14 ms·
Lowercase – A simple way to take and share notes
- thetomcraig 2y agoNit Pick feedback: it should read: “the right _number_ of features”, not “_amount_ of features”. Other than that, love the look of the site :)
- littlestymaar 2y agoNon native speaker here, can you detail why the later is incorrect?
- cole-k 2y agoI'm guessing that "amount" is not quantized ("number" is). Let me be absolutely clear that most native speakers will not notice the distinction (even pedants like me missed this one). You'll also see people being pedantic about "less" versus "fewer," e.g. complaining about the "12 items or less" line being improper usage since items are quantized and therefore it should be "12 items or fewer."
- rpdillon 2y agoYes, less vs fewer always catches my ear. If you can count it, it's 'fewer', if not, it's 'less'.
- Alex63 2y agoIt's probably mostly idiomatic. For native English-speakers it is more natural to use "number" when talking about things that are counted units that would be represented by integers (like marbles, or children, or features). "Amount" would be more appropriate when talking about something that you measure and represent with a floating point number (like butter, or gasoline/petrol, or risk). But an English-speaker will understand what you mean if you say "amount of features" instead of "number of features." And since we're being picky, it should be "the latter is correct", not "the later is correct."
- CharlesW 2y ago"Number" is correct when referring to countable items (like "features"), while "amount" is correct for non-countable things (like "water" or "time").
- whiddershins 2y agoSorry, sibling responses still aren’t quite answering this correctly. Number is for countable distinct things, and amount is for a quantity of a single thing. (Often a substance) So a number of sticks, a number of socks, a number of people. A number of eggs. An amount of flour, sugar, water, money, time. A number of minutes equals an amount of time.
- jaktet 2y ago> A number of minutes equals an amount of time This is short and succinct and sums it up pretty well
- quartesixte 2y agoCounterpoint: I know grammatically it isn't the most correct, but I don't see anything non-idiomatic about "amount of features". Reason: "Just the right amount" is a set, idiomatic expression. "Just the right amount of ___" is just extending the expression. IMO extending idiomatic expressions exempts it from a lot of the formal word-pairing conventions in English. But I'm no linguist.
- crashmat 2y agoI think amount of is usually used for 'continuous' (I'm not sure on the word) substances like flour, water, or salt, rather than multiples of discreet objects.
- quartesixte 2y agoI can also have: Just the right amount of cats Just the right amount of internet points Just the right amount of chutzpah
- chucksmash 2y agoImplying chutzpah is a discrete variable, and chutzpah is never discreet
- akaij 2y agoDepending on the flavour of the linguist, they could say "as long as the correct meaning is conveyed, go wild" :)
- mattstrayer 2y agoco-founder here: feel free to ask any questions!
- voidUpdate 2y agoWhat are the advantages of this over, say, Obsidian?
- mattstrayer 2y agoLowercase really shines when you want to take notes free-form and then be able to share those notes out into the world. You can easily make a note public & even cooler than that you can turn a lowercase note into a presentation with just a few clicks. Here's an old example I pulled up -> https://www.lowercase.app/@matt/p/1f6c83d5-2869-4024-a687-fcd733b5cd06/ https://www.lowercase.app/@matt/p/1f6c83d5-2869-4024-a687-fc... In my editor I was able to just group parts of my note into logical slide sections and then publish. Edit: you can move through the slide show with your left and right arrows.
- yellow_postit 2y agoCan I export or host the data myself? For work sensitive notes I can’t/won’t use an untrusted sync mechanism.
- mattstrayer 2y agoTotally a fair use-case and request! Right now we don't have support for a local storage mechanism or self-hosting. We are extremely keen on privacy and are very open to working towards either of those two options.
- detritus 2y agoYeah, I couldn't imagine hosting my Most Important Notes on a freebie service whose provenance I don't entirely know. Notes are self host for me.
- Hendrikto 2y agoWho is the target audience?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- calyhre 2y agoNice product! I might have missed mentions of it, but is it real-time editing? Does it supports multi users? A warning that might spoil a bit your adventure on the long run: Your published pages will be exploited somehow. SEO backlink abuse, phishing, etc. Offering free public hosting is what people with ill intent are looking for, and you can be sure that at some point they'll look at your solution
- mattstrayer 2y agoThank you! It is real-time editing! We leverage web-sockets to sync across multiple logged-in sessions. But as of today it does not support multiple users collaborating on the same document.
- siegers 2y ago(co-founder here) Thank you! It is realtime across devices/instances for the active user. Currently it doesn't support collaborative editing but it's always been on the back of our minds if there is enough interest. Aside from just doc syncing for multi-users, we'd need to make some changes in the doc structure/presentation to provide a clean UX around that (without making the UI to complex). That said, it's not off of the table :) re: public pages. Thank you and definitely top of mind for us to monitor.
- NayamAmarshe 2y agoAmazing work! Thank you for sharing here. A while ago, I made something exactly like this called writedown: https://writedown.app https://writedown.app It is a free and open source, simple and easy to use Notion alternative. I had to leave it midway (it's ready to use and stable though) because my other projects needed attention but I'll get back to it someday :)
- siegers 2y agoThank you! And cool app too! We had a similar experience in that we built the majority of this ~4 years ago. And it's been stable since.
- infinitedata 2y agoInteresting quirk I noticed when accessing your site: 1. The site was shown in a light-theme version and the sun icon on the upper-right corner. 2. When clicked on the sun, it changed to a moon icon but nothing else changed, the light theme was still on. 3. When clicked again, the moon changed to the sun but this time the dark-theme was engaged. The only issue is that the dark theme is displayed but the sun icon appears. 4. When the sun icon is clicked, the light theme is engaged and the icon changes to the moon. For some reason it feels counterintuitive. Just sharing for reference but great site!
- NayamAmarshe 2y agoThanks for the feedback! writedown has been in beta for almost a year and we weren't working on it for the last 8 months, so I apologize for any unpolished features. We're actually in the process of changing the whole landing page and updating the app, so hopefully it will be stable enough soon :)
- lovegrenoble 2y agoSooo expensive, thank you sooo much!
- Linell 2y agoThis comment is a little confusing unless you click through -- the pricing page says that it's free to use with no strings attached. https://www.lowercase.app/pricing/ https://www.lowercase.app/pricing/
- fori1to10 2y agoWhy would I use this, instead of Obsidian (say)?
- balder1991 2y agoFor once, Obsidian publish is quite expensive.
- diegof79 2y agoObsidian publishing costs USD 8 per month. A Starbucks latte in SF costs USD 5.88. I don’t use Obsidian Publish, and I don’t need it. I use the Obsidian app for free, and I don’t need the Sync feature as it works fine with iCloud. If at some point I need the publish feature, I consider the price that is less than two lattes per month a good deal given the zero cost of the app that I used for a long time.
- karmajunkie 2y agothat’s certainly a valid reasoning. someone else may well have an equally valid reason for choosing a different path.
- input_sh 2y agoIt isn't your only option: https://github.com/oleeskild/obsidian-digital-garden https://github.com/oleeskild/obsidian-digital-garden https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz https://github.com/jonstodle/obsius-obsidian-plugin https://github.com/jonstodle/obsius-obsidian-plugin https://github.com/yoursamlan/pubsidian https://github.com/yoursamlan/pubsidian https://github.com/ppeetteerrs/obsidian-zola https://github.com/ppeetteerrs/obsidian-zola
- FalconSensei 2y agoObsidian Sync costs money to sync your files between devices. Obsidian Publish also costs money on top of that to publish your notes.
- 2y ago
- siegers 2y agoco-founder here: Just a little context on the "why" from the site - > We created lowercase as a side project to make it easier for folks to quickly share content without the pressure of having the perfect blog post. Sometimes you just want to share thoughts without worrying about styling and hosting. Ideas aren't always structured. And sometimes simple and easy is what you need. > A note-taking app that is simple, fun to use, snappy, and easy on the eyes. There is no one perfect note-taking tool. Everyone has their preferences. But we feel that we've landed on something nice. > We built lowercase in our spare time as a passion project. No funding. > We decided from the very beginning that we'd never collect or share any user data. We don't even use website analytics. The intent of lowercase is to stay lean and serve a purpose - make it easier to share thoughts in sometimes ever-evolving documents.
- bjourne 2y ago> We decided from the very beginning that we'd never collect or share any user data. Then why not use OAuth?
- siegers 2y agoWasn't necessary since we weren't intending to share information with another service and felt that the 3rd party requirement could be limiting.
- johnnyfived 2y agoThis answer doesn't make sense to me. If anything oauth far better proves you won't be sharing information with other services (you're not collecting logins and accounts). It's more limiting to ask users to sign up to the app.
- siegers 2y agoMeaning that we'd be limiting users that don't use the provider(s) that we'd support. At that time, we felt that username/password was the lowest friction at the time. We're happy to re-eval if needed though!
- iseeyouseewesee 2y agosome feedback: as a first time visitor, the pricing page is really confusing. if its free why is there a stripe faq immediately below? i am still confused whether this product is free or paid without signing up. the pricing page requires some rework imo
- the_svd_doctor 2y agohttps://www.lowercase.app/pricing/ https://www.lowercase.app/pricing/ looks pretty clear to me. You can optionally subscribe to support the project, but otherwise it's free.
- willio58 2y agoI think having pricing linked like that is an immediate turn-off to potential users. Personally the second I see a pricing link in a nav bar I assume, without even clicking, that it's a paid service. Renaming the link to "Donate", or something similar might make more sense.
- wscott 2y agoReading the rest of the pricing page gives me the clear impression that it wasn't free initially and then changed it to free recently and the rest of the text on that page wasn't updated. If I am making donations why do I need to be reassured that I can have a refund if I don't like it?
- riffic 2y agoI'm pretty deep into Obsidian-space right now but I'm loving all these newfangled knowledge apps that push things a heck of a lot further than we had previously with bloat like evernote et al.
- pmarreck 2y ago"If you want publish them" should probably be "If you want to publish them"
- mattstrayer 2y agothank you!
- not_your_vase 2y agoLow-key I have been looking for something like Obsidian-but-freeish to try since a while - I think this is exactly what I searched for. Going to give it a go during the weekend definitely. On a different note, what's the long term sustainability plan? Relying on donations rarely works... I guess it's not very expensive to host text, but still, its cost is not 0. "Unlimited free forever" is either not free, doesn't last forever, or not unlimited. (Usually the 2nd one) Also, do you do any (automatic) content filtering? It is very easy to abuse pastebin services
- siegers 2y ago(co-founder) Thanks for the comment and very valid points. When we initially started building we had subscription plans and more of a general revenue model. Over time we transitioned to the donation-based approach. We are open to revisiting the former if there is interest (and feedback) in the existing functionality or newer updates. I definitely understand the concern of "free forever" and open to input.
- maicro 2y agoNeed to look at the site more in general to see if it's for me, but just a note - https://www.lowercase.app/pricing/ https://www.lowercase.app/pricing/ still references the subscription model.
- Dr4kn 2y agoI would charge for syncing like obsidian does. You can set up your own syncing, but you can also pay to not have to do that and let you handle it. Especially syncing projects that multiple people have access to can be a pain. If you have a decent solution for it you should charge for it.
- siegers 2y agoThank you for the feedback! This route is definitely something for us to consider.
- w10-1 2y ago
- igtztorrero 2y agoDark mode please
- pkulak 2y agoI went through a bunch of note-taking apps before I settled on a git directory that's auto-synced once an hour. This bash script is all it takes. cd ~/notes if [[ ''$(git status --porcelain) ]]; then git stash save git pull --rebase git stash pop || true git add . git -c "user.name=Phil Kulak" -c "user.email=nope@kulak.us" commit -m "''$(date)" git push origin main else git pull fi
- darknavi 2y agoAnd sensible merge conflict resolution vs normal cloud saves.
- pkulak 2y agoYeah, every year or so I get a merge conflict, and then the whole things stops syncing and it takes me a week to notice before I go in and resolve it. It's not perfect, but I can't be assed to fix something that happens once a year. :/
- darknavi 2y agoMaybe you can beep the motherboard if it happens. Would only take a few hours to notice then :)
- tomsmeding 2y ago> it takes me a week to notice before I go in and resolve it Perhaps the `|| true` on the `git stash pop` could have a bit more handling :)
- mattstrayer 2y agohonestly love the simplicity of this
- dvt 2y agoAh yes, the classic HN Dropbox response :) On a more serious note, I'm not into note-taking apps as much as your average HN'er, but there's probably a business here. If anything, Obsidian has at least been wildly successful these past few years (my dad loves it).
- osigurdson 2y agoIt would be nice to have a zero trust model for something like this.
- neilellis 2y agoCongratulations, looks like a cool app, I'm hoping I'll eventually catch up with being feature rich like yours. I've only just started, being hacking on it for a month now but am looking to do something pretty similar. I think we've had a few ideas the same - and amrescratching the same itch. Your 4 years ahead though :-) :-) https://edit-this.page/help https://edit-this.page/help is my humble work in progress. Best of luck to you all!
- KolyaKornelius 2y agoWhat is the user exit strategy? Can I export all notes? In which formats?
- mattstrayer 2y agono export is available at the moment, but we are considering adding that in. What formats would you want to be able to export to?
- turnsout 2y agomarkdown
- gitinit 2y agoThis seems amazing, except for the fact that it's not open source and can't be self-hosted. That, to me at least, is the most important part of a note-taking app.
- siegers 2y agoThis is something that we've discussed quite a bit and not completely off the table.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoself-hosting would be what's important for me as well; mostly because I don't trust my data / notes being hosted by someone else. I currently use Logseq without syncing.
- purple-leafy 2y agoIt’s annoying when people pester developers to open source their hard work, and not at least give a justification as to why they should do it How do you suppose they protect their IP and what they’ve built from someone just stealing the code?
- mspcommentary 2y agoThey aren't pestering the developers; they made a comment on HN about what, to them, is an essential feature of a note-taking app. The developers may never see it. I happen to agree with them. The single most important aspect of a note-taking app is that I must own my notes. That means that I must be able to take them elsewhere if I want. Including, in fact, especially, if the company hosting them goes out of business or simply chooses to discontinue the app (looking at you, Google). If I can take the plain text but lose the formatting or the cross-linking, that isn't good enough (hello Google Keep export). But if lowercase can find enough customers who don't feel this way, all power to them.
- gitinit 2y ago
- xeckr 2y agoWhy are you not charging money?
- arnorhs 2y agoThe sign up process is not very fluid to me. First off, I don't really like password signups in general, but on Android I was able to get auto generated password for the password field but was stuck because the Google password manager didn't recognize the other field as a password confirmation. So I couldn't copy between them and going to a different app to write a long password and going back and copy paste just seemed like too much work. Esp since I had to write my email already and also pick a username.. why do I need a username for a note taking app? How about simplifying the on boarding into just email+click link? Maybe also picking a password after you are in?
- siegers 2y agoThanks for the feedback. One reason for the username is for cleaner profiles when publishing - https://learn.lowercase.app/publishing/documents.html#adding-a-document-to-your-profile https://learn.lowercase.app/publishing/documents.html#adding...
- mnbbrown 2y agoCould ask for a username the first time they publish. Low friction
- rafamvc 2y agoI had the exact same thoughts.
- purple-leafy 2y agoThis is why I’m implementing email links in my chrome extension. No sign ups, just email and local storage once you’ve clicked the email link
- turnsout 2y agoThis looks really nice, but if you put information into a closed-source unmonetized side project, you better hope you never need to get it back out
- janandonly 2y agoIt amazes me that every few weeks a new note taking app is featured on HN. What am I missing? For years I’ve taken notes in the Apple Notes.app on my tablet and phone and laptop and it just works. Why would I want to switch to a paid app? Or why would I want to run a bash script that puts stuff on GitHub?
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI think that the reason is more psychological than anything. People who deal with information become unsettled psychologically because they are doing something that is very unnatural, and so new note taking apps is a meaningless gesture that makes them feel that they are under control. Of course, that's not the entire explanation but it does explain partially the proliferation of note-taking apps beyond the basic ones.
- blackhaj7 2y agoApple notes not supporting/formatting code snippets is the big blocker for me
- ahmadmijot 2y agoFew years back after countless hours of deciding which note taking apps that suits me, I just settled with Obsidian (I briefly used Dendron before that). I realised that I am not that power user of thing like this. Similar with what kind of indexing/management systems. I just fuck it no analysis paralysis, just do with whatever work for now.
- syngrog66 2y agovi. email. git
- gaws 2y agoHow does email play into this?
- amne 2y agoI just use trello. I have columns for songs, movies, roadtrip ideas, coding ideas, you name it. Everything looks the same everywhere, desktop, phone, tablet.
- largbae 2y agoPlease charge something. In order to trust my notes somewhere, I need it to be in someone's best interest to keep my data and not grow bored or overburdened by costs. I desperately want a simple, cross-platform, online or offline, fast note taking app. Evernote was this maybe 10 years ago before the bloat. I beg them every feedback opportunity to get Team features, chat, AI, and never ending upgrades out of my face. When I open the app it is because I either have a quick thought to capture or I need to retrieve one. That is the worst time for a distraction. Please charge a profitable amount and take my money.
- thedevtoolsmith 2y agoHave you tried Obsidian? It's a very bare-bones note taking app with a great plugin ecosystem. It has been my go-to for quite sometime now.
- Plasmoid 2y agoI also really like obsidian. I've got sync setup via Github but they also have a paid sync solution too.
- EduardMe 2y agoNotePlan is also a good alternative if you don't want to setup plugins and your own syncing system, but it has no free options.
- eternityforest 2y agoI left obsidian a while ago, because it didn't load instantly on Android, it had a notable startup time. Have they changed that?
- siegers 2y ago(cofounder here) Thanks for the feedback! We have some ideas, and to be honest, the feedback here has been great to firm up some of our assumptions. I'd like to follow up on this if you're interested. Feel free to email (lowercasehq@gmail.com).
- deleted 2y ago
- mertysn 2y agomaking all the landing page text lowercase to fully commit to the brand name is my suggestion
- system7rocks 2y agoI really like this. I currently use Craft, but while Craft started out simply, it expanded to some more "power" features. People host their entire websites on it, although it requires workarounds to do that. And the guardrails/limitations end up making things you build kind of the same. I love the simplicity of Lowercase. The price is good too. I will be giving it a test rise here and there, because I do send a lot of communications that I enjoy mocking up with very basic formatting. I'd love to the Publishing toggle taken out of the settings panel or whatever.
- siegers 2y ago(cofounder) Thanks and glad to hear! Our main goal was to _not_ try to make it "everything" and while still making it enjoyable to use. We'd appreciate any feedback once you do some testing. Send over to lowercasehq@gmail.com or ping us on X @lowercase_app.
- gaws 2y ago> Free to use. No strings attached. Unlimited notes with online syncing? For free? I refuse to believe that. What's the catch? As the old saying goes: If it's free, you're the product.