[HN Gopher] Joplin - An open-source note taking and to-do applic...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Joplin - An open-source note taking and to-do application with
       synchronisation
        
       Author : 3np
       Score  : 290 points
       Date   : 2023-07-06 04:40 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | imafish wrote:
       | I switched from unstructured Trello / OneNote / Notepad notes to
       | Joplin 4 years ago.
       | 
       | I sync it through cloud between mobile, desktop and laptop.
       | 
       | It is simply awesome. One of the most important tools I use
       | everyday.
        
       | sbkg0002 wrote:
       | I like Joplin, but the fact that they refused to create an arm64
       | Darwin build, made me look for alternatives.
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | Not sure why "refused". We want to support it but it's not
         | trivial and it doesn't help that we don't have the hardware to
         | test this. It will be done eventually
        
       | t_sawyer wrote:
       | Been using Joplin as my main note app for over 2 years.
       | 
       | IOS, Web Clipper, and Windows clients. Synced to Nextcloud.
       | 
       | I do wish there was a webapp for me to see my notes in a browser
       | but I understand the way it works how that would be difficult to
       | create due to the use use of local files and syncing.
        
       | lienz wrote:
       | I've used Obsidian, Logseq, Apple Notes, and Joplin recently.
       | 
       | I really like Obsidian for how performant it feels for handling
       | really long md files with outline.
       | 
       | But the best capturing experience is Logseq. I just record
       | everything I do in the journal (daily) page and just tag them
       | (tag can have hierarchy and spaces too) . I don't have to think
       | about directory structure or which file the info should go into.
       | Logseq sucks for handling long form md files tho, so I keep
       | Obsidian for that.
       | 
       | Joplin I tried to use it until it started having sync conflicts,
       | and the sync corruption error cannot be dismissed. Google
       | solutions suggests exporting JEX and delete everything and re-
       | import. I give up after that.
       | 
       | Apple Notes is really nice too but lack coding highlight.
        
       | saghul wrote:
       | Really happy with Joplin! It's one of those pieces of software
       | that Just Works (TM) and allows me to not worry about it.
       | 
       | I'm using the Joplin sync server for keeping my stuff in sync and
       | it has worked flawlessly.
       | 
       | If Laurent or anyone from the Joplin community is reading: great
       | job everyone! <3
        
       | lf-non wrote:
       | I love joplin - it has been my goto solution for adhoc notes for
       | almost two years now. I use it on multiple devices and they all
       | sync to an S3 bucket which is very cheap setup that works well
       | once configured properly.
       | 
       | I don't love the default editing experience but the Rich Makdown
       | extension solves it well for me.
       | 
       | The extension ecosystem is a bit of mixed bag. There are few good
       | extensions but many are half baked.
        
       | wanderingmind wrote:
       | For those that want to crosslink anything and everything I
       | suggest Logseq[1]. Its journal and graph view are fantastic. And
       | it has many useful plugins. I use it along with git-sync [2] and
       | syncthing [3] now I can sync the notes across my work, personal
       | desktops and my mobile.
       | 
       | [1] http://logseq.com/
       | 
       | [2] https://github.com/simonthum/git-sync
       | 
       | [3] https://syncthing.net/
        
         | eitland wrote:
         | I jumped from Joplin to Logseq too.
         | 
         | Before it was Boostnote.
         | 
         | Probably the reason was both Boostnote and Joplin seems to have
         | stopped developing the application and shifted focus to
         | monetization.
         | 
         | Also I personally prefer the (much) more technical way that
         | Logseq work. It is not a markdown editor, but a knowledge base
         | that stores its data as plaintext files in a markdown-like
         | format.
         | 
         | One question: do you have pointers to a good way to setup git
         | sync and syncthing? I pay enough to LogSeq to have free sync
         | but I prefer to self host and also the current sync model is
         | somewhat flaky.
        
           | wanderingmind wrote:
           | I have a private git repo in Github which is the folder that
           | Logseq uses. I have a cron job to runs script for git-sync on
           | all machines on reboot. I also have syncthing running on my
           | personal desktop that shares this git repo with my android
           | phone. It runs smooth as long as you don't do simultaneous
           | edits from multiple machines.This will break the git-sync and
           | you will have to do merge conflicts of that happens.
        
           | laurent123456 wrote:
           | I don't know about Boostnote but Joplin is still actively
           | developed. Just check the changelogs, and all that is open
           | source:
           | 
           | https://joplinapp.org/changelog/
           | 
           | https://joplinapp.org/changelog_android/
        
             | eitland wrote:
             | Ok, I only open the app sometimes to see if there is an
             | update available and I can't remember last time I saw one.
        
         | privacywiki wrote:
         | Do you have any idea on how can I import Joplin md's into
         | Logseq?
        
         | stanislavb wrote:
         | A huge fan of Logseq here. I can't imagine my workflow without
         | it anymore. However, I still can't have it on mobile because of
         | sync. iCloud is awful, Syncthing doesn't support mobile.
        
           | DirkH wrote:
           | I have it synced to mobile using syncthing no issues. Has
           | been working great with very few hiccups for months
           | 
           | This app works great on Android: https://www.f-droid.org/pack
           | ages/com.nutomic.syncthingandroi...
        
           | jhoechtl wrote:
           | > Syncthing doesn't support mobile.
           | 
           | Just checking ... yes, I have Syncthing running on Android.
        
           | tiim wrote:
           | Does syncthing not support iphone? Because on android it
           | works flawlessly.
        
             | awill wrote:
             | my understanding is that syncthing doesn't work properly on
             | iOS, because Apple doesn't allow background processes. So
             | you have to manually sync all the time. I'd imagine you'd
             | get into some merge conflicts if you forget to manually
             | sync and start editing notes.
             | 
             | That's why ios apps generally either use their own sync, or
             | use iCloud. As someone that has a mix of devices (iOS,
             | Linux desktop, macbook for work), this leave me with very
             | few cross-platform options.
        
               | Tomte wrote:
               | It works well enough. I've never had a problem.
               | 
               | This background process issue may prevent optimal
               | operation, but I've never seen a file not being synced
               | quickly in practice.
               | 
               | Just get Mobius Sync (https://www.mobiussync.com/) and
               | don't overthink it.
        
           | jeffvogelsang wrote:
           | Have look at Mobius Sync. It is a third party app that wraps
           | and makes SyncThing available on iOS & iPadOS.
           | https://www.mobiussync.com/
        
         | rho138 wrote:
         | Until you deploy the web or electron apps and realize it
         | beacons out to the internet.
        
         | dunco wrote:
         | I looked at logseq as an alternative to joplin but there were
         | too many little flags that suggested to me that privacy and
         | being free might not be forever. I don't have a problem with
         | paying for software, but I don't like getting embedded in it
         | when I don't know what the cost will be. Privacy wise,
         | statements like "The aim of Logseq is to establish a better
         | environment for both learning and collaboration, enabling us to
         | form a network that connects our ideas and enhances the
         | collective knowledge of humanity." worry me. I don't want my
         | ideas connected with humanity and I certainly don't want my
         | notes used to train someones LLM. Maybe this is an unfair
         | reading, as they do claim to be privacy focused, but I am
         | worried that they will discover far to many interesting and fun
         | things to do with user data and I just don't really like where
         | that sounds like its headed. If Joplin could do better sharing
         | (with eg a colleague or spouse) on mobile and better separation
         | of work/private notes (like different storage locations) it
         | would be just about perfect for me for a note taking app, but
         | then my needs are pretty simple.
        
           | Tomte wrote:
           | > I looked at logseq as an alternative to joplin but there
           | were too many little flags that suggested to me that privacy
           | and being free might not be forever.
           | 
           | Exactly my thoughts when I looked at it a few weeks ago
           | (minus the privacy angle that I didn't feel).
           | 
           | I also bounced off the slew of influencer-type blog posts and
           | videos that promise you that Logseq will change your {life,
           | studies, PhD, work} forever when all I saw in those videos
           | were very, very simple outlines. The whole community
           | (including the subreddit) seems very... promotional.
        
           | niyyou wrote:
           | Just try it out before interpreting their vision (which I
           | totally ignored up until now). It is simply a nice system
           | based on your local markdown files, allowing to easily cross-
           | link notes. It is opinionated but I like that. It follows the
           | bullet journaling approach and has a rudimentary integrated
           | todo system.
           | 
           | I have personally tried many alternatives (obsidian among
           | them) but nothing comes close to what logseq offers _to me_,
           | despite its few shortcomings (it's not a lightning fast
           | implementation, it bugs sometimes).
           | 
           | Hope it helps.
        
             | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
             | Why would you want to try it before interpreting their
             | vision? That's how you trap your data in an app before it
             | turns to garbage.
        
               | cube2222 wrote:
               | It uses plaintext markdown files, so I don't think it's
               | too big of an issue.
        
             | acidburnNSA wrote:
             | Same. I've tried a dozen different notes options and logseq
             | is the one that has stuck the longest. After screen sharing
             | it at work a little there are now 10 more people using it
             | daily for notes and talking about how it's what they've
             | always been looking for.
        
           | wanderingmind wrote:
           | Thank you for the info. Since, I use my own local data and
           | don't store anything on their cloud, I didn't read their
           | cloud storage plan. I hope how they will not be able to train
           | LLMs or connect with other data sources if the data is not
           | stored on their cloud. One lesson I learned os that if you
           | use any cloud storage, they can always update the ToS and
           | EULA at anytime to break through privacy
        
           | DirkH wrote:
           | Just don't sync to the cloud. Use syncthing and any privacy
           | concerns are solved. That's what I do. Works great syncing
           | between my 3 devices
        
           | rhamzeh wrote:
           | > better separation of work/private notes (like different
           | storage locations)
           | 
           | FYI, as of last year, Joplin supports profiles on both
           | Desktop and Android that are exactly that. Though you do have
           | to restart the app to toggle between the two.
           | 
           | Release notes:
           | https://joplinapp.org/news/20220606-release-2-8/
           | 
           | Open issue for multiple instances ala Firefox:
           | https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/591
        
       | mitchitized wrote:
       | Longtime joplin user here - been using s3 sync storage since it
       | was available. As long as it is open and free, that will be my
       | note app of choice. Yeah the mobile app definitely needs work,
       | and there's always room for improvement overall. But it is free
       | as in "free beer", as well as "free speech". Both are hard
       | requirements for me, at least for my notes (and data, in
       | general).
       | 
       | I have years of notes in joplin, spread across dozens of
       | notebooks and several profiles. I'm impressed.
       | 
       | There are a zillion competitors out there, some with extremely
       | beautiful interfaces - but it MUST be open for me to even look at
       | it.
        
         | greenie_beans wrote:
         | s3 sync is still broken for me. haven't had time to open a pr
         | to fix it.
        
           | lbotos wrote:
           | Do you have an open issue for it? Curious as to what the fix
           | is. (I _jankily_ re-wrote the sync when it broke a while back
           | so curious what 's not working.)
        
         | princevegeta89 wrote:
         | How is the sync now? Does it only sync every 5 minutes, with
         | the user requiring to manually press "sync" for every change?
         | Or does it sync on changes automatically?
         | 
         | I'm asking because I used it in the past and the sync
         | limitation often caused conflicts for my mobile and desktop
         | clients
        
           | jl6 wrote:
           | I use Joplin extensively on multiple devices and I find that
           | the only way to completely avoid sync conflicts is to make
           | sure you hit sync after entering data on one device, and then
           | hit sync on the other device before using it.
        
             | hoistbypetard wrote:
             | FWIW, with OneDrive sync, I haven't noticed that problem. I
             | use Joplin quite a bit from both desktop and mobile, but
             | have been living without the browser extensions in an
             | experiment since the beginning of this year.
        
             | princevegeta89 wrote:
             | Interesting, thanks for confirming.. not sure yet if I want
             | to jump back to Joplin yet.
        
       | oslac wrote:
       | I tried a few, but (nearly) default Obsidian won me over by
       | simplicity, ease-of-use.
        
       | NewsMichaela wrote:
       | Like that Joplin is open source and love the extensibility
       | (plugins, API): In my workflow, I have it set up to store my
       | transcribed speech notes and todos (with accurate offline speech
       | recognition): https://github.com/QuantiusBenignus/NoteWhispers
        
       | Kaibeezy wrote:
       | People seem to be talking about this/these mainly for note
       | taking, but I'm really only looking for the web clipping
       | function. Evernote has been fine for my vast collection of chashu
       | recipes, audio equipment schematics and philosophy enchiridia. I
       | sure wouldn't want to lose that stuff. Joplin then? Obsidian?
       | Something else? /rhetorical - I will keep reading the comments.
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | Joplin does have a Web Clipper
        
       | msravi wrote:
       | I tried many note-taking apps and finally settled on Notable[0].
       | It's simple and you can point it to a folder with markdown files
       | and attachments. Plus, you can just sync the folder using any
       | syncing service, and use Noteless[1] on Android. The tagging
       | support is superb, you can cross-link notes, render math using
       | katex, and export to pdf.
       | 
       | Because of the simple folder structure, you can also use vim+fzf
       | to search/navigate/create/edit your notes. The notational-fzf-vim
       | plugin[2] is superb for that.
       | 
       | For web-clipping, I just use the markdownload[3] extension in
       | firefox and save the markdown file in the notes folder.
       | 
       | Why not joplin? Mostly because joplin stores notes in an sqlite
       | database instead of a simple folder structure making it not
       | easily accessible by normal unix tools and editors.
       | 
       | Why not obsidian? Was never able to grok obsidian. Pointing it at
       | my existing notes makes it just show up as a huge mess of
       | unstructured notes. I guess it needs some effort to organize and
       | link existing notes. In notable, I can tag a note as Books/CS,
       | and CS/Books, and it'll show up in corresponding folder-like
       | structures in the left panel. Can't do that in obsidian.
       | 
       | 0. https://notable.app/
       | 
       | 1.
       | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.redsolver....
       | 
       | 2. https://github.com/alok/notational-fzf-vim
       | 
       | 3. https://github.com/deathau/markdownload
        
         | anta40 wrote:
         | Notable looks cool. The mobile apps are not ready, though. OK,
         | let's try it.
        
           | msravi wrote:
           | Noteless on Android works well with Notable
        
             | jq-r wrote:
             | Or Textastic on iOS.
        
               | fluder wrote:
               | FSNotes for iOS and macOS, native and fast
        
         | pjturpeau wrote:
         | Do you know how Noteless compares to GitJournal on Android?
         | Thank you.
         | 
         | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.gitjournal....
        
           | msravi wrote:
           | Gitjournal used to make a lot of stuff (including things like
           | rendering math equations) subscription-only, which was
           | sufficiently off-putting.
           | 
           | I just looked at it again, and I think they've gotten rid of
           | the subscription and made it a one-time "pro" purchase.
           | That's better than subscription I guess. The only added
           | advantage I see is that syncing with git is built in.
        
         | GaryWilder wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | WhiteSabbath wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | dermesser wrote:
         | > Why not joplin? Mostly because joplin stores notes in an
         | sqlite database instead of a simple folder structure making it
         | not easily accessible by normal unix tools and editors.
         | 
         | But instead much more accessible to any kind of software,
         | including a five line python script. While plain text files are
         | useful, they shouldn't be taken to be the only true and
         | accessible way of storing data, even textual ones.
        
           | msravi wrote:
           | Not saying that text format is the one true way - but _I_
           | find it much more convenient to browse /read/search for notes
           | than reading from a database.
        
       | rhamzeh wrote:
       | Some pros of Joplin that go unnoticed vs other note taking apps:
       | 
       | 1- Available on F-Droid (unofficially) 2- Available as a Flatpak
       | (unofficially) 3- Supports syncing to file system (thus syncing
       | via syncthing) 4- Supports encrypting the exported files 5- Open
       | source 6- Can handle a lot of notes (I have around 5k, but some
       | of those are large notes) 7- Dark Mode
       | 
       | These, among many other features make it my note editor of choice
       | for the past 5 years.
        
       | bornon5 wrote:
       | The ideal "knowledge base" app I've been searching for is as
       | follows:                 - Self-hosted       - Attractive web
       | client that loads very quickly and works well on mobile       -
       | Can point it at a nested directory of text/markdown and image/pdf
       | files (no sql database)       - Text files are editable in place
       | (no "edit" button, etc.)       - Markdown displays in a plain-
       | text view (no hidden formatting characters, no "rich text"
       | editor)
       | 
       | Every app I've tried misses at least of these. The closest I've
       | found, strangely, is vscode-server, which is just too bloated and
       | mobile-unfriendly to work for me. I'm perpetually a millimeter
       | away from writing my own, but I feel like I need to stop doing
       | that.
       | 
       | Does this app exist?
        
         | rakoo wrote:
         | Do you _really_ need a web client ?
         | 
         | I use markor
         | (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.gsantner.markor/) on
         | android and it does everything I need. It's all a bunch of
         | files, synchronized with syncthing, so I can use it on my
         | desktop with any editor (maybe https://thiefmd.com/, maybe
         | another one). No need for a server, I can use it while offline,
         | it's lightweight to install and maintain.
        
           | bornon5 wrote:
           | I want to be able to access the same content from my laptop,
           | phone, and tablet. I used Obsidian for a while with a
           | convoluted setup (a Git repo with an iOS shortcut that
           | fetched when the Obsidian app was launched), but it proved
           | too slow and error-prone to continue using.
           | 
           | I want the whole stack to be open source, which is why I'm
           | not using Obsidian Sync or an iOS Syncthing client. So while
           | I don't technically need web client, I don't know of any
           | other solution that would work for me.
        
             | 369548684892826 wrote:
             | How about using iCloud for sync?
        
             | rakoo wrote:
             | I understand your concern, personally syncthing does a
             | perfect job for me. I'm never editing from multiple devices
             | at the same time, and by the time I switch to another
             | device the content is synced. If not, I give it a little
             | time and it makes me pause and use computers a little bit
             | less, so it's not that much of a downside.
        
               | bornon5 wrote:
               | How are you using Syncthing on iOS?
        
               | rakoo wrote:
               | Oh, sorry, I didn't understand you were using iOS, I
               | don't use Apple products and I didn't know there was no
               | proper syncthing on iOS.
        
               | flangola7 wrote:
               | They said they're on Android.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | theshrike79 wrote:
         | Obsidian has everything but "Attractive web client", but it
         | does have a native client.
         | 
         | The "database" is just a bunch of directories you can sync with
         | any tool you want.
        
           | addandsubtract wrote:
           | Any tool except Dropbox on macOS. Don't store your Obsidian
           | library in Dropbox.
        
           | jhoechtl wrote:
           | > but it does have a native client.
           | 
           | Its an electron app.
        
           | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
           | Doesn't seem to have self-hosted syncing. Or am I missing
           | something?
           | 
           | And even if it's in there, $8/month for syncing seems to
           | defeat the point of "self-hosted".
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | Like I said, the "database" is just a directory of files.
             | You can use anything you want to keep it synced. I've used
             | OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud to sync mine.
        
               | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
               | I'd much prefer "syncing" to be something I set up once,
               | and then forget about it.
               | 
               | If it is "anything I want to do to keep it synced", then
               | I'll be half-assing it forever, losing notes and so
               | forth. Already doing that, and the 500 pages of notes
               | from 3 years ago on Google drive, to the "attach it in
               | Gmail to a draft so I can look it over at home", hell
               | even a few somewhere on iCloud. For some things others
               | might be interested in, I've even got a few github gists.
               | 
               | This, for me, is a problem that is central to notes
               | software. It might be the one problem that makes or
               | breaks them. At least with the pricey subscription
               | garbage apps, they know enough to know that I don't want
               | to have to think about syncing.
        
               | theshrike79 wrote:
               | I pointed my Obsidian vaults to iCloud and haven't had to
               | think about it ever since.
        
       | kertoip_1 wrote:
       | I've used Joplin for a few years, had a few hundred notes on it
       | and even sponsored it on GitHub. Then I've changed my smartphone
       | which also brought with it an updated version of Android. The new
       | Android version had some changes regarding how an app can manage
       | a filesystem, which ultimately broke Joplin. I've waited a few
       | weeks for an update (couldn't read my notes on a phone then) and
       | even when it finally arrived, the process of synchronization was
       | so slow and buggy I couldn't do it. That (together with other
       | sync bugs I've been reporting earlier) was the reason I've lost
       | patience and switched to Obsidian. Either way, I'm thankful for
       | developers for those few years, that was a really great tool
        
       | zelifcam wrote:
       | I've been running multiple Joplin servers. One for personal and
       | one for work. Hasn't let me down yet. Always room for
       | improvements, but it does reliable do the job. Easy import and
       | export. No worries of being locked into anything.
        
       | Qahlel wrote:
       | After trying Joplin (for several years), I finally decided on
       | Obsidian instead.
       | 
       | It is the better product and has a better 3rd-party support.
       | 
       | https://obsidian.md/
        
       | t0bia_s wrote:
       | I use Joplin over 3 years now, however Android app over 2.5
       | version is not possible sync over Syncthing. So I cannot update
       | since 2.5 version which is not great, not terrible.
        
       | rcarmo wrote:
       | I like the idea and tried it a couple of times, but the iOS UX is
       | abysmal and should be redone from scratch.
        
       | anonzzzies wrote:
       | Joplin is great; unlike similar apps, it's very fast. Even with
       | gigs of pics in a doc, it still scrolls fast. Others I tried
       | don't even open or crash/corrupt.
        
       | Icathian wrote:
       | Joplin is a gem of open source, and I use it daily on all of my
       | machines. I'm so grateful to have a good FOSS notes app that
       | syncs cross platform. I've been a patron for years and
       | recommended it to lots of people.
       | 
       | If anyone has questions about how I use it or my workflow I'm
       | happy to shill this app more, lol.
       | 
       | I know Obsidian is the cool kid right now but I just absolutely
       | can't imagine using a closed source app for something as personal
       | and important as my notes.
       | 
       | Since the dev is hanging out in this thread, I will say that I'd
       | absolutely love me some vim keybindings though.
        
         | banku_brougham wrote:
         | Joplin is great. But there is a huge gotcha if you start using
         | it from iOS instrad of laptop client first -- you can never
         | connect access phone notes from other device.
         | 
         | This was true last year, hopefully was fixed.
        
         | vwadhwani wrote:
         | Vim keybindings are possible* with the exception of hitting :q
         | to exit*. For that, you still need to type :exit.
         | 
         | *
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/joplinapp/comments/ww4crz/vim_mode_...
         | 
         | ** https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/236
        
           | Icathian wrote:
           | Ah this is really helpful. Thanks!
        
         | Barrin92 wrote:
         | > can't imagine using a closed source app for something as
         | personal and important as my notes.
         | 
         | given that it's Markdown and local whatever you open it with at
         | the end of the day doesn't matter much. That's the benefit of
         | relying on a lightweight markup language, you're not locked in.
        
         | maroonblazer wrote:
         | > If anyone has questions about how I use it or my workflow I'm
         | happy to shill this app more, lol.
         | 
         | I've recently begun using Joplin and am still futzing my way
         | around. Would love to hear about anyone else's workflow.
         | 
         | One question, not specific to Joplin, I always have with note-
         | taking apps is what's the best way to organize content? Or do
         | you not worry about that and simply use tags to create
         | structure/relationships?
        
           | Icathian wrote:
           | I use notebooks and nested notebooks heavily. I've found that
           | a directory-style structure works well for me, especially
           | because the integrated search is also good if I forget where
           | I put something. I have never personally had success with
           | tagging for organization, but maybe that's just me.
           | 
           | In no particular order, I recommend:
           | 
           | * WebDAV to sync your files, I just use some of my fastmail
           | storage and draft off the $5 a month I already pay them
           | 
           | * Pasting screenshots from your clipboard into your markdown
           | works automagically on desktop, drops the file with a
           | generated name into the Joplin file structure. It elevates
           | the tool quite a bit imo
           | 
           | * It is worth getting comfortable with some of the basic
           | markdown annotations. Just knowing to use asterisks and
           | underscores and whatever speeds you up a lot from having to
           | go click the "bold" button or whatever.
           | 
           | * I really like editing with the preview pane open. It closes
           | the loop for me, and is the best of both worlds where I get
           | to just type the annotations at my normal typing speed, but
           | also see the formatted output so I can make changes as I go.
        
       | ra1n wrote:
       | These are the types of applications that I really love. It stores
       | the data in a cloud service that already has enough free capacity
       | for say a notes app. It's like how we can store pass(1) passwords
       | on a git repository (Sync it with Github) and use that as the
       | destination of Android Password Store[1], and you have a easy
       | password manager that syncs across devices.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/android-password-store/Android-
       | Password-S...
        
       | hobo_mark wrote:
       | My phone recently died and had to move to a new device and
       | resynchronize my Joplin "vault". I have tens of thousands of
       | notes and the Android app just cannot complete the first sync. I
       | left it running all night (sync gets slower and slower as it
       | progresses) with "stay awake" enabled on Android (because Joplin
       | stops synching as soon as the screen locks or the app is not in
       | focus) and even after restarting multiple times, sync never
       | completes (it claims it finished, but most recent notes are still
       | nowhere to be found).
       | 
       | This is using the WebDAV backend as that's the only option I have
       | (so long as there's no Google Drive backend).
       | 
       | I am looking for alternatives (with a web clipper extension and
       | native apps on windows/linux/mac/android).
        
       | rubymamis wrote:
       | Shameless plug for my native (Qt C++ based) open-source, cross-
       | platform note-taking app[1]. It's fast, beautiful, and just
       | works.
       | 
       | The next version will add an option to turn your Markdown tasks
       | into a beautiful Kanban view[2] via QML. This feature will be
       | paid but anyone will be able to compile the source with a simple
       | CMake flag to get the PRO version for free.
       | 
       | Currently, it uses a DB but we aim to port it to support
       | arbitrary folder (simple .md/.json files, depending on the
       | complexity of the editor). I'm working on a mobile version and a
       | built-in sync option as well.
       | 
       | Once the built-in syncing is complete I will probably only charge
       | for that and the client itself will be completely free.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes
       | 
       | [2] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/pull/574
        
         | lf-non wrote:
         | Last I checked this did not provide an obvious way for links
         | between notes. This is a crutial feature for many folks who
         | work with lots of small interlinked notes.
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | Indeed, I want this feature badly myself to create wikis and
           | such. There's an open issue[1]. We'll definitely implement
           | that some day.
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/issues/431
        
         | dizhn wrote:
         | > Currently, it uses a DB
         | 
         | Nice little program. This is the reason I had skipped it after
         | testing since I wanted it to use it on multiple platforms with
         | syncing handled by me.
         | 
         | Btw, you're adding Kanban support?
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | I can understand. Supporting plaintext/.md files in folders
           | will be our main focus for the release after the next one.
           | 
           | And yes, this will be released soon for Notes v2.2.0.
           | 
           | Work in progress video: https://i.imgur.com/VCt0Zvg.mp4
        
         | Zetobal wrote:
         | Great work. I love it.
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | Thanks! (:
        
         | jfreax wrote:
         | Looks nice. Good to see that there are still native apps in
         | development! Looks a lot like Joplin - which I like.
         | 
         | But: I couldn't find anything about syncing my notes or mobile
         | clients / other ways to access my notes. Even in the "vision"
         | document. That's a must have functionality _for me_. Probably
         | not important for everyone... therefore, good luck with your
         | project :)
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | Hi there! I wrote in the above comment that it's planned.
           | We'll support arbitrary folder (switch from DB), develop our
           | mobile up (switch from QWidgets to Qt Quick), and develop our
           | own built-in sync option.
           | 
           | Currently, you can change the database location to your
           | synced folder (Dropbox, etc...) in the settings, but some
           | users reported data conflicts while others said it works
           | fine. You can try this but I'll wait till we officially
           | switch from DB.
        
         | sharikous wrote:
         | Has it got math formula support?
        
         | gettodachoppa wrote:
         | Thanks for making this. I look forward to trying it tonight. A
         | few thoughts:
         | 
         | 1. Any chance for a mobile version with cloud sync? Qt compiles
         | for mobile too, after all. I access my notes from my phone all
         | the time so this is a must for me.
         | 
         | 2. How come so many indie devs are off making their own notes
         | app instead of pooling their efforts? For example off the top
         | of my head QOwnNotes is a Qt widget note app, and a QML-based
         | one I think is called Noter but which I can't find anymore now.
         | 
         | 3. Judging from the UI I take it you're an Evernote user, or
         | used to be? There was a post today about all the Evernote staff
         | being laid off, so I feel pressured to move away ASAP. Other
         | than Joplin do you have any recommendations that work on
         | mobile?
        
           | PurpleRamen wrote:
           | > 2. How come so many indie devs are off making their own
           | notes app instead of pooling their efforts?
           | 
           | Notes are something very simple on surface, but can become
           | very complicated and diversified on details. So everyone
           | starts doing their own personalized sh*t, some are happy with
           | this, and some learn the hardships of it and abandon their
           | projects at some point. So we have a constant stream of half-
           | assed notes-apps of various flavors, and some which are
           | really well-made, to stay.
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | Hey!
           | 
           | 1. We're currently using QWidgets which doesn't look good on
           | mobile. But we plan to port the UI to Qt Quick (logic will
           | stay in C++). Our new Kanban feature and some other widgets
           | are already built with Qt Quick/QML. And we'll work on
           | syncing too. I wrote that in my comment above.
           | 
           | 2. We're actually using a major component from the maker of
           | QOwnNotes called QMarkdownTextEdit[1] for our Markdown
           | editor. It Works great (thanks @pbek!). Just two days ago
           | someone managed to port the syntax highlighter to QML[2]
           | which paves the way for us to port the UI over to QML.
           | 
           | 3. I never used Evernote (maybe I used it for a short time
           | but I can't remember). Because we currently don't have a
           | mobile app I use the built-in Apple's Notes on my phone that
           | syncs well to the Desktop app and then I'll just copy over
           | the notes to my app.
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/pbek/qmarkdowntextedit
           | 
           | [2] https://github.com/pbek/qmarkdowntextedit/issues/158
        
         | anta40 wrote:
         | Looks cool. Will try it. I assume it doesn't support images at
         | the moment?
        
           | rubymamis wrote:
           | Thanks! You're right. It's in our bucket list.
        
       | peon2345 wrote:
       | How does it compare to obsidian?
        
         | victorp13 wrote:
         | Tried both for quite some time, Obsidian has better community
         | plugin support, better sync (paid) and stores plain text files
         | instead of using a DB. Most importantly the mobile app (at
         | least for iOS) of Obsidian is 1:1 with the desktop app.
         | 
         | Switched from Joplin to Obsidian and haven't looked back. Both
         | apps are great initiatives though!
        
           | andrewshadura wrote:
           | Joplin also uses plain text files.
        
             | pantulis wrote:
             | Does it reflect notebooks/folder structure also in the
             | filesystem? That's exactly what I need from a PKM tool:
             | that not only the files but also the structure of the
             | notebooks is reflected in the filesystem so I can have
             | interoperability. This way I can decide to work with
             | Obsidian, EagleFiler, Notebooks.app or DEVONthink while
             | also having the possiblity of using the regular Finder to
             | work with my files.
        
             | hnaccount141 wrote:
             | The data itself is plaintext, but it's stored in a sqlite
             | db rather than directories of markdown files on disk.
        
         | bhdlr wrote:
         | > How does it compare to obsidian?
         | 
         | Definitely personal preference, in my experience the UX is
         | terrible compared to obsidian but the pricing and company are
         | much more consumer friendly
        
         | bhdlr wrote:
         | > How does it compare to obsidian?
         | 
         | Definitely personal preference, in my experience the Joplin UX
         | is terrible but the pricing and company are much more consumer
         | frienldy
        
         | faeranne wrote:
         | Having started with Joplin, the three things that took me away
         | were the (at the time) lacking mobile support, periodic syncing
         | collisions, and probably most importantly, their non-standard
         | file format. There _was_ a tool that could extract files into
         | standard markdown format, then repack them, but the overhead
         | was tiring, and meant a few key environments lacked access,
         | namely when I was accessing a server from the rack, and when
         | the mobile app acted up. I actually moved to just using vimwiki
         | style setup with markdown and a markdown editor app on my phone
         | for several years, before I stumbled across Obsidian. I 've
         | since been using obsidian for about 9 months now, which is
         | longer than my time with Joplin, and I will say that, once I
         | got a stable sync going (I'm using the simple sync plugin and
         | my own s3 compatible server), the plugin support, decent mobile
         | app, and native markdown files have won me over. Though I'm
         | still eyeing open source options with Logseq, just waiting on
         | their mobile app to pick up and properly support plugins. I'll
         | be more than happy to port _everything_ as soon as it supports
         | that.
         | 
         | As an additional note, I will add that despite Obsidian being
         | closed-source, I actually feel more comfortable with my data
         | there than with Joplin, primarily because all my data is just
         | common markdown. With Joplin, if I archive content, I have no
         | guarantee the notes on the file format will exist in 10 years
         | (they probably will, but it's still a real possibility). With
         | Obsidian, it's plaintext. There's nothing to need to
         | rediscover, no file format to decode, just good old plain-text.
         | In 40 years I'll still be able to read those files (though the
         | storage media is a very different story). Sure Obsidian can
         | change plans mid-stream, and I don't trust they wont, but all I
         | gotta do is go back to my markdown editor and vim. No sweat.
        
           | cldwalker wrote:
           | > Though I'm still eyeing open source options with Logseq,
           | just waiting on their mobile app to pick up and properly
           | support plugins. I'll be more than happy to port everything
           | as soon as it supports that.
           | 
           | If you haven't already, I'd recommend voting on
           | https://discuss.logseq.com/t/plugin-support-for-ios-
           | android-... if you're waiting for mobile plugin support
        
           | laurent123456 wrote:
           | > In 40 years I'll still be able to read those files (though
           | the storage media is a very different story)
           | 
           | With Joplin, you can easily archive as Markdown+FrontMatter
           | and that format will still be readable 40 years from now with
           | text and metadata included.
           | 
           | Additionally, in case you forgot to make a backup, and 40
           | years later all traces of Joplin have disappeared from earth
           | and you can't find an old version of the app, the backend is
           | a simple SQLite database, so you can do `SELECT * FROM notes`
           | and get your content back.
        
         | suddenclarity wrote:
         | Worse. I want to see the result when writing so I always had to
         | have a separate preview window open which stole a lot of screen
         | space. Obsidian solved this with the WYSIWYG mode where a
         | paragraph transforms to markdown when you click on it, but the
         | rest of the document shows the end result. It makes the
         | experience a lot nicer when embedding tables and images that
         | you can look at directly and write in-depth about without just
         | seeing a filename.
        
         | peblos wrote:
         | Think it's a bit of personal preference to be honest
         | 
         | I tried both a couple of years ago and much preferred obsidian,
         | although I know long term Joplin fans who have pretty tight
         | workflows and love it
        
         | _def wrote:
         | For me personally the only upside is that I don't have to pay
         | separately for syncing the documents and can use Dropbox
         | instead. Yeah I could use Dropbox on my phone too for obsidian
         | but it's not a great experience when all you want is
         | taking/reading notes without hassle.
        
         | OliveMate wrote:
         | I tried it out for a while, I'm sure that it's a great program
         | and it's various free sync options & encryption system may
         | immediately put it ahead, but as a basic user I found it much
         | more complicated to the point where I couldn't figure out how
         | to simply sort files into folders (and I don't know if that's
         | something you can do). There's an interesting tagging system to
         | search posts with and there's a ton of plugins out there if you
         | want to do things you can usually do.
         | 
         | I really ought to give it a shot again when I've got a clear
         | head.
         | 
         | If you want a FOSS alternative to Obsidian that's just as
         | simple you could try Zettlr, but currently it's rather rough.
         | You have to change the UI settings to get the folders/file view
         | that Obsidian has, and I found readability to be rather poor.
         | Initially there's no way to make in text larger without zooming
         | in the entire UI, font, and the themes that are available
         | aren't the best for writing or reading notes (and if you like
         | one specific theme you're sod out of luck if you want a darker
         | version of it) - if you want to change things to your liking
         | you have to experiment with the experimental Custom CSS option.
        
         | Midnight1938 wrote:
         | Its easier to pick up and use without having to worry about
         | data loss
        
       | zenjester wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | pseufaux wrote:
       | I really want to like Joplin, and I've tried to switch a number
       | of times. But the mobile experience just isn't there for me. The
       | iOS app is simple and reliable, which is good, but it's missing
       | some of the touches that make mobile computing feel like it's
       | made for mobile.
       | 
       | Specifically, things like swipes for navigation and for selecting
       | or deleting notes. Also, many of the buttons are just too damn
       | small for my sausage fingers. It's dumb, I know. Still, I find
       | myself attempting to swipe to open the side bar then realizing my
       | mistake after the second try and fumbling to reach the too small
       | hamburger in the very top left of the screen.
       | 
       | Notes are something I reference at my desktop but generally write
       | while on the go, so having a easy to use mobile app is a
       | requirement for me. It's a shame though cause the desktop
       | experience is so good.
        
         | EGG_CREAM wrote:
         | Agreed. For me, the simplicity and forward compatibility of
         | syncthing and a markdown editor are too great to give up for
         | Joplin.
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | Thanks for the feedback. We plan to update the mobile app so
         | it's good to know what needs to be improved.
        
           | dunco wrote:
           | just jumping on this to say I'm a Joplin user and I love it,
           | thank you for building an awesome app. I currently also use
           | notion because of Joplin's lack of note sharing on mobile; if
           | good note sharing came to the Joplin mobile app I wouldn't
           | need anything else. The only other feature I'd want that I
           | think is missing from Joplin is the ability to define
           | different storage locations / encryption keys per notebook to
           | allow good separation of work and personal data. Overall
           | though, wonderful app and I am so happy that something like
           | it exists. I really feel like the intentions of the app
           | developers align with my values, and that it will continue to
           | go in the right direction for years to come.
        
             | laurent123456 wrote:
             | Glad you like the app and thanks for the kind words! For
             | separation between work and personal notes, we know support
             | multiple profiles, as described here, available on both
             | mobile and desktop:
             | https://joplinapp.org/news/20220606-release-2-8/#multiple-
             | pr...
             | 
             | By note sharing on mobile, what do you mean? I believe you
             | can share some text from any app to Joplin. And there's
             | also a way to share from Joplin to any other app (from the
             | context menu). Or is it not currently working?
        
         | ochoseis wrote:
         | > Specifically, things like swipes for navigation and for
         | selecting or deleting notes.
         | 
         | Gestures / swipe-navigation gets me every time too. There's
         | also a new enhanced editor on iOS but it's a little clunky so I
         | switched back to the plain textbox one. I still use and love
         | Joplin, but tolerate some rough edges on mobile because it's
         | truly open source.
         | 
         | Joplin on desktop with the MacOS theme-plugin is great. The
         | markdown editor on an actual Macbook outshines whatever is
         | packaged with Linux, but both are very usable. Several other
         | nice plugins on desktop that I rely on are inline-tags, simple
         | backup, templates and the outline sidebar.
         | 
         | Overall, love Joplin and can't wait to see more improvements as
         | time goes on.
        
         | ycombinete wrote:
         | What app do you use instead of Joplin for notes?
        
           | pseufaux wrote:
           | Obsidian. It's not perfect but I like a lot of what it
           | brings. Particularly, I like that the notes remain in an
           | accessible format (though as long as the format is not
           | proprietary I'd be fine) and the mass of third party plugins
           | supports basically any workflow. The main issue for me is the
           | fact that the main app is not open source (not for any
           | particular reason other than that I like supporting open
           | source initiatives). I pay for their sync option which works
           | well, though on iOS your kinda forced into it as iCloud sync
           | does not work well. Otherwise, though their mobile experience
           | improved greatly in recently releases.
        
             | gessha wrote:
             | Obsidian user as well.
             | 
             | Self-hosted LiveSync extension works wonders after you tune
             | it a bit.
        
       | jadahl wrote:
       | Piping content from the Internet to bash is a terrible way to
       | distribute applications on Linux, I'd recommend making the
       | official method a Flatpak instead. It'll allow you to sandbox
       | your application, which is good for the user, and it'll handle
       | the integration (e.g. app icon etc) correctly.
       | 
       | No user should ever be urged to install anything with that
       | method, it's unsafe.
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | In which way can it be exploited?
        
           | theshrike79 wrote:
           | If I serve you a 2000 line unformatted bash script from an
           | URL and tell you to pipe it to bash, will you do it? Should
           | you do it?
           | 
           | Do you have the mental fortitude to format it and go through
           | it line by line looking for possible exploits?
           | 
           | It's 100% trivial to have it run rm or shred on all files you
           | have access to while simultaneously printing correct looking
           | install progress messages.
        
             | mtlynch wrote:
             | Is the issue with telling people to pipe URL output into
             | bash? Or is the issue with _any_ distribution method that
             | isn 't flatpak or something similarly privilege-limited?
             | 
             | I see how flatpak is an improvement, but I don't see how
             | piping into bash is any worse than "install this .deb file
             | / npm package / pip package." If the package author wanted
             | to do something malicious, it's just as easy (if not
             | easier) to put the malicious code in the package itself
             | rather than a bash installer for the package.
        
             | jjnoakes wrote:
             | If you trust the author of tool you are installing and the
             | installer is by the same author, then why wouldn't you
             | trust the installer too?
             | 
             | > It's 100% trivial to have it run rm or shred on all files
             | you have access to while simultaneously printing correct
             | looking install progress messages.
             | 
             | The same is true of the tool itself, too.
        
               | duckmysick wrote:
               | Yes, hence the trend of moving to sandboxed apps with
               | limited access to your files (and other capabilities).
        
             | otikik wrote:
             | What's the difference between that and downloading and
             | running an installer?
        
               | 3np wrote:
               | If the installer is a precompiled binary, not much,
               | though this is mostly a Windows-ism these days.
               | 
               | If we're considering the same batch script: You can read
               | it,it before running and be sure that the endpoint
               | doesn't dynamically give you different results depending
               | on how you fetch it.
               | 
               | In either case, the proposal here was flatpak, which does
               | provide security benefits like sandboxing.
        
       | agadius wrote:
       | Love Joplin! I love it so much, my lazy ass actually donated. I
       | spent quite some time searching for open source alternatives that
       | don't have an ulterior motive. Currently using nextcloud sync and
       | it works. Sometimes the iOS app and the Linux desktop app are out
       | of sync, but a sync fixes that. Would love to see mTLS
       | implemented at some point!
        
       | nologic01 wrote:
       | With Joplin and Nextcloud on a self-hosted vps I'm basically
       | done: access from mobile, linux, windows etc.
        
       | mindracer wrote:
       | I use and like Joplin a lot but the mobile app is pretty poor. I
       | find it a frustrating experience
        
         | _def wrote:
         | What don't you like about the mobile app?
         | 
         | In my opinion it's not worse than the desktop app (but I don't
         | really like both of them - I'm just glad it syncs successfully)
        
           | mindracer wrote:
           | It's a pretty clunky experience trying to creating and
           | editing notes. There's also the constant worry about
           | conflicts, to try and cut them down I open the mobile app,
           | hit sync, make an edit then hit sync again. I use WebDAV,
           | maybe Joplin Cloud is better at it
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | Contrary to popular belief, the mobile app is not forgotten - I
         | count about 40 releases in total for the past 12 months.
         | 
         | We probably spend as much time working on it than on the
         | desktop one, but unfortunately it is much harder to develop for
         | mobile, especially when you have to make sure it works on the
         | many different Android devices and iOS versions, plus the extra
         | work to comply with the ever changing requirements from the
         | Google and Apple stores. Many of these changes are not visible
         | to the user, but without this boring never ending maintenance
         | work the app simply wouldn't exist.
         | 
         | We do plan to update the UI/UX of the mobile app though, as
         | we're aware it could be made more intuitive. I'm very keen on
         | improving this and hopefully it will happen this year.
        
           | mindracer wrote:
           | Good hear, looking forward trying it out
        
       | wouldbecouldbe wrote:
       | I'm different from a lot of people it sounds like here. I mainly
       | use one big ass note and I want my note app to start as fast as
       | possible to get the idea I have on paper asap so I can forget
       | about it.
       | 
       | Nothing is able to beat the Apple notes experience, even if my
       | main phone is an Android. I still prefer it.
       | 
       | The main thing is, Apple is instant, you open it and type. Joplin
       | takes 3-10 seconds on my phone and doesn't remember what note I
       | was on if not on standby mode.
       | 
       | Also syncing. Often goes wrong. I like one big notes for my main
       | planning & things to remember. Most apps manage multiple fine,
       | but one big one often goes wrong. Had issues trying Google keep
       | and evernote. Havent tried it with joplin yet, will give it a go.
        
       | nabogh wrote:
       | I've been using Joplin for a few years now. But only recently
       | I've been exploring writing my own plugins for it.
       | 
       | I've never written a plugin for anything before but it's been
       | very easy, and overall a very pleasant experience. My plugin
       | basically lets you automate moving notes to specified folders
       | based on what tags are present.
        
       | onedr0p wrote:
       | My major problem with Joplin is the lack of a native client for
       | Apple Silicon, otherwise it's great. I know you can run it with
       | Rosetta but it's performance and load time is terrible.
        
         | millzlane wrote:
         | Recently started using Joplin. I find myself reformatting
         | everything I paste into it from the browser. I thought the long
         | load time was just the program. Didn't realize it wasn't
         | native. I find myself not using it because it does feel clunky
         | and slow and just easier to take screenshots.
        
       | senectus1 wrote:
       | looks good but I'm still pretty happy with self hosted trilium
       | 
       | https://github.com/zadam/trilium
        
       | Propelloni wrote:
       | No discussion of note taking apps is complete without Zim Desktop
       | Wiki [1], so let me be the one who sings its praise! It's less
       | web or mobile oriented than Joplin but gives me everything I
       | need. Plain text files, syncing, lots of plugins. And task
       | management, oh boy. Task management is second to none, including
       | orgmode. I'm a faithful user for years now and I am still happy I
       | found it.
       | 
       | [1] https://zim-wiki.org/
        
         | dantheta wrote:
         | Also an extremely happy Zim user for desktop notes, projects &
         | work journal.
         | 
         | Recently I was looking for a self-hosted equivalent to Google
         | Keep (which I use mainly for lists, quick notes and web
         | snippets), and tried out Joplin. It looked pretty good, but I
         | wanted a web app frontend, which Joplin doesn't seem to have.
         | I'm now trying out Memos [1] now, and it's pretty good so far
         | (though I would love to see postgres support in Memos as well
         | as the current sqlite DB).
         | 
         | [1] https://usememos.com/
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | guptarohit wrote:
       | I've tried many note taking apps, but now settled with Joplin.
       | All other alternatives are on freemium model.
       | 
       | I'm glad we have something like Joplin. Kudos to the Joplin team
       | & community.
        
       | q-base wrote:
       | I have tried to switch to Joplin from Evernote twice. But each
       | time I have ended up being frustrated with the synchronisation.
       | It is just too slow in my opinion. Perhaps I have too many notes,
       | but I will be looking for another alternative to Evernote that
       | can work on my phone and Ubuntu.
        
         | diarrhea wrote:
         | I got a large performance bump by increasing the number of
         | allowed open connections from the default 5 to 20 in all
         | clients. I'm syncing to a self hosted Nextcloud via WebDAV.
        
           | q-base wrote:
           | I sync to self hosted Nextcould via WebDAV as well, so I will
           | give that a try. Thanks a lot!
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | Which backend did you use for sync?
         | 
         | You usually get better sync performance by either self-hosting
         | or using Joplin Cloud. I don't know of any good WebDAV
         | provider, let alone a free one, and even the paid ones have
         | limitations that make them unusable for sync.
         | 
         | OneDrive and Dropbox have a free tier and work with Joplin, but
         | they throttle the connection. But I guess it depends on how
         | many notes you have and how you use Joplin - a lot of people
         | use OneDrive or Dropbox and it works good enough for them.
        
           | q-base wrote:
           | I sync to Nextcloud. But I can see another responder to my
           | original comment suggests a config change that I will try.
        
             | laurent123456 wrote:
             | Nextcloud has a surprisingly inefficient WebDAV
             | implementation. It's not clear how they got it so wrong
             | compared to, say, Nginx or Apache WebDAV, but they did.
             | Maybe they are doing some processing on each request,
             | creating thumbnails, checking for shared files, locks, or
             | something that's not really necessary but it is slow as a
             | result. Perhaps some config changes could indeed help
             | though.
        
           | bachmeier wrote:
           | Fastmail comes with WebDAV. I used it with Joplin, but it
           | pushes a very large number of files to the server. I have a
           | paid OneDrive account. Found out that sync didn't work with
           | OneDrive (random files just won't sync). Maybe they've fixed
           | it, but I was not impressed.
        
         | bartvk wrote:
         | Is SimpleNote something for you?
         | 
         | It only supports plain text notes (with Markdown rendering),
         | but I've got years of notes in there, and it works on every
         | platform. It's also owned and supported by Wordpress.
        
           | mwexler wrote:
           | I keep looking for replacements but wind up every time coming
           | back to Simplenote. Well worth considering as a baseline to
           | compare other offerings against.
        
           | q-base wrote:
           | I haven't looked at SimpleNote before. So I will look into
           | whether that might be a good fit for me. Thanks for sharing.
        
         | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
         | The funny thing about Joplin sync being too slow... years ago,
         | I complained to the author that his markdown files weren't true
         | markdown, and his rebuttal was that it was necessary to pollute
         | those to get sync to perform well on Nextcloud/webdav. I
         | pointed out how he might have just written a small NC plugin to
         | achieve the same effect, at which point the thread was closed
         | and I was no longer welcome to comment.
         | 
         | Maybe that's changed since though.
        
       | kerneloops wrote:
       | The only problem to me is that the "official" Joplin Server is
       | proprietary:
       | https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/packages/server...
        
         | petemir wrote:
         | I think it is a reasonable decision
         | https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/crowdfunding-joplin-server...
        
       | piokoch wrote:
       | Big no-no to Joplin for me is that it is using some custom data
       | format (sqlite I think). Why bother? Just give me an app that can
       | handle nicely markdown files, syncing I can do myself e.g.
       | (Synology, rsync) or use some file syncing service (Dropbox,
       | OneDrive, whatever).
       | 
       | Zettlr does the trick for me without interfering with what I
       | write.
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | I wrote my own note-keeping system[0] and very much wanted all
         | of the notes to just be markdown files on the disk. It turns
         | out that there are trade-offs to this. If you want plaintext
         | markdown files on disk AND want fancy features like file
         | versioning, a search index, tags, etc then you need to store
         | all of that metadata somewhere and you're down writing a half-
         | assed implementation of a DBMS.
         | 
         | Now, you can certainly bite the bullet and full-ass the
         | implementation like Dokuwiki did, but that is really quite a
         | lot of work and effort against simply `import sqlite` and
         | writing a couple of tutorial-level queries. And it turns out
         | that exporting all of your documents to plaintext, if you
         | should so choose, is a one-line command away.
         | 
         | [0]: https://github.com/cu/silicon
        
         | dizhn wrote:
         | I was never able to get encrypted syncing working with Joplin.
         | I tried every year or something for a while but it never
         | worked. I kept looking for an Evernote alternative for years.
         | The closest that got there is Leanote, which is a Chinese
         | company's open source product. (https://github.com/leanote)
         | 
         | I finally gave up the search. Switched to unencrypted plain
         | text md files synced with syncthing. On Linux I use Kate. It
         | has a directory tree view and recursive search in said
         | directories. It works great. On Android I am using Markor to
         | point to the same shared directory. I don't think I'll ever
         | start looking for a note taking app again. I also found I don't
         | really take notes much. So there's that. :)
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | > Why bother? Just give me an app that can handle nicely
         | markdown files
         | 
         | Markdown (and any other markup) really sucks for anything that
         | is more than just plaintext with some formatting. The best
         | markdown-app we have at the moment are those like Obsidian or
         | Logseq, and they are very low-key compared with a proper
         | richtext-app, like Notion or even a mature word processor.
         | 
         | And looking and the hard struggle of obsidian and their
         | community-plugins, it might be really time to get a proper open
         | richtext-format for the notes-space, to liberate us from
         | markups and their limitations. Maybe something json-based, to
         | bring the notebook-movement into the ring too.
        
         | fbnlsr wrote:
         | > Just give me an app that can handle nicely markdown files
         | 
         | You know what does that well? The filesystem.
         | 
         | I've tested pretty much all note-taking software out there.
         | What ended up working for me is a bunch of markdown files
         | inside folders, synced using Github.
         | 
         | I have search, formatting and preview thanks to VSCode, and I
         | can access my notes on any machine that syncs with Github.
        
           | thinkmassive wrote:
           | If you want to leave all your notes unencrypted on github,
           | then sure that's an option.
        
             | cube2222 wrote:
             | You can use something like git-crypt[0] to e2e encrypt it.
             | 
             | [0]: https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt
        
         | laurent123456 wrote:
         | "Custom" would be the way Apple Notes or Evernote stores their
         | data in opaque binary blobs. SQLite is standard and you can
         | open it with plenty of third-party tools, but I see your point
         | about plain text files being more convenient for certain tasks.
        
           | zimpenfish wrote:
           | > SQLite is standard and you can open it with plenty of
           | third-party tools
           | 
           | Tends not to play well with things like Dropbox or Syncthing
           | though. Although I guess you can use litestream or something
           | for the replication instead.
        
             | anta40 wrote:
             | What's the issue? I guess it's just as simple as uploading
             | the .db?
        
               | Tomte wrote:
               | You're changing some note on device A and the same note
               | differently on device B.
               | 
               | Both sync. You now have a conflict.
               | 
               | With text files, you at least have obvious merge
               | strategies. With SQLite it isn't quite as easy.
               | 
               | I still don't mind SQLite in Joplin. It has advantages,
               | as well.
        
               | anta40 wrote:
               | Ah the multiple devices issue. I see...
        
             | diydsp wrote:
             | I sync Joplin via Dropbox across phone and 2 laptops. In
             | theory a prob? But in practice rare to never bc im only one
             | user on one device at a time. And im making small changes
             | at a time. There was 1 minor conflict once and Joplin saw
             | it and i quickly resolved it.
        
       | DeathArrow wrote:
       | I am pretty happy with Obsidian.
        
         | janlaureys wrote:
         | Obisidian with icloud Drive sync is pretty sweet.
        
         | SamuelAdams wrote:
         | Same here. I only use note taking apps on my Mac, so syncing
         | isn't something I am interested in. For me the interface of
         | Obsidian is really top notch. Typing headers and code block
         | quotes doesn't feel like it gets in your way.
         | 
         | My only complaint is that embedded images are saved at the root
         | level by default. Would be nice if I could hide those or move
         | them to an /Images folder,
        
           | lienz wrote:
           | > embedded images are saved at the root level by default.
           | 
           | I'm not sure if I understand your complaint, which is
           | something that can easily be changed.
           | 
           | Open Settings (cmd-,) > Files & Links, and look for
           | Attachment folder path and change to whatever path you like.
        
       | cjm42 wrote:
       | I've been using Joplin for a while now, syncing via Nextcloud.
       | 
       | One tip: I set up a cronjob to export into a Git repository so I
       | have a complete history. The core of the script is:
       | joplin sync       joplin export --format=raw "$tmpdir"       #
       | Rsync that directory to the repository       # This deletes files
       | that no longer exist in the current export.       /usr/bin/rsync
       | -a --quiet --delete --exclude=.git "$tmpdir/" "./"
       | /usr/bin/git add -A
        
       | rtpg wrote:
       | I use Joplin and it... it basically works! Bit ugly at times but
       | I really enjoy having a thing that works on my computers and my
       | phone. Sometimes I end up in Drafts instead on iOS because of how
       | Drafts is really "just open and go", but even then I'll copy-
       | paste it later.
       | 
       | Joplin is great at being a place to put a lot of ... simple rich
       | text documents in a random manner, and have access to them.
       | Wordpad with sync, and it does its job.
        
       | hosh wrote:
       | How does this compare with NoteNook? (Open-source, local-first)
        
         | eitland wrote:
         | Link?
        
           | mwexler wrote:
           | Perhaps poster was thinking of https://notesnook.com?
           | 
           | Their pitch is as a privacy focused notes manager.
        
       | NewsMichaela wrote:
       | Love Joplin's FOSS nature and extensibility. In my workflow, I
       | have set it up to accept transcribed speech notes and to-dos.
       | https://github.com/QuantiusBenignus/NoteWhispers
        
       | andwaal wrote:
       | I switched from Evernote to Joplin last year and are super happy.
       | Syncing against an S3 bucket and everything works great, rarely
       | any problems.
        
       | eviks wrote:
       | Joplin is a solid option, using it along with Simplenote for some
       | quick notes since Joplin's sync isn't that great.
       | 
       | But I was wondering whether there is somehting not tied to the
       | simplistic markdown with next-gen note tech like rich text and
       | CRDT for great sync conflict resolution and note history and non-
       | Electron clients for performance?
        
       | Fervicus wrote:
       | A requirement for me in a note taking app is password protection
       | on the desktop client. That's one thing preventing me from using
       | Joplin.
        
         | hoistbypetard wrote:
         | Out of curiosity, why do you require that? On my desktop, my
         | system account is protected, never left unattended while
         | unlocked, and I've got full-disk encryption.
         | 
         | I can't presently imagine a benefit to an extra password for my
         | notetaking application, so your comment makes me wonder whether
         | I'm missing something or whether I just use it a little
         | differently than you do.
        
           | Fervicus wrote:
           | I have other people use my computer from time to time, but
           | not for enough time to warrant a separate account. From what
           | I understand, Joplin's data is also stored unencrypted on
           | disk. I don't use full-disk encryption and I don't want to
           | use it just for Joplin. Are people using my computer going to
           | open up my notes app or snoop around in the sqlite db?
           | Probably not. But I like to have the peace of mind.
        
       | dadoomer wrote:
       | Long time Joplin user. I LOVE Joplin. Got it synched with
       | Dropbox. Several people have asked me what app I use when they
       | see it. It's just what a note app should be: simple, cross-
       | platform, markdown-based, can export notes.
        
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