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It makes sense that Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it. As an aside, I have a dream that Apple Notes could be

It makes sense that Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it. As an aside, I have a dream that Apple Notes could be piped into a website as a form of blogging. As it is, I haven't found a way to do it...

nomad41 1y ago
There’s https://alto.so/ https://alto.so/ that does exactly what you want.
Zak 1y ago
I like my Markdown notes editor, but I agree it's not the right choice for Apple notes because exposing the underlying machinery in everyday use is not Apple's style.
- wodenokoto 1y ago
  It’s also not handy to reach the mark-up characters from a touch keyboard. And if you are adding backticks and asterisks to a markup bar, you might as well just add bold and italics to the markup bar.
  - Zak 1y ago
    This varies a bit by touch keyboard. The standard iPhone keyboard is particularly bad at this while the AOSP and Google keyboards on Android aren't so bad. Joplin, the notes app I've been using lately does have a markup bar with those features.
- criddell 1y ago
  It does feel like a good option for export though (as John says in the post).
jhardy54 1y ago
I think you want Alto / Montaigne (spelling?). They’re both made by the same person IIRC.
chrisweekly 1y ago
"Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it." As someone who enjoys note-taking in Obsidian (by far my favorite super-powered markdown editor), I respectfully disagree with the premise and conclusion. On the contrary, IME, MD isn't single-purpose, and it absolutely can and does serve as a first-rate format for note-taking.
- iambateman 1y ago
  I'm not trying to take Obsidian away from you...but I'm also not trying to sign my Grandma up for Obsidian :D
msgodel 1y ago
I take my notes in INI format with a lose schema, as I accumulate data I tend to move towards something more concrete and write tools for it. I think this is the absolute best compromise between some kind of formal personal ERP-like (PRP?) system and something super loose like Markdown or org mode. Of course doing this on an iPhone is an absolute nightmare because everything has to be blessed by Apple and you can't just do one-off ad-hoc automations or usefully compose tooling that touches the filesystem. Everything has to be canned and sharecropped (at best) so them adding Markdown to the only text editor that supports fast, energy efficient background sync is a huge deal. When I had an iPhone I did try doing some server-side automation with the SGML-like (can't remember if it was actual HTML or not) format notes used. Like most of those sorts of things it was a miserable uphill fight to get value out of the thing. I've been so happy ever since I've completely given up on anything smartphone related.
- jhayward 1y ago
  Did you ever test drive the Drafts app? It is remarkably easy to build customized workflows, both editing and document processing, and is built to be glue between different document/message apps.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    It's a little late for that now since I don't own a smartphone anymore but it looks like there isn't a Linux version so the usefulness to me would have been limited anyway.
themadturk 1y ago
Also https://quotion.co/ https://quotion.co/ for Notes to blog.
devrsi0n 1y ago
That was my dream once upon a time. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into making it happen. Check out my indie product: https://quotion.co https://quotion.co

nomad41 1y ago

There’s https://alto.so/ https://alto.so/ that does exactly what you want.

Zak 1y ago

I like my Markdown notes editor, but I agree it's not the right choice for Apple notes because exposing the underlying machinery in everyday use is not Apple's style.

wodenokoto 1y ago
It’s also not handy to reach the mark-up characters from a touch keyboard. And if you are adding backticks and asterisks to a markup bar, you might as well just add bold and italics to the markup bar.
- Zak 1y ago
  This varies a bit by touch keyboard. The standard iPhone keyboard is particularly bad at this while the AOSP and Google keyboards on Android aren't so bad. Joplin, the notes app I've been using lately does have a markup bar with those features.
criddell 1y ago
It does feel like a good option for export though (as John says in the post).

jhardy54 1y ago

I think you want Alto / Montaigne (spelling?). They’re both made by the same person IIRC.

chrisweekly 1y ago

"Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it." As someone who enjoys note-taking in Obsidian (by far my favorite super-powered markdown editor), I respectfully disagree with the premise and conclusion. On the contrary, IME, MD isn't single-purpose, and it absolutely can and does serve as a first-rate format for note-taking.

iambateman 1y ago
I'm not trying to take Obsidian away from you...but I'm also not trying to sign my Grandma up for Obsidian :D

msgodel 1y ago

I take my notes in INI format with a lose schema, as I accumulate data I tend to move towards something more concrete and write tools for it. I think this is the absolute best compromise between some kind of formal personal ERP-like (PRP?) system and something super loose like Markdown or org mode. Of course doing this on an iPhone is an absolute nightmare because everything has to be blessed by Apple and you can't just do one-off ad-hoc automations or usefully compose tooling that touches the filesystem. Everything has to be canned and sharecropped (at best) so them adding Markdown to the only text editor that supports fast, energy efficient background sync is a huge deal. When I had an iPhone I did try doing some server-side automation with the SGML-like (can't remember if it was actual HTML or not) format notes used. Like most of those sorts of things it was a miserable uphill fight to get value out of the thing. I've been so happy ever since I've completely given up on anything smartphone related.

jhayward 1y ago
Did you ever test drive the Drafts app? It is remarkably easy to build customized workflows, both editing and document processing, and is built to be glue between different document/message apps.
- msgodel 1y ago
  It's a little late for that now since I don't own a smartphone anymore but it looks like there isn't a Linux version so the usefulness to me would have been limited anyway.

themadturk 1y ago

Also https://quotion.co/ https://quotion.co/ for Notes to blog.

devrsi0n 1y ago

That was my dream once upon a time. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into making it happen. Check out my indie product: https://quotion.co https://quotion.co