Author Topic: Notetaking software (Read 34,861 times)

Dormouse · « **on:** December 01, 2017, 01:05 AM »

The great and glorious notetaking software thread seems to have petered out in early 2014 after years of active comment.
Is it because there's no interest in this category any more (a lot of programs/vendors have certainly vanished)?
Or that everyone has ended up on a few dominant programs (OneNote, Evernote ...)?
Or has the fundamental structure been repackaged into more specialist use (Scrivener)? Towards the end many vendors seemed to be frantically chasing a redefinition as personal information databases.

My preferences haven't changed much, and I still use notetaking software. The big thing that has changed for me is the absolute requirement for multiplatform use. My favourite programs never provided that, so I no longer use them. So almost purely OneNote, Evernote, Simplenote and Keep now. And Simplenote is fading out as I use OneNote more.

wraith808 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 01, 2017, 01:57 AM »

Can you unpack that last bit? I'm assuming that it is shorthand for software (OneNote = One?) But I didn't think that OneNote was cross-platform, unless you mean a limited version of cross platform. And Simple- I equated it to Simplenote, but that may be wrong.

rgdot · « **Reply #2 on:** December 01, 2017, 03:20 AM »

My local WordPress install acting as a notes database, using Keep and Pimlical for online and sync. Still interested and do check out new and updated ones but cant afford (I guess both time wise and money wise) to move things around if something else/better comes around. Have some old notes in TreeProjects as well

wraith808 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 01, 2017, 04:31 AM »

I've been incorporating analog methods more and more into my notetaking- Currently I use a Word notebook for taking notes on the go for small notes, and a Rhodia Webnotebook for larger things. Then, I use OfficeLens to get it out of the analog world. I want to use Evernote for this, but up until now, the scanning feature hasn't been very good. But it seems to have improved, so I'll have to try again. I've also tried something more direct with Livescribe, but that just hasn't worked for me so far- mostly I think because of the pen limitation. For more one off notes, I use Notation (Windows) and Notational Acceleration (Android) to sync with SimpleNote.

mwb1100 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 01, 2017, 05:08 AM »

I still mostly use Surfulater - I haven't tried the new online variant, Clibu, that Nev has come up with. I have only loosely followed the development off and on. I know that there has been some commitment to allowing offline and/or self-hosted data, but I'm honestly not sure how far along that is.

Surfulater still works pretty well for my needs, but I really want it to be able to sync with remote databases so I can have my data at home and at work. I think there might be workarounds using things like Dropbox, but I'm honestly not sure how well (and safely) that works.

I have been trying to put my newer notes into plain old Markdown formatted text files in a directory hierarchy and use github/bitbucket along with a git repository to handle syncing data between work and home. I can use whatever grep-like tool to search. This works, but it's as klunky as it sounds. And, of course, it doesn't have any kind of web clipping other than what copy/paste to a text file will get you (ie: not much). It has the major pluses of being 100% portable between Linux and Windows, the data is super easy to share, and it's completely free from obsolescence unless ASCII is ever not supported by computers. Even if github goes down, I can switch over to whatever remote repository support git provides.

But it's not very pretty or integrated. At all. Fundamentally it's just a bunch of text tiles.

TucknDar · « **Reply #5 on:** December 01, 2017, 06:54 AM »

OneNote for pretty much everything. For the rest I use a notebook and a pen

edit: Scrivener for a few things, but mostly for writing longer articles.

Dormouse · « **Reply #6 on:** December 01, 2017, 09:50 AM »

Quote from: wraith808 on December 01, 2017, 01:57 AM

Can you unpack that last bit? I'm assuming that it is shorthand for software (OneNote = One?) But I didn't think that OneNote was cross-platform, unless you mean a limited version of cross platform. And Simple- I equated it to Simplenote, but that may be wrong.

Quite right. Felt too repetitive, but I've now amended in favour of clarity.

I find OneNote pretty good across platforms. The functionality of each program is not the same, and only desktop has all features, but everything that has been done on a note is visible and editable on all platforms (or has been so far). Sufficient for me atm.

I do have worries about it though. All my previous attempts at major use floundered on huge, unanticipated glitches (eg tables). However, I have a number of those on my map now and the advantages are enough to make set off into the wilderness again. My current/almost immediate future project is being done on OneNote. Taken quite a bit of time getting the program set up to do what I want. Had considered Scrivener, but no Android and 3 only in beta on Windows. Had considered, and started, a more convoluted system using Simplenote for the main cross platform use, but convoluted and switching all the time was a real drag; wouldn't have been so bad if my mind stuck to one path, but it doesn't - it always wants to follow multiple paths at the same time.

One big advantage of OneNote is being able to write/draw directly into any page. I'm almost purely on Samsung Notes (tablets and phones) and Surface now just because of that. Occasional use of older Windows/Linux machines and I have a specialist program that requires iPads. I hadn't intended to upgrade to the Note8, finally persuaded the free Dex offer and kids telling me that phone prices (£) seemed to be going up not down. However, it has transformed my pen use. Not sure why, because it isn't that different to Note 4, but it has. Now choose to write/draw a lot whereas before I would write/draw when it seemed necessary.

PS I do like the concept of paper. Have accumulated reams of notebooks and diaries over the years. All mostly blank. Just have to accept that I'm an old fashioned digital guy

kfitting · « **Reply #7 on:** December 01, 2017, 10:24 AM »

For me, notes are in the form of Dokuwiki hosted on my synology NAS. In my opinion, reading the plain text ideas over at https://zettelkasten.de changed my thinking. I reverted to plain text and then grew into Dokuwiki; hosted by me, accessible anywhere.

wraith808 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 01, 2017, 11:50 AM »

Quote from: Dormouse on December 01, 2017, 09:50 AM

Quote from: wraith808 on December 01, 2017, 01:57 AM
Can you unpack that last bit? I'm assuming that it is shorthand for software (OneNote = One?) But I didn't think that OneNote was cross-platform, unless you mean a limited version of cross platform. And Simple- I equated it to Simplenote, but that may be wrong.
Quite right. Felt too repetitive, but I've now amended in favour of clarity.

I find OneNote pretty good across platforms. The functionality of each program is not the same, and only desktop has all features, but everything that has been done on a note is visible and editable on all platforms (or has been so far). Sufficient for me atm.

I do have worries about it though. All my previous attempts at major use floundered on huge, unanticipated glitches (eg tables). However, I have a number of those on my map now and the advantages are enough to make set off into the wilderness again. My current/almost immediate future project is being done on OneNote. Taken quite a bit of time getting the program set up to do what I want. Had considered Scrivener, but no Android and 3 only in beta on Windows. Had considered, and started, a more convoluted system using Simplenote for the main cross platform use, but convoluted and switching all the time was a real drag; wouldn't have been so bad if my mind stuck to one path, but it doesn't it always wants to follow multiple paths at the same time.

One big advantage of OneNote is being able to write/draw directly into any page. I'm almost purely on Samsung Notes (tablets and phones) and Surface now just because of that. Occasional use of older Windows/Linux machines and I have a specialist program that requires iPads. I hadn't intended to upgrade to the Note8, finally persuaded the free Dex offer and kids telling me that phone prices (£) seemed to be going up not down. However, it has transformed my pen use. Not sure why, because it isn't that different to Note 4, but it has. Now choose to write/draw a lot whereas before I would write/draw when it seemed necessary.

PS I do like the concept of paper. Have accumulated reams of notebooks and diaries over the years. All mostly blank. Just have to accept that I'm an old fashioned digital guy

What platforms do you utilize? Just Windows and Android?

Dormouse · « **Reply #9 on:** December 01, 2017, 02:27 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on December 01, 2017, 11:50 AM

What platforms do you utilize? Just Windows and Android?

Mostly Windows & Android. iOS sometimes. Linux rarely atm.
Don't use a Mac, but willing to get one if it has software I need (Vellum maybe) and there's no reasonable alternative elsewhere; that would be a commercial decision, but I have got by fine without it so far and I dislike the Apple ecosystem.

Chessnia · « **Reply #10 on:** December 03, 2017, 09:38 AM »

Been using Rightnote for a long time. Wouldn't change it for anything.
Selling at Bitsdujour for a 50% discount soon:

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/rightnote/in=upcoming-discounts

rgdot · « **Reply #11 on:** December 03, 2017, 01:39 PM »

I like RightNote's new/recent Journal feature, doubtful I would buy at this point but it's tempting

TucknDar · « **Reply #12 on:** December 03, 2017, 06:04 PM »

I like RightNote, it just wasn't the ... ahem.. right note for me. Own a license and I used it for a while, but I just prefer how I can write notes anywhere on OneNotes pages and also the syncing abilities with my Android phone and certain notebooks for work purposes. It just works.

Dormouse · « **Reply #13 on:** December 03, 2017, 07:37 PM »

Quote from: TucknDar on December 03, 2017, 06:04 PM

I like RightNote, it just wasn't the ... ahem.. right note for me. Own a license and I used it for a while, but I just prefer how I can write notes anywhere on OneNotes pages and also the syncing abilities with my Android phone and certain notebooks for work purposes. It just works.

Ditto
I have far too many licenses for similar programs that just aren't as usable as the multi-platform options: RightNote, TreeDBNotes, Ultra Recall and many others. I'm not entirely comfortable in switching to Microsoft, Google etc, but just working on everything is just so much easier and more efficient, though I will pay for Scrivener upgrades as they come along (hoping that the Android version will arrive some year or other).

mwb1100 · « **Reply #14 on:** December 04, 2017, 10:28 PM »

While considering things mentioned in this thread, I came to realize that some editors that I hadn't tried in a while support Markdown along with projects much better than what I have been using. This makes a "directory-tree-with-a-bunch-of-Markdown-files" much more usable as a knowlegebase/notetaking system.

I've been playing around with Visual Studio Code just a little bit, and I think I'm sold on it. My barebones KB now has:

- a project containing references to all the topics/notes
- side-by-side (with synchronized scrolling) or toggled viewing of the markdown formatted for viewing
- search across the whole KB
- git integration

And VS Code is cross-platform, so I get all this on my Linux boxes too.

The downside is that I have to learn a new editor (but I hear it's pretty good). On the plus side I get my 100% portable, sync-able, and selfhost-able knowlegebase along with very usable editing and searching.

I hear that Atom has similar Markdown support (I haven't tried it though).

I'm kinda psyched.

nevf · « **Reply #15 on:** December 05, 2017, 08:21 PM »

Clibu Version 2 was released yesterday and is a major new release which fully supports Smartphones, Tablets as well as Desktops with all capabilities available on all platforms.

See the V2 Pt1 Blog post. for more information and the Clibu website.

Clibu V2 completes the first stage of an extensive update to turn Clibu into a Progressive Web Application or PWA. This enables it to adapt and respond to different devices and screen sizes providing an optimal user interface and user experience on all devices.

With Clibu all of you content is always up to date across all devices, gone are the days of manually synchronizing data. Clibu has true hierarchical tags, a full featured wysiwyg content editor, multiple knowledge bases, sharing and collaboration, web clipper, full text search and much more.

Future plans include full offline support, extending the on-premise version to provide Mac and Linux versions in addition to Windows, editor enhancements possibly with markdown support, more drag and drop capabilities, improved search, import/export etc.

If you've never tried Clibu or looked at an older version, please do try V2 and let us know your thoughts, so we can continue to improve it to meet your needs and wants.

Steven Avery · « **Reply #16 on:** December 12, 2017, 03:16 PM »

Quote from: Dormouse on December 01, 2017, 01:05 AM

So almost purely OneNote, Evernote, Simplenote and Keep now. And Simplenote is fading out as I use OneNote more.

My key two are multi-platform (iPad and Windows is my mainstay.

Evernote Free (2 concurrent puters-tabs)

Wunderlist, (any number of concurrent puters-tabs)
(yes, Microsoft is ending Wunderlist, which it bought, but at that time I will export, everybody will offer ways, and the MS product might be good).

======

Occasionally I do use Keep, and I am always looking for a "better than Keep" that I really like.

When it becomes a document, it goes to Atlantis or Google Docs. I hope to try Scrivener for projects.

From the notes below Rightnote and OneNote might be a good alternative team, but that would be a clash with using Evernote, and OneNote always confused me with its various editions, methods, pricings and platforms.

============

This idea intrigues me:
"local WordPress install acting as a notes database, using Keep and Pimlical for online and sync."

As does this note:
"multi-platform options: RightNote, TreeDBNotes, Ultra Recall"

And Clibu - which I am checking right now.

Thanks! neat thread.

Steven

rgdot · « **Reply #17 on:** December 12, 2017, 07:38 PM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on December 12, 2017, 03:16 PM

This idea intrigues me:
"local WordPress install acting as a notes database, using Keep and Pimlical for online and sync.

Works very well for me. Has the necessary search function, date based notes (created and/or modified), image support, etc. Use P2 theme to take notes right on the front end, use css or plugins to change the views and make it grid calendar like, use plugins to set 'reminders' (aka a plugin that supports upcoming events).
Can take it online if I really need it, would need to have an obscure domain locked with password, easily doable. Eventhough no passwords and sensitive info are in it (KeePass for that) don't want to do that unless really see the need.

Steven Avery · « **Reply #18 on:** December 13, 2017, 02:15 AM »

http://myclibu.com/ ; just says "Clibu loading"

nevf · « **Reply #19 on:** December 13, 2017, 04:29 AM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on December 13, 2017, 02:15 AM

http://myclibu.com/ ; just says "Clibu loading"

Steven,
Try clearing your Browser Cache.

What Web Browser + Version + OS are you using?

Steven Avery · « **Reply #20 on:** December 13, 2017, 05:29 PM »

Windows 10, Firefox 52.5 does not get it up even after a cache clear. However, now it is working in some other browsers, so I can test it out.

nevf · « **Reply #21 on:** December 13, 2017, 08:01 PM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on December 13, 2017, 05:29 PM

Windows 10, Firefox 52.5 does not get it up even after a cache clear. However, now it is working in some other browsers, so I can test it out.

Good to hear you have it working. FYI your FF is quite behind the current Version of Firefox which is 57.02 and Clibu works fine on that.

If I can help with anything further please let me know. And do give us your feedback on whether Clibu meets your needs etc.

tomos · « **Reply #22 on:** December 13, 2017, 09:03 PM »

Quote from: nevf on December 13, 2017, 08:01 PM

FYI your FF is quite behind the current Version of Firefox which is 57.02 and Clibu works fine on that.

many are avoiding the new firefox, as most extensions no longer work in it (or still dont work in it).

Steven Avery · « **Reply #23 on:** December 14, 2017, 12:57 AM »

Yes, I deliberately do not have 57, I have a big five extensions on another thread and a few of them do not work.

Anyway, after my evening reboot, Clibu came up in Firefox 52.5.

Steven

nevf · « **Reply #24 on:** December 14, 2017, 08:22 PM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on December 14, 2017, 12:57 AM

Anyway, after my evening reboot, Clibu came up in Firefox 52.5.

Good to hear Clibu is ok now on Firefox 52. I was a little surprised you had a problem, but only a little.

Firefox is a continual source of frustration for me as a developer. They have basic issues that go back years that haven't been addressed. Yet they seem to think that pushing speed and changing the look will win friends and influence people. I wrote earlier in the year about the onerous process of getting Firefox Extensions accepted into their store and to hear now about Extensions breaking just adds fuel to the fire.