[HN Gopher] /tap - Powerful and customizable note-taking system
___________________________________________________________________
/tap - Powerful and customizable note-taking system
Author : jermaustin1
Score : 156 points
Date : 2021-12-23 16:13 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tatatap.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tatatap.com)
| csbartus wrote:
| Great stuff !! It's juicy. Basic features, at first sight, which
| prove very useful and extensible, customizable at a second read.
| Things you don't think you need, but it would be very nice to
| have.
|
| I use plain markdown + folder structure because I have nothing
| better (I left Obsidian after an update made all my notes
| unavailable).
|
| If there is a note-taking service to subscribe for, this will be.
| The only impediment, for now, is that I'm making notes in the
| editor, not online and/or via messages.
| optymizer wrote:
| I follow an unwritten rule that I will always congratulate anyone
| on shipping anything. Shipping anything is hard and deserves
| praise, so congratulations!
|
| Unfortunately I'm also realizing that I got to a point in life
| where I just roll my eyes when I see yet another note-taking, or
| to-do app, or any other spin on the same trivial problem that we
| solved 1000 years ago and now are just beating a dead horse,
| almost like a developer endlessly rewriting a piece of code to
| make it perfect instead of taking the old "it's good enough"
| approach and moving on to fix the other problems in the codebase.
|
| The note-taking apps are good enough. Even pen and paper is good
| enough.
|
| I know I shouldn't react like that, because it's not fair to the
| author - they had an idea for a better product and worked hard to
| ship it, and probably learnt a ton along the way; maybe they'll
| even make a good chunk of money, but is there no point at which
| we're allowed to say "You don't get much praise anymore because
| you're the millionth developer who figured out how to duct tape
| some methods written by others to create a weather app. We
| collectively ran out of praise for solutions in that specific
| problem domain. And we're sure as hell not paying for it"?
|
| I feel like everyone's just trying to make a buck with their tiny
| spin on the same idea. Of course there's a subscription on the
| note-taking app. And let me guess, the next note-taking app is
| going to have more real-time interactions, and fancy animations,
| and it's going to sync with the notes your cat takes and you can
| print them out once a month on this slick looking notepad that
| gets mailed to you.
|
| I hate that I ended up old and cynical. I used to have starry
| eyes.
| dmje wrote:
| Congratulations are indeed due, so ditto there.
|
| I have to say I have the same response - dammit, not another
| one - but I'm rather more interested in our complete
| fascination with these tools. Like - I have my note taking /
| knowledge stuff pretty much nailed [+] but STILL I always find
| myself clicking through on posts like this. Like many others on
| HN, I'm absolutely, unbearably, totally addicted to considering
| and re-considering my methodology in the notes / to-do space,
| _even though I 'm really happy with what I've got_.
|
| When I try to analyse this I realise there's a part-dopamine
| level thing (I love a beautiful, clean UI and idea), partly a
| wishful thinking (man, if only I could remember X, maybe this
| is the tool to help me!), and partly (this is the hard one to
| admit to but I would bet money on many other HN types as being
| here with me) an addiction with _process_ , pure and simple.
| Anything to not actually have to DO that thing I need to do -
| oh look, I could review a tool that'll help me procrastinate a
| while longer.
|
| It reminds me of the me when I was 16 and "revising" for GCSE
| exams. I spent about 90% of my time re-formatting and colouring
| in my revision timetable rather than actually doing the work of
| revision. That me is still here, only now it's notes apps
| rather than colouring in...
|
| Finally - I think admitting that there simply isn't a perfect
| tool that will enable All The Things and Make Me A Much More
| Effective Person is much, much harder than the alternative
| which is to keep the Holy Grail somewhere in my consciousness,
| and keep on clicking those damn notes app links :-)
|
| [+] In case anyone cares, I've used them all but I'm really
| happy with current 3-pronged approach: Evernote for transient /
| meeting / throwaway notes. TickTick for to-do's. Dokuwiki for
| longer term / journaled / documentation type stuff. All
| connected together via the common beauty of hyperlinks. Hook
| for Mac is amazeballs for this...
| xpressvideoz wrote:
| I second TickTick. I've used tens of to-do apps and it
| reasonated with me the most.
| interleave wrote:
| Oh my, I've gotten similarly cynical as of late for practically
| the same reasons.
|
| But before anything else, congratulations on the launch!
|
| I've narrowed down to pen and paper[^1] and Obsidian for later
| remixing and publishing[^2]
|
| Having gotten used to how _usable and fast_ pen and paper is, I
| wanted the same feeling: Take a quick markdown note while
| working without having to keep Obsidian running in the
| background, switch to Obsidian to write and to leave my
| keyboard.
|
| None of the existing note-taking menu bar apps[^3] had what I
| needed. So I made my own that fits my needs perfectly[^4].
|
| A single global hotkey [?]-[?]-N opens the note popover, [?]-S
| saves the note into my Obsidian vault.
|
| If you want, check it out! It's the simplest, least-frills way
| I could come up with to jot down a markdown note
|
| [^1]: My pen and paper notebooks:
| https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/%E2%AD%90%EF%B8%8F...
|
| [^2]: My digital garden:
| https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/
|
| [^3]: Note-taking Menu Bar Apps:
| https://www.macmenubar.com/note-taking-apps/
|
| [^4]: QuickDown.app: https://github.com/akaalias/quickdown
| RivieraKid wrote:
| > I feel like everyone's just trying to make a buck with their
| tiny spin on the same idea.
|
| Lol, exactly. My first thought after seeing the landing page
| was "there has to be a Pricing link in the top right menu".
|
| From a rational perspective, there's absolutely nothing wrong
| with people wanting to get financial reward for their work. But
| subconsciously there's something about it that really annoys
| me, I'm not sure what.
| verifex wrote:
| I know what it is, it's the idea that someone can write code
| once, and someone else should pay to maintain it forever
| using a subscription model. The craziness of this space is
| that people think that maintaining a tiny footprint on a
| server somewhere is somehow worth $10 a month boggles my
| mind. You can buy access to most basic file-syncing services
| for that much. Why isn't a note-taking app, even a very
| advanced one, not just a simple one-time payment? If you want
| to haggle about paying for new versions, sure, but most of
| the "services" space is full of rent-seeking people, which is
| probably the thing that rubs you the wrong way.
|
| Another way of thinking about it: Most MMORPGs that charge
| monthly fees are around $10 a month too, does a note-taking
| app somehow involve as much work as maintaining the massive-
| infrastructure and maintenance nightmare of running a MMORPG?
| If not, why is the pricing so similar?
| blippage wrote:
| > The note-taking apps are good enough. Even pen and paper is
| good enough.
|
| It works for me too! I have a working piece of paper that I jot
| down notes on, plus whatever I need to do. If the "to do" is
| "long-term" enough, I have a lined A4 piece of paper for this
| purpose. I add it to the list.
|
| For note-taking, I write stuff down in my "lab book", or on my
| personal website. Easy.
|
| It's like the time I cobbled together a couple of ESP32's to
| act as an alarm system. The problem is, the Wifi was a bit
| marginal, and Wifi is always subject to drops anyway. My dad's
| solution: use a whistle.
| haswell wrote:
| The note taking space is interesting to me. You say the problem
| is solved, and yet, every time I see a new app in this space, I
| perk up because I hope that maybe this is the one that will
| resonate/work for me.
|
| Note taking is a deeply personal process. Physical notebooks as
| a medium are infinitely flexible but apps are not. This means
| that 100 different people writing notes on paper might be doing
| so in 100 different ways.
|
| I'd argue that this is why this is such a crowded (or rich)
| product category.
|
| I often find that <very popular "ultimate" note taking app> is
| not for me, and I find myself hoping for something that fits my
| particular needs and habits. I've occasionally thought about
| trying to build my own.
|
| All of this to say: I don't think the cynicism is needed here.
| Even if this is a solved problem for you, it's not for all of
| us, and I think the evidence that this is true is found in the
| fact that developers keep looking for new ways to solve this
| problem.
| loceng wrote:
| I've come to think the missing piece is a system or process
| of helping each person experiment through different note
| taking styles or systems, until they find what resonates best
| with them, or exposing them to various systems, different
| ones which they may realize work best for different contexts
| of what they're doing - for different projects or mental
| contexts, etc.
|
| I too have an idea for a "note taking" app - essentially
| better streamlining, automating, and extending what I
| currently do - but maybe the process or steps I currently
| take are integral to what I currently do working. Who knows.
| Will I ever get the chance to create the custom "note taking"
| app that I envision? Who knows.
|
| For now, because of my situation with severe chronic pain and
| how it impacts/disrupts my executive function, I will have
| multiple TODO lists on q-cards, and dozens and dozens TODO
| lists in various notes on my laptop and phone, none of which
| are synchronized - most of them lost to the past and
| therefore inherently part of a backlog of relatively
| unimportant things that otherwise would surface again in my
| mind or life if they were important enough.
| optymizer wrote:
| I have to say this makes sense to me, and I've always known
| that I'm just not in the target audience for these apps, but
| if you'll allow me to poke some fun at your comment for a
| second, I'd paraphrase it as "my note-taking needs are so
| intricate that nobody has hit the right spot yet. I need a
| perfect soup of features coded and exposed to me in just the
| right way so that when I finally write down a note I have a
| mental orgasm" :)
|
| Joking aside, I personally think it's more important to focus
| my attention on the substance of the note, rather than the
| process of taking the notes, though the two aren't in
| conflict with each other, except for the times when they take
| away from your time and mental bandwidth.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Totally! I made tap and I still use org-mode for a lot of
| stuff! I think we all think slightly different things when we
| hear "notes" It is both an artifact and also a system for
| capturing the artifacts. the artifact is often, but not
| always, just some boring text -- but the way it is captured
| and used can be really interesting and as varied as the
| artifacts themselves. _so. many. possibilities._!
| tsuujin wrote:
| I'm an avid org-mode user, all of my work happens there.
|
| Can you give me the elevator pitch for why I would pay for
| tap over my existing org-mode + captures + agenda?
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Not really. But _some_ part of my motivation to build tap
| was the difficulty convincing anybody to use emacs.
|
| Here are a couple points anyway:
|
| - I love getting email summaries of different note
| categories. I email myself a list of all my programming
| related reading saturday morning, it's great.
|
| - Entering a quick note via sms is hard to beat,
| especially because /tap sends me text messages every day
| and so it's always pretty high up on the recent messages
| list
|
| edit: formatting
| User23 wrote:
| I think there is probably some opportunity for an Emacs
| distribution that is specifically targeted at these
| potential users. However, not as a way to try to get them
| to join the Church of Emacs[1]. Emacs would be no more
| than an implementation detail for a great note taking
| app. I imagine something along the lines Nicolas
| Rougier's notebook-mode[2], but without the focus on
| literate programming. Just nice formatting, quality
| variable pitch fonts, and familiar keybinds. Maybe some
| kind of slick configuration of artist-mode too.
|
| [1] Of which I am a proud member, btw.
|
| [2] https://github.com/rougier/notebook-mode
| mcbishop wrote:
| I assume most note-taking apps originated with someone
| figuring out what system / process resonates for _them_. But
| ultimately that system / process is optimal only for that
| person. I've given up on adapting an off-the-shelf app... in
| part because I lack the self awareness here to know what's
| optimal for me. It's only in the process of working it out
| for myself on a basic canvas (e.g. a spreadsheet, text files,
| pen and paper) that I'll have any idea what will work and
| stick. I'm many iterations into that process. I'll look to
| /tap for inspiration! It looks awesome, props.
| MR4D wrote:
| My opinion is slightly different - I don't think note taking
| is about the _app_ , but rather about the _process_. Because
| of that, all of us will always be looking for something to
| make that process something better than we currently
| experience.
|
| To me, it's either paper, Notepad(or any simple text app), or
| Excel. Everything else is about the process.
|
| But then, maybe I've become old and crusty and just don't
| know it yet. Sigh.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > Note taking is a deeply personal process.
|
| Yes. All the more reason _not_ to encumber it with large
| dependencies, proprietary code, or fragile, transient
| technologies.
|
| I switched to using git as a repository of structured notes.
| The schema is simple. I can pull notes to various machines, I
| can archive the repository, I can track changes.
|
| "Everything should be as simple as possible and no simpler."
| -- attributed to a rather good physicist.
| prometheon1 wrote:
| It depends on the definition of a simple thing. Is your
| system so simple that you could teach your parents how to
| use it?
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| The process requires typing a note using the keyboard and
| then pushing the new/revised text to git. Git works on
| every computer and CPU architecture that I have used...
| and I have used a wider variety than most.
|
| If one's parents are the acceptance testers for
| usability... I think I might recommend that they use
| something that they understand fully. That might be git,
| but it might also be a Moleskin notebook and an ink or
| graphite writing instrument. ^_^
| prometheon1 wrote:
| Ok I agree, different types of people have different
| kinds of systems that are the most simple for them. But
| in that case, is it also possible that for some people
| the most simple system has a lot of large dependencies?
| (Maybe people who are young, used to writing by typing on
| a smartphone, not used to pen and paper, and never used
| git or a command line)
| friedman23 wrote:
| Note taking is solved, find me an app that solves note
| organizing and note retrieval and I will pay for that
| hanche wrote:
| I wonder sometimes if note organizing isn't a lost cause. If
| we could just solve note retrieval, who cares about
| organizing? I want to make a note when I find out something
| useful, and I want to retrieve that note when I need the
| information (or when I find out more, so I can amend the
| note). Organization seems orthogonal to that desire.
| humblepie wrote:
| I like seeing new ideas, and I'm one who has already settled on
| one note-taking technique. Discovering new ideas helps me
| incorporate new methods and also see some flaws to my
| techniques. That's all fine.
|
| It's understandable we sometimes feel fatigued on watching
| these assembly-line of apps coming our way, but it's new ideas
| and not products that excite me.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Thanks! I made /tap and I agree with a lot of what you're
| saying. The thing is, working on tap has been and continues to
| be fun! I think there are so many note-taking apps because a.
| they _can be_ easy to make and b. because everyone has their
| own way they want to take a note. I think of tap less as a
| note-taking system, more like the system to make the system.
| Sure there's a long way to go to _fully_ realize that, but I
| think we're headed in the right direction.
|
| I like seeing tap used for stuff I didn't anticipate. And
| that's what it's all about for me. Like, you could just use the
| API and never log into /tap at all.
|
| Also, maybe you're not into this kind of thing, how many note-
| taking systems have S-expression formulas that support nested
| functions?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > how many note-taking systems have S-expression formulas
| that support nested functions?
|
| Obsidian, Workflowy, Roam Research, Dynalist, Quire, Asana
| and Org Mode, just to name a few off the top of my head.
| ModernMech wrote:
| The flag made of hands is a thing out of my nightmares.
| BergTheBold wrote:
| I don't see where to submit a service request. There are errors
| in the browser console when I log in: TypeError: Cannot read
| properties of undefined (reading '$router') at app.e2dbfb1e.js:1
| at h (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at r (chunk-
| vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at Nt (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at
| e.zt.confirmTransition (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at
| e.zt.transitionTo (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at se.init
| (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at Cr.beforeCreate (chunk-
| vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at ie (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:41) at
| Hn (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:41)
| BergTheBold wrote:
| I'm still very interested in the service, though, and I'll
| probably continue to check in on it.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| hello [at] tatatap.com shoot me an email, we'll sort it out.
| pugworthy wrote:
| There are so many, "the best note taking/whatever thing ever"
| posts, I just don't read them anymore. It's a saturated market at
| least for me.
|
| * edit * I see I'm not the only one
| subhro wrote:
| Another subscription....
|
| _sigh_
| CalebAzunobi wrote:
| Nice
| prezjordan wrote:
| > S-expressions in the equation example
|
| Yes.
|
| > You already have the app. Save notes to /tap via text message
| (SMS), the website or a bookmarklet.
|
| K now I'm actually going to use this. Nice work. (Good landing
| page!)
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Thanks :-)
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I have completely ditched note taking systems in favor of a flat
| structure and strong search features. I just make a bunch of .md
| files and edit them in vscode.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| If people are interested, Joplin is a great FOSS note taking
| software built on markdown but adds e2e encryption, a web
| clipper, a nice desktop UI, Integrated syncing (you can use
| Dropbox or something like that, or pay for their service), and
| more. The mobile app needs some work, but overall I like it.
| codazoda wrote:
| I like the approach to plain text or .md files but for some
| reason the tool being in the web browser makes me much more
| productive. I suspect it's because I'm already in the browser
| all day.
|
| Because the browser makes me so much more productive, I built
| my own second brain software tool and I posted it as a Show HN
| yesterday (it's a rough first go).
|
| https://joeldare.com/i-built-my-own-second-brain-software-to...
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I do this. I also have a small plugin that causes F6 to pull up
| scratchpad.md
| keithnz wrote:
| This is what I do, and I use Obsidian as a layer over it as it
| is designed with this kind of structure in mind. You aren't
| locked into it in anyway. It even has a Vim mode.
| riffic wrote:
| you may be interested in these then (vs code plugins):
|
| * Foam - https://github.com/foambubble/foam
|
| * Dendron - https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron
|
| Obsidian is great as well, but there are caveats that may make
| it not so great with your preferences
| mstngl wrote:
| And not to forget LogSeq (https://logseq.com) which is often
| mentioned in a row with the above and somehow the new kid in
| town. Works with local markdown files but lives in your
| browser (so useful even in environment with low privileges).
| Allows linking and querying notes and blocks swiftly.
| [deleted]
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Been there. Consider looking at Obsidian, which is a great
| client operating on local .md files (which you could still edit
| in VSC -- tho you'd be missing out).
| novok wrote:
| I think the key issue with notes that you just edit in plain
| text files on your computer is the lack of sync, mobile access
| and access to a quick ui on the mobile side.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Syncthing solves the markdown sync issue for me flawlessly on
| every platform. You can always use Dropbox or any other plain
| old file sync service too (OneDrive, NextCloud, etc.). At the
| end of the day it's just a bunch of files so you can use
| anything--sftp, rsync, xmodem over dialup... it's just files.
| mempko wrote:
| LISP in your notes? That's cool. For my note taking I use the
| great tiddlywiki. A lot of features seem to overlap with the
| tiddlywiki. What seems nicer is the syntax, which is cool. As a
| tiddlywiki user, what's the advantage of this note taking app
| over that one?
|
| (https://tiddlywiki.com/)
| joe8756438 wrote:
| I'm not sure, just seeing tiddlywiki for the first time now.
| Two of the main goals of /tap are having your notes meet you
| where you are: sms, email, API and introducing elements that
| allow you to consolidate other applications into tap: beans,
| formulas, events etc.
| mempko wrote:
| I see you are the creator of /tap? Great! I think the multi
| modal goal is definitely cool and could be really useful. For
| tiddlywiki, I have to host my own server and only access to
| it is via a browser. While I have access everywhere this way,
| it's sometimes slow on mobile phones.
|
| FYI, I signed up but login doesn't seem to work for me. Does
| nothing. I had to verify my email but got a 'oops try again'
| message with the verify link. Maybe has something to do with
| not being able to login.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Email me at hello [at] tatatap.com and I will sort it out
| for you.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| This is a hosted service so you can just access it and
| read/write your data from anywhere. With tiddlywiki you need to
| go through a lot of machinations or even run your own server to
| access it anywhere.
| mempko wrote:
| Yes, it being hosted is definitely nice. It's not a big deal
| for people like me that know how to host software but I can
| see that being a huge plus for folks who can't/don't want to
| manage their own server.
| pedrovhb wrote:
| I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I've been using
| todopy (which works on the todo.txt format/spec) to manage tasks,
| and hledger to manage finances, and after having tried a myriad
| of solutions for organizing life, it seems it's these simple CLI
| tools with text-based formats that work best for me.
|
| This product kind of feels like that, but without the main
| upsides (easy extensibility, you own your data, it's all
| accessible locally so latency is non-existent). I don't really
| see much benefit vs having local files backed up by GKeep and/or
| a VCS instead.
|
| Still might steal some of the ideas, though. In particular,
| tracking events is useful ("when was it that I last had to order
| gas again? Do I need it soon?")
| joe8756438 wrote:
| I release the parser open source https://github.com/tatatap-
| com/sowhat it could be a nice overlay on top of a local plain-
| text note-taking solution
| dysoco wrote:
| You might be already be aware of this but you might want to take
| into account the fact that many countries do not use SMS at all,
| first because it's non-free/expensive and secondly because people
| have just grown used to not even realize it's an option.
|
| Here in South America it's ALL Whatssapp, I don't think I've ever
| sent an SMS in 10 years.
| Naac wrote:
| The same thing is unfortunately happening in the US. I would
| assume that iphone to iphone communication over imessage also
| does not go through traditional sms.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Noted. FWIW SMS is not a requirement to use /tap. And I would
| love to build more messaging integrations. email me with
| suggestions!
| junon wrote:
| Whatsapp has a business API pretty much exactly for stuff
| like this.
| dysoco wrote:
| With WhatsApp you already cover probably 90% of Latin America
| and Europe; Telegram would be really nice to have since it's
| gaining traction and it's popular among tech-savvy users.
|
| Russia and Asia probably use other apps like WeChat, honestly
| no idea.
| danShumway wrote:
| There's some very cool ideas here, I like the approach it's
| taking with composability, it's an interesting project. And the
| integration into other systems seems kind of inspired in some
| ways, getting a summary email or doing stuff with text messages
| seems gimmicky in theory but I bet it actually feels great and
| ends up being useful in practice. Probably a lesson there about
| the benefits of integrating with multiple systems/primatives that
| people already know how to use and build on as a way of
| encouraging them to be more flexible/creative.
|
| However, and it's a big however:
|
| Speaking as someone who once did a ton of handwritten notetaking
| in OneNote, and then realized that the export options at the time
| made it practically impossible for me to carry those notes
| forward as my setup evolved, and that I was about to potentially
| lose somewhere between 1 to 2 years of my notetaking life, the "I
| need to know that when I put my brain in this that I can get it
| back out" worry is pretty real.
|
| It's not even just data export, OneNote had this cool thing where
| it would search the text of handwritten notes, which encourages
| you to take handwritten notes. It's great because handwritten
| notes feel good to write but are disorganized, so you could kind
| of bridge the gap. But the problem is that then even if you do
| get the images out, all that functionality is gone suddenly. So
| similarly, lets say I do use an API to back up all my notes, am I
| going to build extensive infrastructure around integrating with
| SMS and a CLI that all just gets thrown away some day?
|
| After OneNote, it's very hard for me to consider using a
| notetaking app that doesn't talk about its data format/export on
| its homepage. Digging through the blog posts, I can see some talk
| about Open Source data formats, which is good, but only partially
| assuages my fears. But in general, /tap is immediately talking
| about REST APIs on its homepage, which, cool, I do think that's a
| cool idea. Is there actually an overlapping Venn diagram between
| people who are using a note system that's so comprehensive it's
| sending them text reminders, and people who know how to make REST
| requests, and people who _aren 't_ very paranoid about owning
| their own data?
|
| I pay subscriptions for other people to host stuff that I don't
| want to dig into the technical weeds for; I pay for Wallabag
| hosting because I have stuff to do with my life that doesn't
| involve running security updates on a Wallabag server. I'm really
| happy to pay for services like that, especially if its in the
| $1-10 a month range, which /tap is. But importantly, I _could_
| self-host Wallabag if I needed to, today, without losing any
| functionality and without needing to rebuild any of my
| infrastructure that integrates with Wallabag. I could migrate my
| data both to the new self-hosted service or to a competing
| service, or I could even pay _another_ 3rd-party to host Wallabag
| for me again, and point my URLs to their servers. So I don 't
| have a bunch of hesitations in the back of my mind about giving
| someone money to host that kind of service because it's less of a
| risk to do so.
|
| On the other hand, with /tap, with a system where I am literally
| putting part of my brain into the computer, I think I need
| stronger guarantees about how it's going to work and what will
| happen after it gets bought by Google.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| I hear you. What guarantees about how it works do you have in
| mind?
|
| You may be interested in just the parsing component of /tap,
| which is open source https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat
| danShumway wrote:
| I did see the parsing component, and it looks good. My worry
| though is that even with the parsing format being good,
| you're not really selling this as a parser; it doesn't seem
| like the text format is the most exciting part of this.
|
| With notes in specific, because they're such an important
| part of my life, I'm taking a very long-term view; what still
| exists after 15 years? Everything else is kind of ethereal
| and doesn't matter because I can't really invest into
| building systems around something that will disappear
| suddenly. So I look at /tap through that lens: what parts of
| this still exist if tomorrow the developer either gets bough
| by Google or joins an Amish community?
|
| It seems like it's only the parser? Not the SMS stuff, not
| the visualization or searching, not emailing, not how the
| ledger works, not the API. And again, it seems like a good
| parser, but I already have some decent parsers I use for
| taking notes in text format, that's a somewhat crowded space
| that's hard to compete in.
|
| ----
|
| I may not be the kind of customer you are trying to target,
| and that's fine, but I'll try to explain more clearly what I
| mean.
|
| When I think back to OneNote, I built systems around
| something that stopped working for me, and then those systems
| all had to be rebuilt from scratch. It was a huge loss of
| time investment that outweighed any monetary investment. If
| I'm thinking long-term about my notes, I'm paying $7 for...
| basically just document storage, I can't really build around
| the API or the SMS or email integration, because that stuff
| doesn't exist in a permanent form, it's all ethereal and it
| all goes away if you join Google. In some ways it's even
| worse than that, because the focus on SMS integration means
| I'm likely to get heavily reliant on SMS for notetaking,
| which is a huge issue if I ever need to self-host anything
| and realize suddenly that building apps around SMS handling
| is very difficult. I've now kind of accidentally made my life
| much harder.
|
| But I compare that situation to something like
| Matrix/Wallabag, apps where prices for official hosting are
| basically in the same neighborhood as /tap and that cost me
| very similar amounts of money to subscribe to:
|
| - I'm getting a lower barrier of entry that means I can start
| relying on the project before I ever learn anything about
| hosting.
|
| - I'm getting the chance to build infrastructure around an
| actively supported piece of tech, where I don't have to solve
| all of my own problems.
|
| - I'm paying for short-term uptime guarantees.
|
| - I'm paying to have to think less about security.
|
| - I'm paying to not have to think about the horror of
| integrating with SMS/Email notifications
|
| In theory, I would be paying for the same stuff in /tap, but
| in practice I'm not because the SMS features and integrations
| and stuff don't actually exist in the long-term. Everything
| except the parsing format is ethereal and is going to go
| away.
|
| So I have a short-term uptime guarantee from /tap that's
| higher than my own would be, at the cost of needing to redo
| my entire infrastructure and needing to figure out hosting
| from scratch in the future. I can think less about security
| right now, at the cost of needing to build my own product
| some day where all of those security problems will come back
| in full-force even worse. I have a lower barrier of entry
| now, but later on I have to drop everything and start from
| scratch, and I won't be able to really do anything with my
| notes when that happens other than parse them until I rebuild
| my own solutions for stuff like repeated tasks. I can build
| infrastructure around an actively supported tech stack,
| except that tech might all vanish one day, so I can't
| _really_ rely on any infrastructure that I build, or on any
| other service that relies on /tap.
|
| ----
|
| It's difficult to put into words, but I want to feel like I
| am paying for a service, not for a technology. With
| Matrix/Wallabag/insert-whatever, I get to temporarily not
| think about problems that are annoying, but I could think
| about them if I needed to. If something goes wrong, I could
| even pay another person to think about them and keep putting
| that problem off. And that means the service is just making
| my life easier, I'm just paying for people to solve problems
| for me and to deal with things I don't want to deal with. I'm
| paying for someone else to help me use a piece of technology.
|
| In contrast, with /tap, I'm paying for access to that
| technology just as much as I'm paying for any service, which
| far from solving problems actually introduces problems in my
| life, because it would add new API requirements for whatever
| custom solution I'll need to eventually build when the
| company pivots or gets bought out or dies.
|
| In a weird way, because notes are a long-term investment, the
| exclusivity around the tech means the value proposition for
| me as a user is much lower than the value proposition from
| more open applications, because kind of summing up everything
| above, a concept that encapsulates a lot of these ideas is
| that I'm paying for _peace of mind_ , I'm paying to have
| someone take my worries away and to stress about stuff like
| hosting for me. And /tap's approach to peace of mind seems to
| be "don't worry, you can rebuild everything yourself if
| something goes wrong." The only way I'd get peace of mind out
| of that is if I paid you for hosting and then only used the
| REST API and only after reimplementing the entire REST API
| myself locally. But it's not worth $7 a month for me to do
| that, I want solutions that I don't have to plan around a
| bunch, I want solutions that don't give me anxiety when I
| think about the future. Parsing is a very small part of that,
| I'm not really worried that no one would be able to figure
| out how to parse a documented text format if /tap went down,
| I'm worried about everything else.
|
| Again, I am probably not your ideal customer, so I think take
| that with a grain of salt. But my perspective is that I want
| a service that makes me feel more confident about the long-
| term, not less. I feel like if I was setting up auto-
| responders or integrating Tasker with my SMS app on my phone
| around /tap -- I don't think I'd feel confident about any of
| those systems, /tap seems to be encouraging me to build some
| very long-term fragile solutions/integrations for my
| notetaking setup.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| This is the most similar note taking app to my long term note
| taking app I built for myself. Very good!
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Ooh, interesting. Leveraging SMS mass pricing with shot commands.
| Brings back memories from the before Smartphone era. I wonder if
| this could take off with people so used to GUI now.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| The _only_ issue I have yet to solve with SMS is security. They
| are by nature completely and totally open... and there doesn 't
| seem to be a good fix other than sending encrypted text, which
| defeats the purpose of the convenience of SMS
| nixass wrote:
| If there's "pricing", "plans" or "subscription" tab on the
| website I will ignore the tool 100%, especially for this purpose
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| Looks interesting. However, no more subscriptions. I only use
| FOSS software or software I can buy for money.
| claviska wrote:
| I sympathize with this. But as an open source author, I
| encourage folks to at least occasionally sponsor some of the
| FOSS packages they heavily rely on.
|
| I love open source, but I also pay for apps and services that
| provide me with more value than what they cost. I'm not sure
| this provides me with that value, but perhaps to some it does.
|
| Regardless, if software boosts your productivity, free or not,
| it's worth at least a few bucks to subscribe or sponsor and
| support the authors.
| MandieD wrote:
| Amen to that - if I use something, I'm happy to _buy_ it, or to
| make a one-time donation to a project, but no more
| subscriptions.
| jetrink wrote:
| Provided the SMS features are core to the system (and it looks
| like they are), then this is more of a service than a software
| product, in my opinion. It's surprisingly expensive to send or
| receive a text message - about a cent[1]. A light user would
| cost them about $0.50/month and a heavy user would cost them
| several dollars. I don't know how you could provide that
| without a subscription.
|
| 1. https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/us
| joe8756438 wrote:
| The parser component of /tap is open source
| https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat if you already have a
| plain-text solution you may find having a quick way to parse
| utility elements is a useful addition.
| lostintangent wrote:
| Congrats on the release! I _really_ love the simple approach this
| tool takes. Though personally, I view note taking as "commodity"
| enough, that I prefer to own my data, and use my existing editor
| setup. If folks are looking for a productive, yet low-ceremony
| note taking workflow, GitHub.dev might be worth a look, since it
| provides the benefits of using Markdown, a GitHub repo, and VS
| Code, all from the browser: http://aka.ms/githubdev-fun,
| https://twitter.com/lostintangent/status/1429483662257446916.
|
| I also _really_ like the concept of "spells", so congrats on this
| experience as well. It would be interesting to explore
| implementing the same behavior using GitHub Actions (many of
| which, probably already exist?), with push/cron triggers. The
| benefit of that is that you could share your note taking workflow
| as a repo template, and then others could fork it and be up-and-
| running without any new accounts/tools/etc.
| austinvhuang wrote:
| I'm working on local-first OSS for this sort of second brain
| thing called OpenMemex. The data store is sqlite (wasm/rust
| frontend) with programmable integrations in mind:
|
| https://github.com/austinvhuang/openmemex
| lostintangent wrote:
| Looks really interesting! Thanks for sharing
| asleepawake wrote:
| This reads like the reply to the Dropbox release.
| lostintangent wrote:
| Is cloud storage anywhere near as opinion-inducing as note
| taking workflows though? :) There are like a dozen new
| entrants each month, and so it's probably meaningful for
| folks to get super clear on their core requirements.
| Otherwise, you'd spend all your time evaluating tools, as
| opposed to actually writing.
| avrionov wrote:
| How do you access your notes on mobile?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Look into gitjournal if you're storing and editing markdown
| from git repos: https://gitjournal.io/ It's very nice in my
| experience.
| lostintangent wrote:
| Yeah GitJournal is great. I used it for a while, and the
| dev is super responsive and awesome.
| lostintangent wrote:
| It's a little bit clunky, but you can use GitHub.dev/<repo>
| on your phone. I do a lot of browsing/quick edits that way,
| and it works well enough. That said, I also use Working Copy
| for iOS to sync my notes repo, and will use that sometimes as
| well.
|
| Personally, I don't find that I do a lot of "deep writing" on
| my phone, as opposed to quick recall or in-the-moment scratch
| padding. So as long as I have a way to access my notes, make
| quick edits, and then sync them with my laptop (where I'll do
| my primary thinking later), then I'm pretty content.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Open a text file. Enter text. Save with a proper name. Done.
|
| No need for connectivity or any additional complexity
| mteoharov wrote:
| After signing up for a trial I went to input my phone so I can
| use the SMS feature and there is this: "*Currently only
| supporting US phone numbers.". It would have been nice to know
| this prior to signing up.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Noted. Feel free to email me at hello [at] tatatap.com we might
| be able to figure something out
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Hey HN,
|
| Creator of /tap here. Thanks for all the great discussion! If
| there's anything I can answer related to the product, process,
| reasoning, where /tap is headed LMK!
| jonititan wrote:
| Were you inspired by Zim?
|
| https://zim-wiki.org/
| zcmack wrote:
| a subscription to a notes service that is intentionally more
| barebones than the other options is something i really don't
| need. currently using joplin and its been working pretty well.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I like the reminders spell. Unfortunately it works only with SMS
| text message and only US is supported, which means I can't use
| this product :-(
|
| Why not reminders by email?
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Yes. It will happen.
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