Android: Note-taking App with Encryption, Source Code, ... ?

[ewemoa]

Looking for a note-taking Android app with encryption, source code, local backup / restore, and being actively maintained.

Candidates so far (not necessarily fulfilling all criteria):

NoteCipher
OI Safe
miniNoteViewer

May be KeePassDroid can be shoe-horned for the purpose via its comment field...though perhaps that's not so great.

Any favorites / recommendations?


Additional things that have turned up:

Secret Space Encryptor
cryptonite
AES Crypt - source for the Android version doesn't appear to be available
Universal Password Manager
TravelCrypt

Root needed:

LUKSManager

[phitsc]

Thanks for this list ewemoa, will have a look. Looking for something like this is on my todo list as well. Although I'd like to have something for both Android and iOS and it should sync to dropbox (which seems to be the de-facto standard cloud service on iOS). Markdown capability would be a plus.

[dr_andus]

I'm not sure about encryption and what you mean by source code, but WorkFlowy has both iOS and Android clients and the pro version backs up to Dropbox. There is also an off-line Chrome app.

It's primarily marketed as an outliner, todo and brainstorming app, but it can be used as a text-only note-taker, where notes can be organised within one overall hierarchy. Each item in the outline has a note field, so it's basically a single-pane outliner with inline notes, all contained within a single (eventually giant) outline as the overall database. The search and hoist functions make it manageable to live within such an infinite outline. Easy export to plain text, formatted text, and OPML.

[phitsc]

Encryption is the important part here: it means that all your notes (or information to make it more general) are encrypted and decrypted directly on your devices (aka client side encryption).

WorkFlowy doesn't seem to do that.

[ewemoa]

The source code aspect is for multiple reasons including but not limited to:

Motivation to not hide / do user-unwanted things (no guarantee ofc)
Might be easier to fix if something is broken
Ability to study and modify

[phitsc]

Found this one

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/enotes/

Supposed to run on Android and Desktop (it's Java after all), which could be interesting. Did not try it yet though.

[ewemoa]

Thanks for that.

Haven't had much luck building it yet -- also the sf site doesn't suggest a whole lot of activity.

[brahman]

Try

Vault 3

on Google Play.

Should fulfill all the requirements (window program also).

[cyberdiva]

I've been using OI Safe, along with OI Notepad, on my Nexus 7 tablet for months now, and I'm very happy with it.  One thing I like is that I can have both encrypted and unencrypted files on OI Notepad, so in addition to the encrypted files, I can use OI Notepad as an everyday text editor. 

[ewemoa]

Vault 3

-brahman (June 12, 2014, 11:57 AM)

Looks quite interesting!  Thanks for the suggestion  

I presume a relevant page for it is:

  http://www.ericbt.com/Vault3ForAndroid


I'm not having much luck downloading the source code for it -- anyone else succeeding?  Seems to be working now

[ewemoa]

I've been using OI Safe, along with OI Notepad, on my Nexus 7 tablet for months now, and I'm very happy with it.  One thing I like is that I can have both encrypted and unencrypted files on OI Notepad, so in addition to the encrypted files, I can use OI Notepad as an everyday text editor.  

-cyberdiva (June 12, 2014, 03:25 PM)

May be I'll take another look at these -- last time I checked, I think I encountered difficulties using OI Notepad with (some?) non-ASCII data. 


Also wondering whether the OpenIntent stuff is still being maintained...

[ewemoa]

Had some success building Vault 3.

May be there's an easier way, but here it consisted of:

1. Download the source and extract it
2. In Eclipse, File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace -- removed check from paid version and chose to copy projects into workspace (note the error)
3. Visit the Vault 3 tree's Properties -> Java Build Path -> Libraries tab and note down all of the missing jar files
4. Open a terminal and navigate to the CommonCode directory in the workspace, then build CommonCode.jar by issuing the 'ant' command.  The result should be CommonCode.jar in the deploy subdirectory.
5. Use an appropriate search engine (and check your local file system) to obtain/locate local copies of the other missing jars
6. Update the Libraries tab from an earlier step regarding the now-should-not-be-missing jar locations (for CommonCode.jar select the location corresponding to the result of the previous step)
7. Have an appropriate (real or virtual) device ready, and choose Run from the Run menu (and if necessary specify Android Application or some such).


Below are details regarding the jars:

Downloaded

imgscalr-lib-4.2.jar ->
  http://central.maven.org/maven2/org/imgscalr/imgscalr-lib/4.2/imgscalr-lib-4.2.jar
itextpdf-5.2.1.jar (itext-5.2.1) ->
  http://central.maven.org/maven2/com/itextpdf/itextpdf/5.2.1/itextpdf-5.2.1.jar
mail.jar (javamail-1.4.4) ->
  http://central.maven.org/maven2/javax/mail/mail/1.4.4/mail-1.4.4.jar ->
    mail.jar (renamed)
perf4j-0.9.16.jar ->
  http://repository.codehaus.org/org/perf4j/perf4j/0.9.16/perf4j-0.9.16.jar
sqlite4java.jar ->
  https://sqlite4java.googlecode.com/files/sqlite4java-213.zip ->
    sqlite4java.jar (found inside zip file)
org.eclipse.core.runtime_3.9.0.v20130326-1255.jar
  http://central.maven.org/maven2/org/eclipse/core/runtime/3.9.0-v20130326-1255/runtime-3.9.0-v20130326-1255.jar
org.eclipse.osgi_3.9.1.v20130814-1242.jar
  http://central.maven.org/maven2/org/eclipse/osgi/3.9.1-v20130814-1242/osgi-3.9.1-v20130814-1242.jar

Local Filesystem

org.eclipse.core.commands_3.6.100.v20130515-1857.jar
  /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/
org.eclipse.equinox.common_3.6.200.v20130402-1505.jar
  /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/
org.eclipse.jface_3.9.1.v20130725-1141.jar
  /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/
org.eclipse.jface.text_3.8.101.v20130802-1147.jar
  /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/
org.eclipse.text_3.5.300.v20130515-1451.jar
  /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/
swt.jar ->
  /usr/share/java/swt.jar

[cyberdiva]

I've been using OI Safe, along with OI Notepad, on my Nexus 7 tablet for months now, and I'm very happy with it.  One thing I like is that I can have both encrypted and unencrypted files on OI Notepad, so in addition to the encrypted files, I can use OI Notepad as an everyday text editor. 

-cyberdiva (June 12, 2014, 03:25 PM)

May be I'll take another look at these -- last time I checked, I think I encountered difficulties using OI Notepad with (some?) non-ASCII data. 

-ewemoa (June 12, 2014, 04:54 PM)

I'm not sure, but I don't recall using OI Notepad with non-ASCII data.  I use it for the same kinds of things I use UltraEdit for on my computer.  OI Notepad can handle upper-ASCII stuff like ñ or ¿, so I'm content.  What sort of non-ASCII stuff would you want it to handle?

[ewemoa]

What sort of non-ASCII stuff would you want it to handle?

-cyberdiva (June 13, 2014, 07:52 AM)

At least CJK-ish things.

[cyberdiva]

Sorry, ewemoa, I don't know any Asian languages and thus have never tried to use IO Notepad with them. 

[ewemoa]

No problem!  Thanks for your efforts