Note Taking in 2021

1

Obsidian.md

Obsidian.MD works pretty well and meets all of the stated requirements. Everything is markdown on disk, but the tool is maintaining an index for linking things. The index powers search and graphing, but otherwise everything works just as well in VS Code. It works really well for me, with the one downside being it is an electron app. Because it is all markdown based, you could use a native tool of choice (I use Ulysses on iPad). They have a sync service, but I just use iCloud. https://obsidian.md/.

#Knowledge Management #Knowledge Base #Markdown Editor 1454 social mentions

2

The Archive

Best note taking I’ve done is just rubber-ducking to myself in a (public) slack channel solely for that purpose. Never worry about hierarchies, and easily link back to past messages. For a dedicated app and methodology, I find https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ mimics that style.

#Note Taking #Personal Notes #Knowledge Management 11 social mentions

3

Zim Wiki

Gotta get in the greatest (IMHO of course.) https://zim-wiki.org I'm continually baffled at how the rest of the world hasn't discovered this, but it could be because I sort of live at the margins of "ultra geek" and "normie." Local, self-hosted "wiki-like" tool. You write notes, it saves them, supports links and todos and calendars etc. Tons of plugins for math, git, etc etc. The killer aspect, I think, though. Any hypothetical "grandma" can open it up and use it immediately and it's very useful. But because it saves as plain-text (Markdown-ish) with links and pages equalling files and folders, it's always infinitely extensible with Bash or other scripts. For me, it's all the extensibility of org-mode without, I mean, you know.

#WiKi #Note Taking #Task Management 115 social mentions

4

TiddlyWiki

Have you tried TiddlyWiki [0] which is running the brainfck.org Zettelkasten mentioned in the article. Seems like a very similar concept. I am intrigued by the concept and thinking about trying it out, so any input on picking one or the other would be great. [0]: https://tiddlywiki.com/.

#Note Taking #Knowledge Base #Personal Knowledge Base 180 social mentions

5

Logseq

Logseq is one I highly recommend: http://logseq.com/ Outliner, local file storage, API plugins, todo's and freeloads more. On top of everything, it is free.

#Knowledge Management #Note Taking #Knowledge Base 280 social mentions

6

Xournal++

Thanks for this. I'm aware of OneNote being pretty flexible but have never really committed to using it for any length of time to really see if it's what I want or not. It seems to have similar pitfalls that Curio does, though the plus side being that Microsoft is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon and tend to be pretty good about supporting its Office suite well. Xournal++ [1] I had never heard of. It doesn't seem like it's what I'm personally looking for but what an interesting project and definitely one worth looking at! [1] https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp.

#Note Taking #Todos #Task Management 54 social mentions

7

Typora

I've tried many alternatives, but I end up going back to Zim. I've been using it for a decade now with Dropbox/GDrive sync. I wish it had a mobile version and a better markdown editor like https://typora.io/.

#Markdown Editor #Text Editors #Markdown Viewer 84 social mentions

8

Supernotes

Haha let me rattle on about my own note-taking setup (or indeed my own Startup) [1]... But no I won't. Instead I'd like to share a little what I've learnt from <i>building</i> a note-taking startup for the past three years with my co-founder – it's easily the hardest thing we've both done. Much of what you've said is concurrent with the majority of our users. Ubiquity and having your knowledge accessible at any time, on all of your devices is super important – but also the most challenging to create. Build a web app, then all of your users want a faster native desktop app. Build a desktop app, and then users want a fluid accessible web experience... Developing this as a team of two is very difficult; but then hearing how some users use your app every day for a year and can't live without it is hugely rewarding [2] Note-taking is very personal and so everyone has different expectations on what they'd like. There are so many apps for different personalities and workflows – there's never 'one solution fits all'. Even though Notion has kinda done this, very successfully, one could argue that it is a 'Jack of all trades, master of none' app. That's why it's super important that every note-taking / productivity app has an API, so users can easily build the workflow with the apps that work best for them. [1]: https://supernotes.app.

#Productivity #Note Taking #Note-taking Tool 22 social mentions

9

Keep It

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this, but if you are on a Mac, KeepIt[1] is great. It is basically an overlay on top of the normal Mac file system (a bit like DevonThink in that regard). [1]: https://reinventedsoftware.com/keepit/.

#Note Taking #Todos #Personal Productivity 10 social mentions