoNot clear from the description: is there any ability to execute code directly from the notebook?
- onalark 11y agoShiny, and I love the interface/layout! This looks a lot like the Jupyter/IPython Notebook, which is a free and open source "scientist's notebook". If you're interested in mixing LaTeX, Markdown, and code from almost any language (Python, R, and Julia are very well-supported but there's an open kernel spec), then this might be a more appropriate tool for you to use. The Jupyter/IPython notebook default storage format is JSON, which makes it a little more friendly for text-based version control, and also enables a static HTML view of notebooks (http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/ketch/teaching-numerics-with-notebooks/blob/master/Introducing%20the%20IPython%20Notebook.ipynb http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/ketch/teaching-numerics-w...) on GitHub. Helen Shen wrote up a great article for Nature (http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the-code-1.16261 http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the...) on how scientists are using the notebook, but it also provides a good overview of how you might use it, as well as a free interactive demo.
- ferbivore 11y agoThe originator of the notebook UI is Mathematica if I recall correctly. You can try the web version at [1] - it doesn't quite have the elegance of the desktop one, but is a much better notebook than Jupyter in my experience. [1]: https://lab.open.wolframcloud.com/app/view/newNotebook?ext=nb https://lab.open.wolframcloud.com/app/view/newNotebook?ext=n...
- bonaldi 11y agoI think MPW (the original Mac IDE from Apple) in 1985 can claim prior art on the notebook UI
- scw 11y agoPerhaps, but this patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US8407580 https://www.google.com/patents/US8407580) and a history of litigation (e.g. (http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/ http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/) may be enough of a barrier to prevent its adoption.
- yazriel 11y agoWhy oh why do people still write standard GUI applications in non-portable platform ?! Its a mystery to me
- kartan 11y agoI agree on that. Unless you are developing a platform specific utility that is not meaningful in other environments, it is not a good practice to limit yourself. It also makes sense is when you are not creating a product bust just playing with a technology. Even Microsoft is now doing multi-platform tools for developers (https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/).
- akvadrako 11y agoBecause otherwise they don't look or behave nicely.
- st3v3r 11y agoOr you end up writing the same product multiple times.
- sergiotapia 11y agoYou either make it look beautiful in one place, or make it look like ass in three places. Or, option C: You use Electron, like Slack.
- baldfat 11y agoQt looks very nice to me. But then again my preferred GUI is ncurse in my terminal (urxvt) with tmux in a tiled window manager (i3).
- sanderjd 11y agoI keep waiting for Slack to realize that they're a big enough company now that they can afford to make native apps that look and work better than the Electron version. I'd much rather have a real native app than a webpage inside some minimal window chrome. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tumblen 11y agoThis does look great! Start-up time is super fast. Is there a way to nest notebooks? That's actually pretty important to me.
- udit99 11y agoI happily use a github repo for taking my 'programmer notes'. Advantages: 1. Goes well with my programming workflow: Change/Commit/Push 2. Allows me to use my preferred editor 3. No need to worry about backups: Git push and you're done 4. Accessible from anywhere, even if you don't have your computer Is there anything that Quiver would offer that I wouldnt already have with a github repo?
- noir_lord 11y agoI do the same, bitbucket allows you to group repo's by project or team (or both) so I always create a default docs repo. For actual notes I just use org-mode since it can be read easily in nearly anything, supports all the bits I want and has nice html/pdf export if I need to send a todo/completed list out to anyone. What's nice is I can keep my own meta-docs project which just links to each repo for each set of projects so I can jump around different projects transparently as well.
- zwischenzug 11y agoI do the same with plain text. I find the low tech is very durable, if not such a snazzy experience.
- na85 11y agoPrivacy?
- jonathantm 11y agoNotebook noun 1. Paper notebook 2. Laptop 3. Apparently another fucking thing as well now.
- cben 11y ago1(a). A thing inside which you write notes. Plus the document model used — a mix of different kinds of "cells" — has a history of being called a "notebook interface" (cf. Mathematica, IPython/Jupyter notebook, https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-notebook-interface-in-programming https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-notebook-interface-in-progra...).
- fernandotakai 11y agooh man, i would 1000% buy this if there was a linux version. looks great, has great functionality, but i don't use osx anymore for development :(
- jwr 11y agoSo perhaps I won't have to write my own app for keeping an electronics projects logbook after all. There is a scarcity of reasonably simple apps that let you mix notes with images, without lots of clickery. I will be taking a very close look at this app!
- jwr 11y agoAlas, nope. It's already too complex. There is no way to "simply drop this image in", you have to drag it to the right type of cell (only text notes support images), and if you don't have a text cell ready, tough. Similarly to append text to a note (think of a log), you first have to click somewhere, choose a cell type… Overall, it seems to be a nice app, but for people who enjoy spending time organizing their notes. I don't, I just want a simple way to keep my notes — so I guess it's back to writing my own app after all.
- MrTonyD 11y agoI've often thought about how different things would be if programming editors had always allowed for image integration (with hiding of course.) That would mean that every source tree would have been able to integrate explanatory graphics. And since I've probably spent 100x more time maintaining/modifying code than creating code, that would have been a big win for me and a lot of other people.
- jadbox 11y agoMac only? Not open source? Consider this a downvote.
- mrmondo 11y agoI don't think you need to down vote it because it doesn't suit you. Yes I'd like if it was open source and available on Linux as well, but it's not a bad, dangerous or negative product.
- Phenix88be 11y agoOrg-mode is better !
- nodivbyzero 11y agoyep, I use org-mode for my programmers note last 15 years.
- NoGravitas 11y agoMy goodness, has org-mode been around for 15 years already? I only noticed it in 2005 or 2006.
- MrTonyD 11y agoIt would be great if you could explain why org-mode is better. I'm not familiar with it. Edit: Just realize that it is something specific to emacs. No further information necessary.
- hathym 11y agolooks great, but desktop app are so 2000! I would start working on a web version if I were you.
- infinite8s 11y agoNot everyone wants to store their personal notes in the cloud.
- mrmondo 11y agoNo thanks, I'd take a native desktop app over a web app any day of the week thank you very much.
- wangchow 11y agoI use a pencil and paper.
- grimgrin 11y agoI still use vimwiki. It has a few warts, but since I'm comfortable with it (as in when you learn some of the leader commands, it becomes more powerful) and files are saved to Dropbox, it makes work and home note taking convenient. It's particularly nice in that if you are already in vim; <leader>ww will open the wiki index. https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki I've also been doing some note taking with :set filetype=journal in use with junegunn's nice syntax. https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal
- elliotec 11y agoI have been unable to find an advantage that vimwiki or vim outliner have over just using vim with markdown in a Dropbox directory. Folding, numbering, etc work really well for me for that. What do you like about it in particular over what I could do with markdown?
- grimgrin 11y agoThere are definite advantages to just doing what you do. I like classic markdown syntax more. Things like #foo instead of = foo =. But I particularly like some of the ways vimwiki functions. I like that I can type project_notes and hit <return> and it opens up a new project_notes.wiki, and then I can hit <backspace> to go back to the previous wiki. There are more normal mode keybindings that you might find yourself using. Sometimes I remove unwanted wikis by <leader>wd, which will delete the wiki you are currently viewing (it's nice in that you can see the content then quickly delete). Renaming, too. Maybe I can sum it up to just say I prefer the navigation and handling of new/unwanted files with vimwiki?
- seagreen 11y agoThe more I read about different applications, the more I think you can't understand them unless you look at the underlying data format. Here's Quiver's: https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/wiki/Quiver-Data-Format https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/wiki/Quiver-Data-Format It's . . . really good. Like, _really_ good. I particularly like that they keep the metadata and the content of the note separate. This is the same thing Camlistore does, and it's nice for version control because making changes to the metadata (adding new tags or whatever) doesn't show up as a content change. Speaking of version control, Quiver's thoughts on this are interesting: "Since Quiver stores all the data in plain JSON files, it’s easy to put the whole library (or a specific notebook) under version control. This is another way to collaborate with your team." Leaving version control up to the user isn't the worst, but it does mean that it won't be straightforward to put an "undo" in the GUI (if the GUI already has undo somehow I'd like to hear how they do it). I'm also not sure whether it would be better to version the whole notebook or individual qvnotes. I have more thoughts on this (starting from a slightly different angle of how it relates to wikis) here: http://housejeffries.com/page/4 http://housejeffries.com/page/4. EDIT: Something just occurred to me. If HappenApps wanted to make a machine readable schema for qvnotebook and qvnote they could use JSON Schema for the JSON part. What would they use for the directory part? Is there such a thing as a schema for directories? (e.g. this directory must contain a `content.json` file, a `meta.json` file, etc.)
- Fuxy 11y agoSmall flaw though. It only runs on OS-X. I might give it a shot if they decide to support linux. Note: I was being sarcastic when I said small.
- fweespeech 11y agoThat honestly isn't a small flaw if you are building a note/documentation application of any kind. The ability to share it is too valuable to use anything that can't be used on all platforms.
- amelius 11y ago
- NoGravitas 11y agoFeature-wise, it looks a lot like org-mode - hierarchical rich text notebooks with support for Markdown, LaTeX, and code samples. Advantage: pretty OS X application. Disadvantages: OS X only, not integrated with the full power of Emacs.
- asdavey1 11y agoThere doesn't seem to be an option for on disk encryption. I don't want to leave my notes on dropbox or another sharing service in plain text - something that Laverrna has baked in. I just wish Laverna was as polished as this app.
- adrusi 11y agoOne of the major features of this application seems to be it's transparent, documented, and presumably stable data format. This makes it practical to run it on top of an external encryption layer. Safe[0] seems to be a good free encryption system that works on Mac and would be compatible with dropbox's synchronization system. It might seem ugly to factor out the encryption like this, but even though it requires a little configuration, it's an example of elegant software composition. Its also good from a security perspective relative to every little notebook application containing its own encryption system. [0] http://www.getsafe.org/about http://www.getsafe.org/about
- asymptotic 11y agoIf you're on Mac just create a sparse encrypted DMG using Disk Utility, put it into Dropbox, bam you're done. http://blog.fosketts.net/2011/07/05/mac-dropbox-encrypted-volume/ http://blog.fosketts.net/2011/07/05/mac-dropbox-encrypted-vo... I prefer applications to focus on one thing and do it very well, and leave other orthogonal functionality to other applications or the OS to then do the other parts very well. In this respect Quiver is well designed, I tip my hat to the author.
- dcsan 11y agoit would be nice if you could customize the cursor movements. block travel is something I find essential for editing with atom/sublime.
- arrty88 11y agoNice product. I've been using evernote for this kind of stuff for a long time.
- mey 11y agoA few questions 1) Any plans to support Windows or Linux 2) Do you handle High-DPI screens, (vector graphics for icons?, obey screen scaling)
- cohomologo 11y agoThe author made a ShowHN post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683597) about this previously, where they commented (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8684082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8684082) that he had no plans for a Windows or Linux port - but they wouldn't mind if someone else used the same design and format to do so. There seems to be a lot of similar interest, so maybe someone with the right skills could start a community developed open source linux and/or windows port.
- ArtDev 11y agoQuiver: A Programmer's Notebook for OSX There, I fixed the title.
- dang 11y agoGood idea—we've changed the title to that (before seeing your comment, in fact). Some of the complaints in this thread about the program only existing for Mac, though, are childish. It's fine to ask for another version, but to carp about it petulantly is embarrassing.
- izacus 11y agoHowso?
- blorenz 11y agoThis is something I have been looking for with this type of interface. Markdown support seems the easiest, but why not use something more robust like AsciiDoc http://asciidoc.org/ http://asciidoc.org/ ?
- nikolay 11y agoIt's great to see somebody caring about AsciiDoc as well, which is always getting neglected! Even GitHub supports it!
- shady_trails 11y agoI've been using Quiver for the last year as a means of writing programming tutorials for beginners. Fantastic product. I usually save the notebooks I create onto google drive, which gives me the ability to easily open each notebook on other machines. Poor man's sync.
- vittore 11y agoSo it is pretty much evernote with different way of storing notes
- fiatjaf 11y agoI thought it would actually run your code.
- bitshiter 11y agoI definitely plan on checking this out. Another nice programmer's notebook I've been using for awhile is Marxico https://marxi.co/ https://marxi.co/. It's integrated with Evernote, but I think you can use it standalone. It supports Markdown, code snippets (in markdown ```), latex and sequence/flowchart diagrams. To me it feels a little more natural to write a markdown document rather then thinking about each block of text as "cells".
- iconjack 11y ago"The Mac Programmer's Notebook"
- funkaster 11y agointeresting... but I started playing with orgmode a few weeks ago and I'm not going anywhere else. Especially after I finally found a nice (working) workflow for literate programming.
- niftylettuce 11y agoYou guys should watch this repo https://github.com/niftylettuce/seuss.md https://github.com/niftylettuce/seuss.md (nothing yet, but just watch it ;)
- jalfresi 11y agoWhat with the recent issues with Evernote, which I use heavily and the wonderful data format, I just bought this and am going to write a small program to export all my evernotes into it. Excellent stuff!
- jalfresi 11y agoJust as a heads up for those migrating from Evernote - Quiver imports evernote .enex files out of the box! Yay!
- elcapitan 11y agoThis looks interesting. Would replace my use of evernote for such things. I found this bit funny, though: "Quiver lets you sync all your notes across multiple computers via Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or any other file-based cloud services." .. like .. any other application that saves files to disk into a synced folder?
- devarist 11y agoSimilar but not identical is our Developer's Daily Journal https://devarist.com https://devarist.com
- panamafrank 11y agoThat's nice but costs $$. <now here comes the bit where i talk about MY solution...> I have a markdown file in a private git repo for each month, I append a new header with the date at the start of each day and use it as a notepad, dumping whatever comes to mind. Most importantly I don't go back and revise what I've written.
- bubblicious 11y agoAs a software engineer, I'm always baffled by this reaction... It's $10, less than what I just paid for lunch. Have we completely lost the value of good software?
- nickpeterson 11y agoMy wife complains when I buy a $2 app, yet we spend that on a coke from a machine without a second thought.
- yardie 11y agoWe've lost the value of any digital goods. People will balk at paying $.99 for a song they will one forever but won't think 2 seconds about dropping a $1 into the hat of a busker on the subway.
- oxryly1 11y ago(Also a software engineer) Yes, we've probably lost the value of good software a bit. The bigger issue is that I no longer judge the value of software based purely on a page (or app store description) advertising it. I need to try it out to see its value. So if the company is charging up front for the software, just about any amount seems too much.
- st3v3r 11y agoThey have a free trial available.
- tomsmeding 11y agoSays it supports LaTeX, and then admits it won't do anything but math mode. That isn't LaTeX, that's TeX. The "La-" isn't there for nothing.
- omaranto 11y agoNo, but it supports LaTeX math mode commands, such as \frac, that are not in plain TeX (in plain TeX $1 + \frac{a+b}{c+d}$ is written $1 + {{a+b} \over {c+d}}$ --but you might be able to omit one set of braces). I don't see any reason for people to avoid the LaTeX additions to mathmode.
- jjn2009 11y agoThis is quality software. I've been using the built in osx 'notes' for note taking for a while now and this is much better for my purposes. One thing I would like is to be able to run code snippets with a click of a button, I cannot seem to find that feature.
- seivan 11y agoUse Automator to create a service so you could (well if you're brave) dump the code into whatever you need it to run, e.g Ruby or Swift REPL. Let me know how it goes.
- aldanor 11y agoIs there a way to scale up the fonts for the UI of the whole app? On a 27'' screen it just begs for it. Is is possible to quickly switch a cell to a code format with a specified language? (triple backquotes? like ```python?)
- moonlighter 11y agoYou can customize the default fonts for the editor, preview and presentation via CSS, and you can theme the entire UI with different colors, but I haven't found a way to change the font size for the core controls like the left notebook bar. Add a feature request @ https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/issues https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/issues For cells, you can Opt+Cmd+2 to convert to a code cell, then Opt+Cmd+/ to bring up the list of languages and then type ahead. That's about as close as it gets. You can also set the default language for new code cells in preferences.
- ytjohn 11y agoThis looks really awesome, will test it out. I like that they let you download the trial. Don't like you have to go into the Apple Store to buy the app. There is an app called Dash[1] that has a lot of source code and api documentation stored offline and searchable. It also boasts that you can put your own code snippets in it. So I really wanted to use Dash to keep all my code snippets in, as well as the documentation lookup feature. But adding code snippets to Dash is a somewhat involved process, and I eventually gave up on using it as a notebook. But it might be interesting to see about converting the freely downloadable docsets into something readable by Quiver. This might not be easily doable since these docsets are in a myriad of formats, and quiver only supports markdown and latex currently. Adding reStructured text would probably open up some possibilities. https://kapeli.com/dash https://kapeli.com/dash
- kozukumi 11y agoDash is iOS/OS X only however there is the excellent Zeal* that uses the same Dash docsets. https://zealdocs.org/ https://zealdocs.org/
- cabalamat 11y agoWhat I have been using for making programmer's notes is CatWiki[1], a very simple wiki that uses Markdown and stores its pages as text files. 1: https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki
- brentru 11y agoAbsolutely love the interface/layout and GitHub integration! Going to try it out tomorrow for my c# programming class notes since my hand-written notes for most programming classes are lacking.
- hohohmm 11y agoI asked a question last year about whether there is an app like Evernote but more tailored to the programmer's need. Quiver's developer answered my post then but the app was lacking one major functionality - cloud sync. Let's see if it's addressed now :D
- staticvar 11y agoDirections for taking notes on a computer: - Create a folder. - Create notes as files named like tweets `my note #javascript #yolo.txt`. - Write markdown in plain text files. - Open the folder from your choice of editor. - Distribute your notes folder using Git, Dropbox, Drive, etc. - Enjoy your notes FOREVER. Atom works great when you need your notes in a Desktop environment. The command line is wonderful when you are on a server. Byword is amazing on iPhone. Nothing great I've found for Android yet.
- outcoldman 11y agoAlso setup somewhere https://github.com/gollum/gollum https://github.com/gollum/gollum to have quick access to your notes
- staticvar 11y agoI forgot to add, use http://prose.io http://prose.io to access your Notes repo on Github anywhere.
- nafizh 11y agoIt seems the export note as a pdf, html or markdown option does not work in the trial version. But it is not mentioned anywhere. Is it a bug or as I mentioned - nonfunctional in the trial version?
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoThe PDF export works fine for me - what problem do you see?
- autoreleasepool 11y agoFor a free alternative I recommend MacDown https://github.com/uranusjr/macdown https://github.com/uranusjr/macdown
- waterlight 11y agoSpeaking of monoculture: It is nothing wrong to start to build something on your daily platform firstly, then test if it will be accepted by users. Eventually, if it is loved by everyone, the founder should consider making it cross-platform (native, please!).
- bobochan 11y agoI'm late to the conversation, but I bought a copy yesterday and I just could not be happier with the product. I'm hoping to convert all of my teaching notes and use the presentation mode in class. I have been a dedicated org-mode user, but this might be the one exception to my "emacs for everything" policy.
- mrmondo 11y agoQuestion: is there a way to clip websites to it? This is a feature I use a lot in Evernote that I'd sorely miss.