[HN Gopher] FSNotes: Notes manager for macOS and iOS - native, o...
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FSNotes: Notes manager for macOS and iOS - native, open source
Author : codetrotter
Score : 168 points
Date : 2021-08-22 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fsnot.es)
(TXT) w3m dump (fsnot.es)
| Keverw wrote:
| So funny this pops up. Last few days I've been wanting a new
| notes app that wasn't using some database and was files based,
| plus I feel like other notes app rich text copying and pasting
| notes can be a mess. Plus a bit unorganized so wanted a new notes
| app and just copy things over as I need. This one looks pretty
| prefect for my wants.
|
| I also like how it has both folders and hash tags too instead of
| being forced to pick one over the other.
| utunbu wrote:
| Just curious if you had tried Obsidian (https://obsidian.md)?
| ydant wrote:
| Obsidian really is a great choice if you are looking for
| Markdown. Windows, Linux, Mac, Android/iOS mobile apps soon.
| It's polished, fast, and all around a great experience.
| Flexible inter-note linking (wiki style), visualization,
| backlink discovery, handles images and embedded documents
| well. All around a good product.
|
| I'm still looking for something with a cross-platform GUI
| that I like as much as I liked Obsidian.md - but with the
| same sort of arbitrarily nested hierarchy (with TODOs and the
| like at any level) and the ability to adhoc rearrange my
| notes like org-mode provides. The Emacs/org-mode level of
| customization would be nice, too.
|
| Trilium Notes ( https://github.com/zadam/trilium ) was also a
| good contendor, but not having a text-content-first focus
| made for some frustrating experiences of data corruption, and
| testing data export of my initial trial run was messy as a
| consequence as well.
| dunham wrote:
| Import on Trillium was a little bit of trouble for me. I
| had to tweak some code, possibly because of the size of my
| import, and utf8 stuff got mangled. But it is interesting,
| especially the customization model.
|
| I'm currently on Obsidian, which has a nice plugin model
| and you can just manipulate the files on disk if you want
| to. I also like that it does MathJaX and mermaid. I went
| from Notion to Craft but had to bail on Craft (nice
| community) because it didn't handle math or code well.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Windows, Linux, Mac, Android/iOS mobile apps soon.
|
| I think they are actually available now.
|
| > arbitrarily nested hierarchy
|
| What do you mean arbitrarily nested hierarchy?
| ydant wrote:
| Emacs org-mode, the org format, and the general ecosystem
| (agenda view, org-roam, and lots of other things) don't
| really care how you structure your data, so you can
| choose between: * a bunch of very
| focused small files * a single large file *
| some combination of the two
|
| So, for example, I might start off with my
| "todo.work.org" file and having something like:
| * Partner Integration ** <Partner name> ***
| APIs **** Query API ***** Quirks
| ****** TODO Confirm API only works on Tuesdays
| **** Purchase API *** Tasks **** TODO Read
| the documentation **** STRT Email about feature
| **** DONE Complain about horrible APIs in Slack
|
| The built in "folding" support (collapsing/expanding) is
| pretty good, so you can easily toggle between seeing the
| whole hierarchy of the headings, the content, arbitrary
| levels of nesting (i.e., show only headings 1 & 2 levels
| deep and hide everything else).
|
| The TODO/STRT/DONE entries can be placed anywhere in this
| hierarchy, and org-mode will take note of them and allow
| you to build up Agenda views of some/all of your TODOs.
| So you can ask org to give you a list of tasks filtered
| by some criteria (e.g. scheduled for this week) - but
| across many different files.
|
| You can "quickly" jump to arbitrary headings and start
| building onto the hierarchy. You can "narrow" your view
| on a sub-heading and the entire edit view becomes only
| about that sub-heading (so I could narrow my view to just
| "APIs" and everything below it).
|
| If you want to edit the hierarchy, it's basically a
| matter of going up and adding some headings ("**
| HEADING") and using shortcut keys to indent/un-indent
| (promote/demote) headings.
|
| I find this works really well for me. Allows for
| brainstorming, keeping notes without pre-organizing them,
| collapsing irrelevant details when not needed, etc.
|
| Also key for this, you can add UUIDs to individual
| "nodes" (headings) and those IDs persist with that
| heading, even if you move the heading to a different spot
| in the hierarchy (a different heading in the same file,
| or a different file). So your links (to the UUID, instead
| of the heading text or file) can be resilient to the
| restructuring of your data over-time.
|
| There's really a whole lot to org-mode, and it didn't
| click for me until I watched some YouTube videos, but now
| I really hate that it offer so much great functionality -
| but it's tied to Emacs and ultimately feels clunky and
| slow as a consequence.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I do wish that Obsidian had better Workflow-y esque
| folding/collapsing/expanding support, it would make the
| whole experience much better.
|
| > The TODO/STRT/DONE entries can be placed anywhere in
| this hierarchy, and org-mode will take note of them and
| allow you to build up Agenda views of some/all of your
| TODOs. So you can ask org to give you a list of tasks
| filtered by some criteria (e.g. scheduled for this week)
| - but across many different files.
|
| If I understand what you're saying, I believe such a
| thing is possible with stuff like the Checklist 3rd party
| extension. I am hopeful that as the 3rd party ecosystem
| matures, even more of these differences/missing features
| will be patched in.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| I only ever had a Windows then a Linux machine, but it seems to
| me that all the cool apps are on Apple.
| inportb wrote:
| You could install Joplin and be cool too.
| rmorey wrote:
| this was me, about 4 years ago, when I started using the Mac -
| and honestly you're totally right.
| franczesko wrote:
| Unfortunately, the platform lock is a deal breaker for me. After
| testing a lot of different note apps, I'm currently using Joplin.
|
| It does 95% of the things I need quite right. I'm not sure, if
| it's only my problem, but I really struggled to find a good app
| for note taking, although there's a plethora of solutions out
| there.
| sharikone wrote:
| I agree perfectly. It seems there are zillions of apps (just
| look at this thread), but the moment I look for my requirements
| (markdown, good math rendering, no format lockdown, decent GUI,
| basic backup options) it seems that no matter how I look the
| only options are Obsidian and Joplin. Joplin being open source,
| albeit not perfect, it is my choice.
|
| It always surprises me how many apps there and how I don't get
| a feeling with 95% of them.
| wtf77 wrote:
| forget everything...there is only one editor and knowledge
| manager: obsidian.
| hamzakc wrote:
| I have recently started using logseq:
| https://logseq.com/blog/about
|
| I have to say I am really loving it so far. All based on Markdown
| or org mode format. I have a folder stored on OneDrive and it is
| synced across all my devices.
| ydant wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning this. This looks like a nice companion to
| Obsidian and org-mode. It seems to mix a lot of the great
| qualities of each.
| utunbu wrote:
| I've jumped between note-taking Apps, Evernote, Bear, Typora,
| Notion, Obsidian, ..., you name it. Finally settled down with
| Obsidian as I can manage note files directly such as using
| Syncthing for backing up and syncing. This one does seem
| interesting and possible to integrate into my workflow, gotta
| give it a try.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| I'm in a similar spot, recently started using Obsidian and am
| enjoying it. It's far from perfect, but it is better than the
| others imo. And the fact that it is all markdown based means no
| lock-in which is fantastic.
| FootballMuse wrote:
| How do you handle sync to mobile with Syncthing? Obs mobile
| only supports iCloud and their own sync service.
| pvinis wrote:
| "mobius sync" works pretty well.
| Void_ wrote:
| If you're looking for Obsidian, but with a nicer UI, Reflect is
| definitely worth trying. (https://reflect.app)
| smoldesu wrote:
| Is it open-source and cross-platform, like Obsidian?
| filchermcurr wrote:
| I don't know if this was rhetorical or not, but I read
| through the blog and found no indication that it's open-
| source. The only platforms I saw mentioned were macOS and
| iOS (Android was mentioned once but I think it was more of
| a future thing) and it appears the final price will be $160
| per year.
|
| From what I saw of the website and the blog posts, I'm not
| sure how this is better than Obsidian. The original comment
| mentions a nicer UI but the UI doesn't seem that much
| different. One of the things I love about Obsidian is how
| customizable the UI actually is.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| With the new Quick Capture stuff I'm all in on Apple Notes.
| Drafts was a bit more slick when it comes to just capturing and
| acting on text, sure. But all the nerd-favorite apps like
| Drafts and Obsidian are heavily text focused. So am I! But I
| also really like taking handwritten notes.
| clairity wrote:
| the thing that really soured me on apple notes is that, not
| only did they remove precise drawing and zoom, but they
| flattened all of the previously vector-based drawings i had
| on my ipad pro. they did this without any forewarning at all
| via an ordinary ios/ipados update (no popup, no release
| notes, nothing at all). before that, it was poised to replace
| all of my paper notetaking and drawing, especially with the
| handwriting recognition stuff coming to fruition that they
| promised with the debut of the original 2015 ipad pro.
| criddell wrote:
| I went through the same process and got stuck on GoodNotes on
| the iPad. Once I got used to using the Pencil for sketching,
| marking up other documents, and handwriting notes (when that
| makes sense), I was hooked.
|
| Obsidian is pretty cool and is progressing rapidly. If their
| iPad client gets Pencil support then I will probably end up
| there as well.
| jereees wrote:
| Haven't seen Craft mentioned here but amongst almost all of the
| other already mentioned apps, Craft feels to me like it's got the
| whole pack. Native apps, cloud sync that works, option for iCloud
| sync or offline storage, blocks that turn into pages, multi
| platform, Markdown, etc.
| AdamGibbins wrote:
| https://www.craft.do/ I assume you're referring to this, took a
| bit of googling.
| NmAmDa wrote:
| Also for people with student status they are offering free
| education license now until before October.
| CapriciousCptl wrote:
| This is nice! Quiver was my previous go-to, but it's all but
| abandonware in 2021.
| coldtea wrote:
| FSNotes is amazing.
|
| It's what I've settled on, not liking the lock-in (bad export
| options) of Notes.app, paying for increasingly crappier Evernote
| (I used in the past), cloud-sync-based note apps, very barebones
| FOSS apps, half-arsed stuff like Agenda, and Electron crap.
| blondin wrote:
| long time google keep user.
|
| i am seriously considering migrating my hundreds of notes and
| recipes to notes.app because i have been having a bad feeling
| about keep.
|
| you are saying the grass isn't greener on that side either?
| what's bad about notes.app besides lock-in and export?
| technological wrote:
| I am in same boat (long time keep user) h. How do you plan to
| migrate from google keep
| ydant wrote:
| If you want to export your Keep notes (and almost all of
| the metadata and media) into Markdown format, I helped
| write keep-exporter, a tool to accomplish just that.
|
| It downloads the text content of the notes and the majority
| of media (some of the annotation stuff doesn't work quite
| right). So assuming another app supports markdown import,
| this would work.
|
| https://github.com/ndbeals/keep-exporter/
|
| (note, the version in PyPI is behind and I don't have
| access to update it, so pull from the repository instead)
|
| It uses gkeepapi (https://github.com/kiwiz/gkeepapi), but
| it looks like there's an official API now
| (https://developers.google.com/keep/api), so maybe Keep
| isn't going away anytime soon.
| jlundberg wrote:
| My experience with Notes is positive.
|
| What I especially like is the simplicity overall and good
| sync between mac/iphone/ipad.
|
| And that it works great offline.
| Matthias1 wrote:
| I've been using the native Apple notes for years now. At
| first it was convenience, but at some point I thought about
| it and decided there was no reason to switch. It has
| shockingly reliable sync (for Apple), and the right number of
| formatting options for me. I wish it could syntax-highlight
| code blocks, but that's not a universal use case.
|
| Export is fine if you're only moving a single note--it just
| strips formatting and shares it as plain text. Similarly, I
| don't know if there's a bulk import option. If you have a
| text file, you might need to copy-paste it into notes.
| voltaireodactyl wrote:
| There's an app called Exporter on the MAS that will export
| all your notes as markdown (with images in a side folder)
| just FYI. I believe it's free.
| coldtea wrote:
| I don't like the search either. It's a global style search,
| which means you can't constrain the search on a specific
| folder.
|
| So if you have 1000s of notes in different folders, you're
| made to look through tons of irrelevant matches in different
| folders.
|
| It's also somewhat clunky in syncing sometimes.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| If you enjoy using the Notes app, it should be fine.
|
| I don't like it because I find it clunky and restrictive.
| However I wouldn't tell someone to not try it if it seems
| fine to them.
| gingerlime wrote:
| what I like about the notes app is that it can use imap to
| store notes. So they're in-sync without iCloud and accessible
| from any imap client.
|
| The app itself is a bit annoying though with forced auto-
| spelling and a clunky feeling. Would love to find another app
| that relies on imap, but haven't found any (admit to not
| looking too much)
| walteweiss wrote:
| What do you mean by IMAP? Isn't it a mail sync thing? Or can
| you use it some other way?
| wpearse wrote:
| Apple's visual voicemail on the iPhone also syncs using
| IMAP hosted by your carrier.
| dvdkon wrote:
| IMAP is basically a file access protocol (think FTP), but
| the "files" are emails. You don't have to just pull from an
| INBOX and save emails in Sent (that's done over IMAP, _not_
| SMTP), you can read /create/modify anything anywhere, so
| some apps save notes to IMAP for some reason (to replace
| "self-emails" I guess).
| dunham wrote:
| IMAP is read/write and holds the mail on the server (unlike
| POP).
|
| If you go into your internet accounts settings and tick
| "notes". Notes will surface it and stores notes in folders
| on the mail server. (Not all of notes functionality is
| available in the notes stored in those folders.)
| dmd wrote:
| What do you mean by forced auto-spelling? You can turn that
| on and off in the Edit menu just like in any other macos text
| field.
| gingerlime wrote:
| hehe I guess I missed it? Thank you. never spent long
| enough on the app to tweak the settings, even though I
| think I tried to look up the preferences and couldn't find
| it there
| dmd wrote:
| Nothing to do with this app. That's an OS-wide preference
| available in EVERY app.
| knazarov wrote:
| I've written myself a terminal based note taking app that
| uses IMAP and MIME/Maildir as a storage backend:
| https://github.com/knazarov/notes.sh
| rado wrote:
| I love Notes, but the lack of Watch support is inexplicable.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| You didn't bring up a lot of apps that are similar. Is it
| because open source is a requirement? Not sure because you
| bring up obviously non open source app issues.
|
| For a quick look at quite a few apps would be all the
| Zettelkasten notes apps. Taio is recently out for iOS and Mac
| too.
|
| I also don't look at any of the options you listed. There's
| still a handful of apps left over.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Via
| https://old.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/p98454/fsnotes_v5_...
| where it was posted by its author. Be sure to check out that
| thread for more info about the application and for some answers
| to any questions that people may have.
| wdb wrote:
| I am really enjoy Noteplan for macOS and iOS. Works really well
| and it comes with Setapp :)
| DavideNL wrote:
| Apple's "Quicknote" feature in iOS 15 is great, being able to
| highlight and link to specific text on any webpage in Safari, and
| other apps as well. I guess a lot of people will stick to the
| stock Notes app just because of this feature [1]
|
| Unfortunately no 3th-party Notes app can implement such a feature
| due to Apple's walled garden :'(
|
| [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/22/quick-note-may-
| be...
| nimvlaj30 wrote:
| That's such a dumb limitation imo. Wish there was a system API
| apps could use to allow it.
| LVB wrote:
| I've tried a number of notes apps backed with "Sync with iCloud
| Drive" and often find it problematic. Usually the problems are on
| the Mac side, wherein my laptop does a bad job of pushing up
| small edits to existing files. I can force it with hacky things
| like viewing the folder in Finder, but that is a nuisance and
| easy to forget. The result is that I'll open up
| Beorg/Obsidian/etc. on my iOS device and see a quite out-of-date
| version of the docs.
|
| FWIW the non-drive iCloud Sync (core data?) works extremely well
| for things like Bear.
| dunham wrote:
| I think CloudKit is the name of the one that bear is using.
| It's part of "iCloud", but a different service (not the iCloud
| Drive). It seems to work well.
|
| Obsidian has a few options, but can use iCloud Drive. As you
| note, it's a bit hit or miss. Files take a while to sync.
| Sometimes the desktop won't bother downloading a file. Hard
| linked files don't seem to sync at all. (Obsidian's paid sync
| service works well in my experience.)
| chrisweekly wrote:
| FWIW, Obsidian's native apps (macOS and iOS) work great, with
| the Obsidian.md Sync feature.
| LVB wrote:
| That's what I've heard. I passed on Obsidian for some other
| reasons, but during my eval I was pretty sure if I was to
| stick with it I'd pay for their sync service.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Coincidentally I discovered another iOS app for note-taking this
| week called Beorg, which leverages the emacs + org mode format so
| I can easily sync between iOS and Linux.
|
| This one looks nice too though; always good to see open source
| apps for Mac and iOS. I wonder how similar the markdown formats
| are.
| xenodium wrote:
| I'm working on bringing my org tasks to iOS. It's early days
| but can be seen here https://www.reddit.com/r/plainorg and here
| https://xenodium.com/org-habits-on-ios-check-tasks-youre-nex...
|
| I have TestFlight invites available for anyone interested.
|
| Edit: Email me for invites "plainorg" + "@" + "xenodium.com"
| ydant wrote:
| And on the Android side, Orgzly http://www.orgzly.com/
|
| I'm finding that syncing between Emacs/org-mode and my phone
| has been nothing but problems, though. Sync conflicts abound.
| I'm not sure how much of that is my Emacs config, Syncthing on
| Android, or Orgzly.
|
| Any ideas on avoiding that? How are you syncing with Beorg?
| daliz wrote:
| I find the beorg UI ugly. I would really love an Orgzly for
| iPad.
| xenodium wrote:
| I'm working on bringing my org tasks to iOS (iPad included).
| https://www.reddit.com/r/plainorg Available on TestFlight
| now.
|
| Edit: Email me for invites "plainorg" + "@" + "xenodium.com"
| for_i_in_range wrote:
| I prefer the same notetaking app Feynman used... paper, something
| to write with, and your brain.
|
| Or you can go digital and develop someone else's brain (or
| something else's).
| [deleted]
| lostintangent wrote:
| After GitHub.dev was released (hit "." on any GitHub repo, to
| open it in browser-based VS Code), I immediately saw the
| notetaking workflow that I wanted: a GitHub repo, storing
| markdown that I can own/control, but editable in the browser,
| using my existing VS Code preferences (theme, keybindings, etc.).
|
| Unfortunately, VS Code doesn't natively support wiki links, so I
| created an extension that simply adds that feature on top of the
| core VS Code markdown editor:
| https://GitHub.com/lostintangent/wikilens.
|
| Over the last week, this experience has really transformed my
| writing workflow. I can simply open
| https://GitHub.dev/lostintangent/wiki (my personal notes repo)
| and begin editing and navigating, without too much ceremony. As
| the extension ecosystem begins creating more extensions for
| GitHub.dev, this experience will only get better.
| pjot wrote:
| This is spot on to what I was wanting as well - thank you for
| pointing out the "." workflow!
| lostintangent wrote:
| Absolutely! If you end up checking out WikiLens w/GitHub.dev,
| don't hesitate to let me know any feedback you might have.
| I'll be iterating on the experience based on my own usage,
| but I'm keen to ensure this works well for others as well!
| yayr wrote:
| Nice Tool. But why is it not possible to edit markdown files in
| arbitrary folders? why do I have to have a separate folder for
| notes and another one for all other documents?
| simonw wrote:
| The thing I want most from a notes app is a web API that lets me
| programmatically fetch my notes data.
|
| Evernote's public API uses Thrift, which is really weird. Usually
| it takes me a couple of minutes to start getting data out of a
| web API - in Evernote's case I gave up after an hour.
| mahgnous wrote:
| Why is there no linux version? I didn't think people were still
| using macs.
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