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Meta-observation. This topic seems to be getting a lot of attention on HN over the last few months, indicating massive interest. Further, looking at the landsca

Meta-observation. This topic seems to be getting a lot of attention on HN over the last few months, indicating massive interest. Further, looking at the landscape of developments in this space (past all the me-too Markdown note taking apps): Evernote seems to have a fading presence on the landscape, Notion seems to be a (too?) well-funded behemoth startup, Roam is trying some exciting things, and Tiago Forte is putting together some interesting things under the BASB banner. (Any others? Oh btw, there’s also Perkeep) It’s amazing for how long Emacs’ Org-mode has been largely unparalleled! Apart from the revered desktop setup, there are now a bunch of mobile offerings including Organice — not quite slick, but definitely useful. I‘m sincerely rooting for more experiments in this area. I would love to be able to write by hand or speak to my memex (multi-modal interaction). Vannevar Bush’s “As we may think” has languished uncourted for pitifully long. In some ways, this was supposed to be the first “killer app” for personal computing.

jhoechtl 7y ago
> It’s amazing for how long Emacs’ Org-mode has been largely unparalleled! I use org-mode all the day but frankly OneNote is great too! If OneNote would save in plain text and have a cross-platform gui I would use it (even if it's resource-sucking electron)
- 0x262d 7y ago
  I use onenote extensively and the mobile app has gotten steadily a little slower and worse. I would love to have a simpler, faster mobile app that would sync to my computer in plaintext so I could use vim with it.... Basically, onenote is almost there but I would love to leave it
- voltagex_ 7y ago
  The OneNote format is documented. If I knew Haskell I might have a go at adding support to OneNote, but if anyone wants to have a crack at it I'd support you.
- beerandt 7y ago
  OneNote is the only note taking app that I've come remotely close to "successfully" useing. I especially love how it automatically cites and links to whatever you copy and past from the web. That alone is so valuable for documenting workflow and how-to write-ups. However the combination of me using a desktop less and mobile more, plus Microsoft's attempts to turn Office into a web app have soured me to it. That and the limitations mentioned above. I'd love to be able to export to a wiki style interface, but I cringe at thinking about what that html would look like (a la Word's html export). But I have yet to find anything that I like better. Or will consistently use as much.
tra3 7y ago
> It’s amazing for how long Emacs’ Org-mode has been largely unparalleled! After jumping into org last year, I think it because orgmode has a solid foundation for organizing stuff that's infinitely customizable with elisp. Roam, evernote, onenote; they just don't have the flexibility. The lack of customizability is a feature in itself: it's easy to pick up. On the other hand, orgmode has a fairly vibrant community that will keep improving orgmode for many years to come.
rhizome 7y ago
>Evernote seems to have a fading presence on the landscape My understanding is that they're throwing their presence away? Maybe they pivoted to enterprise, I don't know, but for at least a couple years all I've heard about them was people talking about what to use instead.
- macintux 7y ago
  I’ve started retiring my use of Evernote because I simply don’t have any idea whether they’re going to be around for the long run. I’ve been using Emacs for nearly 30 years; it’s about time I learned org-mode.
- slightwinder 7y ago
  I think for a long time they simply had no idea what road they should walk down. So they tried a bunch of stuff, walked in circles and wasted money left and right. Now they settle down on what they always were and try to maintain the established userbase while not scaring them away with too much innovation, and instead delivering conservative improvments. This came with a shutdown of freeusers heaven, and focusing more on the paying customers. Because of which many people seem to be cranky over evernote. Similar think seems to happen at the moment with dropbox too BTW.
marviel 7y ago
It's a ripe space. I'm using notion mostly right now, but I've also used: -Coda.io (big, more scriptable player) -Hypernote (super new player, but with a cool new take on inter-note relationships) -Tiddlywiki (super customizable, really fast -- but also has a fair amount of footguns) -Airtable (only played with it a few times but it's usually mentioned in the same breath as notion, I notice) Hopefully someday we'll achieve Alan Kay's dream :)
- DavideNL 7y ago
  If only Notion was private (like for example Omnifocus.) I can't imagine uploading all my private data to the cloud of a "free" app. OmniFocus is more expensive but i gladly pay to prevent my data from being analyzed & sold.
  - marviel 7y ago
    I don't disagree -- though they do have a paid version, and a modest team size, which seems promising
- elbear 7y ago
  I've only started using Tiddlywiki, so I didn't get the chance to dive deep. Can you mention some of the footguns?
  - theshrike79 7y ago
    Just trying to make it save its state is difficult enough, there's a bunch of hoops to jump through and at least I have never actually managed to do it. It's one of those things I try every few years, fail and quit.
    - elbear 7y ago
      Ok, I know what you mean. That kept me away as well for a while. What made it work for me was to use the desktop app first. Then, I made a setup with nodejs and that's what I'm currently using.
bachmeier 7y ago
> Evernote seems to have a fading presence on the landscape They've made massive changes over the past year. They'll even have a Linux app coming out soon!
- pottertheotter 7y ago
  Really? What massive changes? I use it regularly but haven't noticed anything massive.
gallegojaime 7y ago
My hackerspace is working on a tool to put this knowledge-in-a-computer to work. Essentially, it's a knowledge management system that makes input almost frictionless. This is then mapped into a shareable ontology graph on which algorithms can be executed. Valuable data can be extracted from here. For example: do you need to find a team with a specialized couple of skills? Have applicants send their verified graphs and use those relations to find the best fit. Or, alternatively, someone who's learned a trade/skill can share their dense knowledge with a community, to direct learning more effectively. It's on a very early stage, for now purely for the fun of it. But if there's interest or suggestions (definitely some hard problems to solve) we could focus more efforts towards that.

jhoechtl 7y ago

> It’s amazing for how long Emacs’ Org-mode has been largely unparalleled! I use org-mode all the day but frankly OneNote is great too! If OneNote would save in plain text and have a cross-platform gui I would use it (even if it's resource-sucking electron)

0x262d 7y ago
I use onenote extensively and the mobile app has gotten steadily a little slower and worse. I would love to have a simpler, faster mobile app that would sync to my computer in plaintext so I could use vim with it.... Basically, onenote is almost there but I would love to leave it
voltagex_ 7y ago
The OneNote format is documented. If I knew Haskell I might have a go at adding support to OneNote, but if anyone wants to have a crack at it I'd support you.
beerandt 7y ago
OneNote is the only note taking app that I've come remotely close to "successfully" useing. I especially love how it automatically cites and links to whatever you copy and past from the web. That alone is so valuable for documenting workflow and how-to write-ups. However the combination of me using a desktop less and mobile more, plus Microsoft's attempts to turn Office into a web app have soured me to it. That and the limitations mentioned above. I'd love to be able to export to a wiki style interface, but I cringe at thinking about what that html would look like (a la Word's html export). But I have yet to find anything that I like better. Or will consistently use as much.

tra3 7y ago

> It’s amazing for how long Emacs’ Org-mode has been largely unparalleled! After jumping into org last year, I think it because orgmode has a solid foundation for organizing stuff that's infinitely customizable with elisp. Roam, evernote, onenote; they just don't have the flexibility. The lack of customizability is a feature in itself: it's easy to pick up. On the other hand, orgmode has a fairly vibrant community that will keep improving orgmode for many years to come.

rhizome 7y ago

>Evernote seems to have a fading presence on the landscape My understanding is that they're throwing their presence away? Maybe they pivoted to enterprise, I don't know, but for at least a couple years all I've heard about them was people talking about what to use instead.

macintux 7y ago
I’ve started retiring my use of Evernote because I simply don’t have any idea whether they’re going to be around for the long run. I’ve been using Emacs for nearly 30 years; it’s about time I learned org-mode.
slightwinder 7y ago
I think for a long time they simply had no idea what road they should walk down. So they tried a bunch of stuff, walked in circles and wasted money left and right. Now they settle down on what they always were and try to maintain the established userbase while not scaring them away with too much innovation, and instead delivering conservative improvments. This came with a shutdown of freeusers heaven, and focusing more on the paying customers. Because of which many people seem to be cranky over evernote. Similar think seems to happen at the moment with dropbox too BTW.

marviel 7y ago

It's a ripe space. I'm using notion mostly right now, but I've also used: -Coda.io (big, more scriptable player) -Hypernote (super new player, but with a cool new take on inter-note relationships) -Tiddlywiki (super customizable, really fast -- but also has a fair amount of footguns) -Airtable (only played with it a few times but it's usually mentioned in the same breath as notion, I notice) Hopefully someday we'll achieve Alan Kay's dream :)

DavideNL 7y ago
If only Notion was private (like for example Omnifocus.) I can't imagine uploading all my private data to the cloud of a "free" app. OmniFocus is more expensive but i gladly pay to prevent my data from being analyzed & sold.
- marviel 7y ago
  I don't disagree -- though they do have a paid version, and a modest team size, which seems promising
elbear 7y ago
I've only started using Tiddlywiki, so I didn't get the chance to dive deep. Can you mention some of the footguns?
- theshrike79 7y ago
  Just trying to make it save its state is difficult enough, there's a bunch of hoops to jump through and at least I have never actually managed to do it. It's one of those things I try every few years, fail and quit.
  - elbear 7y ago
    Ok, I know what you mean. That kept me away as well for a while. What made it work for me was to use the desktop app first. Then, I made a setup with nodejs and that's what I'm currently using.

bachmeier 7y ago

> Evernote seems to have a fading presence on the landscape They've made massive changes over the past year. They'll even have a Linux app coming out soon!

pottertheotter 7y ago
Really? What massive changes? I use it regularly but haven't noticed anything massive.

gallegojaime 7y ago

My hackerspace is working on a tool to put this knowledge-in-a-computer to work. Essentially, it's a knowledge management system that makes input almost frictionless. This is then mapped into a shareable ontology graph on which algorithms can be executed. Valuable data can be extracted from here. For example: do you need to find a team with a specialized couple of skills? Have applicants send their verified graphs and use those relations to find the best fit. Or, alternatively, someone who's learned a trade/skill can share their dense knowledge with a community, to direct learning more effectively. It's on a very early stage, for now purely for the fun of it. But if there's interest or suggestions (definitely some hard problems to solve) we could focus more efforts towards that.