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I started with text files in Notepad, then learnt from a friend how to use Freemind to organise notes as hierarchical mindmaps instead. It worked great, but sea
by creamyhorror 3y ago
I started with text files in Notepad, then learnt from a friend how to use Freemind to organise notes as hierarchical mindmaps instead. It worked great, but search was broken (DFS but only able to find results in one treepath?!). Years passed, and I needed something to take notes with on mobile, and Google Keep was the simplest fit. But Freemind and Keep were both still too inconvenient on desktop, so at some point I ended up back at text files. I skipped all other note-taking apps over the years because I was convinced by people here who said plaintext was best.
In the last two years, though, my current text file has gotten too unwieldy to use. I have to do a bunch of searching to get to sections (or remember their character-exact names). Then last week, I lost a day's research notes because Google Drive crashed and didn't sync until it was too late, overwriting my work. Clearly, I'd outgrown my setup.
This last Sunday, I researched note-taking apps that don't use proprietary formats or cloud storage: Obsidian? Foam? Dendron? Logseq? I went with Obsidian, which while closed-source, keeps everything in Markdown files, so I'll always be able to use them in the future. (Logseq's different approach also seemed promising, and it's open-source too; I'd recommend trying that too.) I set up Obsidian-git for reasonable syncing that wouldn't result my notes being overwritten by accident. It all took a few hours, not endless tinkering.
I've migrated a few note sections into it, done a few diagrams and code blocks. Works well. I think I'm set for the next 10 years.
- protortyp 3y agoI can also recommend using Syncthing with obsidian. I use it to synchronize my vault to all my devices. I also added it to my existing Raspberry Pi server that's always online, so I always have a distributor instance running and don't need to worry about sync issues.
- citizenkeen 3y agoObsidian's ecosystem is incredible. You can make Obsidian a queryable database, a longform book editor a la Scrivener, or a gilded tabletop RPG campaign book. Half of what makes Obsidian so great is that they've encouraged modding so heavily.
- eitland 3y agoI'm using Logseq for the same reasons. .txt was never going to cut it for me, I always include images like drawings, photos and screenshots etc. Logseq is open source, reasonable file format, stable, extensible, has a reasonable plan for funding itself without lock ins, and, for me, is among the smoothest I have used. Notably missing from old OneNote 2016: - shared notebooks w/indication of updates - smoother syncing Notable upgrades from OneNote 2016: - still exists - more structured (OneNote can out text and objects everywhere) - easily extensible - queryable - taggable (Tags in OneNote aren't really tags, only glorified emojis) - open source As for the modern version of OneNote, I have given it up. It almost isn't comparable.
- creamyhorror 3y agoYep, good reasons to use Logseq. I picked Obsidian over Logseq because of the larger community, and because I thought the former's UI looked suitable for hierarchical notes in main categories, which is my usual approach. I go to the right folder and append to the end of the relevant note. I do like Logseq's more free-flowing, block-tagging, hypertext-journal approach, but thought I didn't really need the journal format for now. If Logseq can also do hierarchical organising/browsing with a simple sidebar interface, I think I'll give it a go. Does it work well for that use case? What's nice is that you can run both Logseq and Obsidian on the same Markdown files, since they're (mostly compatible) Markdown, so I'm not too worried about switching as needed or even using both.
- eitland 3y agoI'm not aware of any extension that gives you a hierarchical sidebar on the left. The right side however has a built in "Contents" page - which tells you what it is for - only as far as I know one has to fill it out oneselves. That said, my goal was not to convert you or anyone. I am a NetBeans user myself so I know a bit or two about others telling me why I should switch to "clearly superior alternatives" and I don't want to do that to others ;-)
- creamyhorror 3y ago