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Ask HN: Can you recommend me a lightweight journaling tool

5 points by phakding 8y ago

I am looking to keep brief notes on what I did every day. The Internet blogs are a overkill. Here are my requirements: 1. Lightweight 2. Easily migratable 3. customizable look n feel Nice to have: 1. uses embedded DBs like sqlite 2. written in php 3. Ability to add tags/search by tags

enkiv2 8y ago
Single line shell script: (date ; cat) > ~/.notes
p0d 8y ago
You may like hugo and markdown for journaling. Personally I settled running wordpress in a lxc container in my roofspace. The little hp dual-core box runs wordpress, gitlab and a plex media server. I think sometimes lightweight and simple becomes a pain.
pmdulaney 8y ago
Try workflowy. Not so customizable, but it is easy to make it hierarchical, so things don't get too cluttered. It also handles links well.
ryanmercer 8y ago
I'd just use Evernote and use Zapier or IFTTT to back up entries to gdrive/dropbox etc. Fairly decent app functionality across iOS/Android/Windows/Chrome OS/Mac OS. Great build in tagging, ok searchability and even with a free account you'll still be able to add the occasional photo or small PDF relevant to your entry. I have my Google calendar and Automatic driving history dump to Evernote in appropriate notebooks. The weather also gets added to my Google calendar so gets recorded for each day. Everything gets backed up to my gdrive too as spreadsheets. Similarly, call logs also get backed up to my gdrive via IFTTT and I use 3 different apps to back up my SMS every 3 days which get filed a few different places.
FroshKiller 8y ago
A notebook and a pen.
Artlav 8y ago
A text file? I tend to just write stuff grouped by category into a text file, with timestamp tags (today is 180717). Nothing i tried was more comfortable and portable than that. Standard search function of text editors take care of tags and searching. Picking a text editor is great customization.
jolmg 8y ago
There's org-mode in emacs. I've got mine setup so that hitting `C-x d` opens up a calendar with today as default selected. I press Enter and it visits ~/org/diary/2018-07-16.org, creating it if it doesn't exist.
apexol 8y ago
I'll recommend Zero AM (https://www.roastedbytes.com/zeroam/ https://www.roastedbytes.com/zeroam/)
- phakding 8y ago
  This looks pretty good, unfortunately it's windows only.

5 points by phakding 8y ago

enkiv2 8y ago

Single line shell script: (date ; cat) > ~/.notes

p0d 8y ago

You may like hugo and markdown for journaling. Personally I settled running wordpress in a lxc container in my roofspace. The little hp dual-core box runs wordpress, gitlab and a plex media server. I think sometimes lightweight and simple becomes a pain.

pmdulaney 8y ago

Try workflowy. Not so customizable, but it is easy to make it hierarchical, so things don't get too cluttered. It also handles links well.

ryanmercer 8y ago

I'd just use Evernote and use Zapier or IFTTT to back up entries to gdrive/dropbox etc. Fairly decent app functionality across iOS/Android/Windows/Chrome OS/Mac OS. Great build in tagging, ok searchability and even with a free account you'll still be able to add the occasional photo or small PDF relevant to your entry. I have my Google calendar and Automatic driving history dump to Evernote in appropriate notebooks. The weather also gets added to my Google calendar so gets recorded for each day. Everything gets backed up to my gdrive too as spreadsheets. Similarly, call logs also get backed up to my gdrive via IFTTT and I use 3 different apps to back up my SMS every 3 days which get filed a few different places.

FroshKiller 8y ago

A notebook and a pen.

Artlav 8y ago

A text file? I tend to just write stuff grouped by category into a text file, with timestamp tags (today is 180717). Nothing i tried was more comfortable and portable than that. Standard search function of text editors take care of tags and searching. Picking a text editor is great customization.

jolmg 8y ago

There's org-mode in emacs. I've got mine setup so that hitting `C-x d` opens up a calendar with today as default selected. I press Enter and it visits ~/org/diary/2018-07-16.org, creating it if it doesn't exist.

apexol 8y ago

I'll recommend Zero AM (https://www.roastedbytes.com/zeroam/ https://www.roastedbytes.com/zeroam/)

phakding 8y ago
This looks pretty good, unfortunately it's windows only.