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Show HN: Real-time notes app built with Vue.js, inspired by Notational Velocity
- 0xCMP 9y agoI never used Notational Velocity, but this seems like an awesome UI to use for Notes. As long as you have powerful search you can always find your notes by their content and create new ones when the ones you find aren't relevant. How many times I've created a new note related to something I wrote about before, but didn't want to search for. Now I'd basically be forced to search for it when I tried to create the new note and I'd assume this would help keep all those thoughts and ideas at least somewhat related to each other.
- robgough 9y agoIt really is great, I've been using it for years -- and all my notes are stored as plain-text (markdown) files. Only downside is images really. If you want to try it, check out this more-recently-updated fork. The creator of the fork is apparently working on a replacement that I'm rather looking forward to trying. http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/
- leemailll 9y agoAny recommendation for a companion iOS app to sync with NValt?
- eddyg 9y agonvNotes[1] was great, but the latest version removed Dropbox syncing (because the developer was using an older API that is being deprecated) and now it's... no so useful. Combined with nvALT[2] on the Mac, this used to be a great combo. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nvnotes-note-taking-writing-app/id700659300?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nvnotes-note-taking-writing-... [2] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/
- kwouk 9y ago1Writer[1] is the best I've tried, assuming you're using Dropbox for sync. [1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1writer-note-taking-writing-app/id680469088?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1writer-note-taking-writing-...
- leejoramo 9y agoAnd Brett Terpstra -- the programmer of nvAlt -- uses 1Writer as well. He reviewed 1Writer in 2015 and continues to recommend it. http://brettterpstra.com/2015/01/28/my-pick-for-best-ios-nvalt-companion/ http://brettterpstra.com/2015/01/28/my-pick-for-best-ios-nva...
- zhynn 9y agonvAlt integrates with Simplenote for syncing. More here: https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/superpower-your-note-taking-skills-with-nvalt-and-simplenote--cms-20816 https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/superpower-your-not...
- hyperdunc 9y agoThanks for this. I've been using Notational Velocity for years and often occasionally looked for an update but found none. What's the replacement you mentioned? I didn't see any info on the linked site.
- robgough 9y agoApparently it's going to be called bitwriter (see the bottom of this post http://brettterpstra.com/2016/02/12/marked-2-dot-5-4-updates-fixes-and-improvements/ http://brettterpstra.com/2016/02/12/marked-2-dot-5-4-updates...) but there's not much information out there yet.
- hyperdunc 9y agoIt's been more than a year. Hopefully not abandoned.
- galfarragem 9y agoOr just use Sublime and a cloud. Ctrl+Shift+F will search all your notes. (https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster-gtd https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster-gtd)
- baby 9y agoThat's what I do at the moment. I have an open window of ST3 at all time with a bunch of notes in there.
- danyim 9y agoThe app looks really well put together. I went as far as creating an account until I realized it unusable on mobile--I need to hit control + enter to create a note.
- meagher 9y agoYeah, open to suggestions! The point is to use the keyboard for everything so mobile is tricky. Also, all the code is on GitHub (https://github.com/tmm/notational https://github.com/tmm/notational).
- RandomInteger4 9y agoIf on android there is a useful keyboard app called "Hacker's Keyboard". Useful for programming on the go. Edit: comes with ctrl among 0ther keys that is.
- iansowinski 9y agoThis + Termux saved my life a few times :D
- JohnKacz 9y agoVery quick, nice work. I'm assuming more information and features are coming. Do you have a place to follow along? (Twitter, blog, Github, etc.) I'm interested in things like a feature road map, privacy policy, business model. Edit: OP posted below (https://github.com/tmm/notational https://github.com/tmm/notational)
- meagher 9y agoThanks! Yes, more features coming (and a pro version). Feel free to request features or dig into the code (https://github.com/tmm/notational https://github.com/tmm/notational). You can follow along on GitHub, Twitter (https://twitter.com/tomfme https://twitter.com/tomfme), and I'll send email updates out to signed up users.
- andreareina 9y agoNot working for me, I'm guessing it's due to this? FIREBASE WARNING: The Firebase database you are trying to use has reached its peak connections limit. If you are the Firebase owner, consider upgrading. (https://notational- velocity.firebaseio.com) FF 53.0.2 on macOS, uBlock Origin isn't showing anything as blocked
- meagher 9y agoThanks, working to get it back up!
- skocznymroczny 9y agowhy does it say notational-velocity in the URL if OP claims it's inspired by it? Is it used its database for backend?
- pmilla1606 9y agoFirebase DB has reached maximum connections. Keep an eye on your usage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409
- marknadal 9y agoI work on an Open Source alternative, which isn't capped (and has an easy 1 click deploy to Heroku), hopefully this will be helpful for people maxing out connections: https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun .
- max0563 9y agoVue.js is awesome! I am glad to see so many more people adopting it for serious projects.
- galfarragem 9y agoVue is a proof that good stuff doesn't need advertisement.
- yazan94 9y agoSeeing so many new cool projects done in Vue makes me wish I used it instead of ng2 for my pet project. Ah well, I'll keep it in mind for the next one
- porker 9y agoWhat are your favourite libraries/extensions (for want of a better term) to use with it? I'm on my first VueJS 2 project, and found a number which are abandoned...
- meagher 9y agoVuex (https://github.com/vuejs/vuex https://github.com/vuejs/vuex) and vue-router (https://github.com/vuejs/vue-router https://github.com/vuejs/vue-router) are nothing flashy, yet really solid. There are tons more in the awesome-vue repo (https://github.com/vuejs/awesome-vue https://github.com/vuejs/awesome-vue). Even though Vue has less libraries/extensions than something like React, the core: state management, routing, Vue component spec are quite good.
- ianleeclark 9y agoVuex is really nice. I had always been afraid of Redux, Mobx and other flux-like implementations, but after porting a project from using internalized state in each component to one store in vuex this weekend, it ended up being refreshingly simple.
- porker 9y agoThanks, "nothing flashy, yet really solid" is EXACTLY what I look for in libraries.
- enraged_camel 9y agoSemi-related: I've been using Vue along with Phoenix on the server, and the stack is simply incredible in terms of productivity and ease-of-use. I'm tentatively planning on writing a book that teaches how to use the two together (I call the stack "Vuenix"). Would people here be interested in that?
- it_learnses 9y agosure, I'd be interested. I've been wanting to learn phoenix/elixir for a while just for fun and I've never used Vue.js before.
- faitswulff 9y agoI love Vue and I'm interested in learning Phoenix. What's particularly compelling about the stack?
- KaoruAoiShiho 9y agoYes is there an article somewhere to inform me why you would use Phoenix over ruby?
- enraged_camel 9y agoPhoenix is great because it gives you the same productivity benefits that Rails does, but it doesn't have any of the crazy "magic", which makes it both fast and also easy to understand. When you want to learn about how something works you can pop the hood and read the source code, and it's both well-documented and easy to understand. Elixir is also functional as opposed to object-oriented, which means no leaky abstractions! I like Vue because it's easy to pick up and it gets out of your way. It's not as complex as React, but still very powerful and extensible. Vue's browser extension is also top-notch. I like working with them as a stack because they are both very transparent, which makes it easy to reason about when you're passing data back and forth between the server and the client. The only way I can describe it is that it feels very "natural".
- atom-morgan 9y ago
- rglover 9y agoGreat UI. Nice work :) Love the keyboard flow between creating notes and searching for existing ones. Works really well.
- Jonovono 9y agoThis is website only? That kinda defeats the purpose of a Notational velocity clone doesn't it?
- KaoruAoiShiho 9y agoThe only reason I'm not using vue yet is because of react-native. Is the vue equivalent of that going to finish soon?
- meagher 9y agoHaven't tried it out yet, but Weex (https://weex.apache.org/ https://weex.apache.org/) looks really promising. I think this will be table stakes for most frameworks moving forward.
- yawz 9y agoLooking great! Thanks for sharing. I assume it's not open-sourced, but I wanted to ask about the code nonetheless. I would have loved to see it to appreciate Vue.js better.
- meagher 9y agoIt is (https://github.com/tmm/notational https://github.com/tmm/notational)! Star, fork, watch it!
- yawz 9y agoExcellent! Thanks!
- swah 9y agoI could try to understand from the source, but since you're here: how are you handling application state and non-parent child communication? Also, is your search feature client side only? Also, Ctrl+enter isn't working for me (Chrome, Linux)
- kylestlb 9y agoLooks like they're using Vuex (https://github.com/vuejs/vuex https://github.com/vuejs/vuex) It's a nice library, I've used it for a few projects.
- swah 9y agoYeah, I'm not totally happy with my little VueJS application. Lots of components, lots of pubsub..
- agnivade 9y agovuex is pretty amazing ! After seeing flux and redux, I thought well here we go again, another of those complex state management architectures with reducers, flow management and all. Turns out its just a plain and simple reactive global store ! And the documentation is simply stellar.
- mobitar 9y agoAlso recommend checking out Standard Notes if you're looking for a cross platform encrypted notes app. It's built with Angular and open-source. https://standardnotes.org https://standardnotes.org
- galfarragem 9y agoThe landing page is great: it shows exactly what the product does/is and all of this without having to scroll down.
- adamcccc 9y agoNV is an awesome app, glad to see it now as a webapp too. The only thing I'd ask for is the short key for creating a new note to be cmd + enter for us mac people.
- cdubzzz 9y agoI don't think this comment should be dead - adamcccc's confusion illustrates the interesting naming used for this product and how it can cause confusion. Looks like NV[0] has seen and approved of it, but it still seems like an odd choice. [0] https://github.com/tmm/notational/issues/2 https://github.com/tmm/notational/issues/2
- jscott313 9y agoAuthor's response to the Issue you linked: "Also, will add the same text to the top of the README.md and the footer of the home page, along with a link to notational.net." He hasn't done those things yet, which is probably why people are confused about it.
- pritambarhate 9y agoOff topic, since this site uses firebase: For firebase one has to include the API keys and other info in the JS itself. I think that this is just another mongo DB like hack waiting to happen. Becuase a lot of developers might not know how to configure firebase read, write access rules properly. So as far as I understand anybody determined enough should be able to read the JS and read and write(!!) to other people's data. Is there something I am missing here?
- aaomidi 9y agoI've used firebase before, the default settings have proper read and write settings per user.
- owens99 9y agoForgive me for asking, but I can't find a clear answer anywhere. What is the business benefit to using Vuejs and what is the closest alternative?
- tghw 9y agoVue is a reactive JS framework, similar to React or Angular. It's lighter weight, but comes with less built in. It's a very nice framework to work with, easy to get up and running, but powerful enough to build a full featured web app.
- callmeed 9y agoI believe it is a React/Angular/Ember/Backbone/jQuery alternative ...
- virgil_disgr4ce 9y agoThe business benefit is going to be subject to a lot of debate. In principle though, it's that it's less time to implement.
- meagher 9y agoReact.js is probably the most similar popular framework because of its one-way data binding. Vue's creator (Evan You) wrote a Comparison with Other Frameworks (http://vuejs.org/v2/guide/comparison.html http://vuejs.org/v2/guide/comparison.html) that's worth reading. Dan Abramov, co-author of Redux, helped keep the comparison with React grounded.
- noir_lord 9y agoIf you are moving onto an old jquery style codebase (via inheriting/changing job) Vue.js can be used as a straight drop in library via a script tag and you can start unsouping that jquery mess. It also reminds me a lot of a spiritual successor to KnockoutJS (which was/is my favourite JS clientside tool still).
- WhitneyLand 9y agoInteresting. That's a nice feature that sounds boring on paper but very practical.
- virgil_disgr4ce 9y agoAs a daily—more like every minute—user of NV (actually nvAlt), and a proto-fan attracted to Vue.js, I love this. Great work.
- stefanwlb 9y agoThat's awesome ! Would you be able to explain what frameworks, etc you used to create it. I'm just learning to program. As in front end, back end etc.
- meagher 9y agoHigh-level details: Notational runs on Firebase (serverless) and uses Vue.js (along with Vuex and vue-router). For more details, email me at tom@meagher.co. I'm happy to help anyone learning to code/build apps.
- catskull 9y agoDid you use some kind of UI framework? Is it just bootstrap? This design is awesome. I _love_ the minimal direction we're heading.
- dhruvkar 9y agoReally Nice! Small nitpick: Displays really well on mobile, however, creating a note requires user to hit ctrl+enter, which is not easy to do on a phone.
- hilyen 9y agoShortcuts do not work at all for me on OSX, I'd try this once that is fixed.
- meagher 9y agoIt was built using macOS so not sure what the problem is. If you want to message me more specifics at tom@meagher.co, I can start looking into it.
- rimjeilly 9y agopretty cool, but isnt this pretty much Google Keep? Or is it more just to display uses of vue.js?
- lol768 9y agoNitpick: pressing up and down on the preview page scrolls the page as well as stepping through the results in the top pane.
- franole 9y ago>keep your hands on the keyboard It is probably a question of generation, but young people do not want to use the keyboard and do not value the agility that can be achieved. Not so long ago, I spent some time adding keyboard shortcuts to an ERP written in Angular, just to realize that only ~ 30% of users (those who had used the old DOS-based ERP) saw value in that requirement.
- cat199 9y agoWhile I get you on the under-appreciation of keyboard shortcuts, I think in this case there is some overlap as a selling feature with both user types since the actual application itself (vs navigation) is a text note-taking application...
- asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y agoI use the keyboard for everything - but would probably ignore your shortcuts because I already have extensions that let me use the keyboard efficiently in the browser environment.
- taphangum 9y agoLove seeing examples like this. If anyone is interested in more in-depth Vue examples and back and forth, check out the VueJS subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/vuejs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vuejs/.
- amitmerchant 9y agoIt would be really cool if you can make it a progressive web app.
- agnivade 9y agoIKR ! I am making a pwa built with vuejs and material design. Its a forum software inspired from flarum and google inbox. Its only 30% done, but its getting there ! - https://github.com/agnivade/adda https://github.com/agnivade/adda
- cwilson 9y agoI'm a tad confused by a few things. Is this meant to be a cool tech demo, or a real product? I noticed the author mentioned adding new features and a premium version in another comment. This leads me to believe it's intended to be a real product. With that in mind, I have a few questions: 1. If this is inspired by Notational Velocity, a very popular and real product, why is this also named Notational? I understand if you're doing a cool tech demo that it's not a big deal, but if you plan to charge money for this you probably shouldn't copy their name. 2. Was "Notational Velocity but real-time" your hypothesis of what would make this something people want to use/buy? If so, what about all the other very standard features that note-taking and thought storage apps have? Do you plan to hit baseline with those? 3. How do you compete with the larger companies who offer these apps for free to their users? Google Keep, Apple Notes, etc. 4. Is the real-time feature the only way you plan to make this different/better than the others? I'm not trying to be a downer here, but I feel like I see "X app but real-time" posted to HN on a weekly basis now, like it being real-time is going to be the differentiator that makes it wildly popular. Those products then go on to ignore half the reasons why the others have users. Even if they reach feature parity, their one differentiator is "well, it's real-time". I'm not sure that's enough. If this is just meant to be a cool demo of Vue.js (with an awesome homepage), well done, ignore my comments =)
- sotojuan 9y ago> Is the real-time feature the only way you plan to make this different/better than the others? If so, Simplenote already does this and has apps for almost all platforms.
- meagher 9y agoNope, it's not the main feature. The main feature is to keep it simple so you can create/retrieve notes really quickly. This is the site you go to when you need to get something out quickly.
- meagher 9y agoGood questions! Answers below or read the note I wrote (https://notational.co/n/-Kkw64Kxe0gQWoVvS84L https://notational.co/n/-Kkw64Kxe0gQWoVvS84L): 1. The name was something I came up with quickly so I could focus more on making the product. It stuck and I haven't had time to think of a new one. The creator of NV opened up an issue on GitHub (https://github.com/tmm/notational/issues/2 https://github.com/tmm/notational/issues/2), which I am addressing. 2. My hypothesis was "NV plus web." I needed something I could use at home (on my Mac) and at work (on Windows). The plan is to keep it simple so you can create/retrieve notes really quickly. Users have suggested markdown, etc. which I think makes sense., bu it's never going to be a general purpose notes app for everyone. 3. I'm not going to actively compete. Even if no one else uses it, I still will. I would rather have a small number of users that love it than try to appeal to a huge audience that's sort of indifferent. 4. Speed and minimalism are the main differentiators (whether it's creating a new note or trying to find an old one). There are some other cool things (like quick note sharing and dark mode) that make it a joy to use (but hey, I made the thing).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chrshawkes 9y agoHave trolls taken over the comment forums here? This example is hardly anything more than any other TODO example provided by React, Ember, Angular or anything else for that matter. I must be missing something clearly an app such as this couldn't cause such excitement among the HackerNews community?
- WhitneyLand 9y agoChris, I see what you're saying but I think that take is a bit cynical. To me it always feels legit when someone creates a side project as an exploration and wants to share it here no matter how sophisticated or innovative it turns out to be. I like to think that we all share at least some bond where we can be open and honest with our creativity, and not really care about making money or other metrics that we have to care about in real life. I called you cynical, maybe my thought is too idealistic, I understand that. Just a thought
- meagher 9y agoHey! I made the thing and am just as surprised as you! It is simple, but contains more than just your average TODO example (also it's for notes). There are share-able links, auto-save, dark/light modes, and almost everything can be done with the keyboard.
- yev 9y agoNice! Vue is <3. I am actually also working on notes editor in my spare time. Using vue.js and codemirror, keeping notes in local storage. http://notes.yev.io http://notes.yev.io Was thinking of making the project public but not sure if anyone will be interested.
- dejawu 9y agoI've been making my own too! Used it for notes in class for the past two years. https://nanote.co https://nanote.co I really love the look of yours, by the way. It's super clean.
- yev 9y agoThanks!
- samayshamdasani 9y agoIs this open source? looks sick!
- _pmf_ 9y agoI would love to have this kind of interface for the notes that I currently keep in my Pinboard instance.
- jmuguy 9y agoHey just wanted to say I really like the UI work. I thought "dang, what CSS framework is this dude using". Check the github and its just all you, so kudos :)
- meagher 9y agoThanks! I appreciate it. CSS is my favorite!
- agnivade 9y agoQuick question - How are you using firebase for search ? I am building a forum app using vuejs and firebase, and I dont have a elegant solution for search. Btw - the codebase looks neat and very well-maintained !
- meagher 9y agoThanks! Search is currently client-side only (https://github.com/joshaven/string_score https://github.com/joshaven/string_score). This will need to change and I might move everything to Elasticsearch.