
Show HN: Milanote – A notes app for creative work - oliebol
http://www.milanote.com
======
sunpazed
I've used Milanote in beta for the last few months - and I can attest, it's a
great platform for creative thinking. Calling it a "notes app" falls short of
how good it is.

Milanote has replaced my previous workflow — an entire wall of post-its, and
roughly half a dozen moleskines - with pages of others tacked in between the
sheets.

There's a few cool features too — my favourite being ‘view as document’. It
takes series of interconnected ideas, and then serialises them into a linear
narrative that can be viewed as a document. Perfect for presenting your idea
to stakeholders.

I particularly like Milanote not only because it helps me to visualise my
ideas, but I can ‘reflow’ and organise them in ways that helps me to make
connections between ideas I never saw before. It helps me be a better creative
thinker.

~~~
wingerlang
Is it a web app? It isn't obvious from their website and I can't find
information. I also don't feel like signing up.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Yes: "Milanote runs in any modern web browser. Native apps for iOS and Android
coming soon."

It's an odd decision in this age of "mobile first" and Electron-wrapped apps
like Slack. Especially since it's not in beta and the only plan is a paid one.

~~~
aidos
Doesn't seem that strange to me. Given that the target audience seems to be
creatives at desktops, webapp first seems to be a good approach.

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therealmarv
Hm, no, simply cannot afford 144$/y for another cloud note system. Please, we
need this: Note taking done right: Android, iOS, Desktop, Markdown & HTML &
Pictures, easy flat file format (preferred markdown), Web clipper, archive
notes, offline and do this all without wasting whitespace (no document editor
like Evernote) and good sync and instant search results while you type. <\-
would spend a bigger double digit number $ on this, but no subscription.
Closest I've found is Google Keep.

~~~
jclos
You might be interested by
[Laverna]([https://laverna.cc/](https://laverna.cc/)). It's not as full-
featured as Google keep but it does work offline and let you encrypt and sync
your notes via dropbox, which I find to be more important than pure looks. The
other alternative would be
[Turtl]([https://turtlapp.com/](https://turtlapp.com/)) but you need to host
the server somewhere (although I imagine just hosting it localy would work as
well).

~~~
therealmarv
Laverna looks not bad (beside the white space, if I want to edit a long
markdown document I will use something else). Thanks, I will try it out.
Turtle (which looks like a private Google Keep) I wanted to try out two days
ago but could not register. Do you know if Turtle does some caching? Beeing
dependent on Internet (connection) for notes is something which I want to
avoid entirely (actually Google Keep is good at that thing, works offline).

~~~
jclos
Turtl would be great if not for the reliance on a server. I think they do some
caching (their settings page has "erase local data") but since it relies on a
login anyway it still requires an "always on" connection.

I agree completely on Laverna, but I think it's the closest to what you (and
I) are looking for. I wish I wasn't so lazy/busy and got the motivation to
fork it and implement the changes I want (I don't care for the double panel
and the white space everywhere).

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mntmn
We made 5 or 6 major versions of a similar tool from 2011-now
([https://spacedeck.com](https://spacedeck.com)), in the end it failed to
monetize in a significant way. We will probably open-source it soon to provide
a continuity path for the (relatively small) core userbase.

Edit: You made some really good UX detail choices: \- Grid that snaps on
releasing items \- Column object (smart!) \- Omitting zoom is also probably a
good idea (complicates a lot of stuff in the browser: fighting with native
zoom, text rendering bugs in firefox etc) \- In general being very resistant
against feature creep is probably a good idea (in our case, users demanded
tons and tons of stuff to be added)

~~~
oliebol
Thanks! We're definitely trying to keep it pretty simple—Spacedeck looks cool
too :)

~~~
caublestone
Get rid of drag and drop and arrange the grid either LIFO or FIFO instead. Let
users rearrange the notes after creation. This promotes getting a thought down
without distraction while preserving arrangement for a reflection period. Make
this awesome please.

------
6stringmerc
I still prefer my spiral notepads (portable) or notebooks (larger form) for
ideas and whatnot. Cheap. No internet needed. No batteries. Instant tactile
response. Can share (take pic, send pic).

Although, I think this deserves a bit of recognition:

> _Milanote is used by creative professionals from these companies_

...very clever way to put up some fancy logos that could almost be interpreted
as endorsement but isn't really endorsement more like a factual statement
without any sources attached, so just enjoy the logos and move on heh.

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Chris2048
I've come to the conclusion that you need more than note-taking app/process,
you actually need a good system of _what to do with the notes_.

Notes that become blogs posts, notes that are todos (need reminders, deadlines
etc) and prompt an action, and notes that are supplemental to todos (a blog
post content note can also be seen as supplemental to a "write a post on this"
todo). Notes that are reference and need to be put somewhere it can be found
(a blog/wiki?), etcetcetc.

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tukelully
Just for comparison, this costs the same per month as a one-time purchase of
Quiver (a notes app for people that don't fit the late nineties definition of
creative) which is amazing, 3x the cost of a base DigitalOcean vps, ~5x the
cost of Evernote Plus per month, 7x the cost of 100gb of Google Drive storage,
1.5x the cost of a Webstorm sub, 3x the cost of Crashplan, and 1.5x the cost
of a music subscription. On the other hand it is less than an Adobe product.

------
drhayes9
I've been in the Milanote beta and I really love it. I agree with the other
commenters about the smart UI choices that I haven't seen elsewhere: column
notes, unsorted list, no zoom, etc. Sometimes I need to arrange notes across a
2d space to group them and think about them correctly instead of having big
sorted lists.

My knee-jerk to the pricing was that it's too much. On the other hand, as a
brain-storming idea-gathering space maybe I don't need more than 100 notes at
a time -- once I'm done brainstorming I export and delete, I dunno.

By way of comparison, I have 1600 notes in Evernote including PDFs, images,
presentations I'm working on, web-clipped articles and their contents,
encrypted notes... and they're $99/year. I don't think Milanote is positioning
itself as the "everything box" that Evernote is. If they are I'd love to see a
roadmap to help me evaluate.

Please add an API for programmatically accessing notes and boards. I don't
need the layout information necessarily, but how great to tag a note #todo and
have some agent somewhere pick it up and start tracking it, or sync an entire
board out as part of a build process to make a larger publication.

~~~
oliebol
Glad you like it so far!

In terms of a roadmap, we've got pretty big plans—here are some things
(including an API/integrations) that people have requested:
[http://www.milanote.com/poll](http://www.milanote.com/poll). But obviously
there are lots of things we're planning to build which aren't on that list :)

------
jcahill84
I think the spacial/desk-space UI is pretty neat. It's not for me, but I can
definitely see how it appeals to your target audience. Nice work!

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crispinb
Looks nice enough, but I won't ever again lock my notes data into a file
format that is either private or too complex to in practice do much with
outside of the app. I have lost too many 1000s of notes that way in the past.
Exports are rarely useful -- losing metadata & structure, or not being cleanly
importable into the next note system.

For now I use Quiver
([http://happenapps.com/#quiver](http://happenapps.com/#quiver)) which uses a
documented json format simple enough for me to do anything I want with if/when
I move on. It's mac-only, and development seems to have stalled, but I threw
together a crude Android client for my own use.

~~~
tukelully
I believe the reason it's stalled is because the single developer moved to
Berlin and has been pretty busy with that for a while. But, he does still seem
committed and occasionally updates on Twitter. Only mentioning because I was
curious also.

~~~
crispinb
Fair enough. I wasn't knocking him. Quiver is a terrific little app, but
rather niche and I can't imagine it nets enough money to be easy to carve out
time for. I had a brief email correspondence with the developer a year or so
ago, as I was considering building a commercial Android note taker based on
the same file format. He was very open & willing to help.

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newscracker
The app looks nice, especially as shown on a large monitor on the homepage.

Minus one on the score for not having a privacy policy. Oh, yes, there is one
that the user can find by going to the support pages, searching and then
getting to a privacy policy document on another subdomain. I thought it was
standard practice for service providers to have a privacy related link on
every single page, but seems like this service is an exception.

Additionally, this seems to be targeted at companies and "creative
professionals". There's nothing in it for personal use. Just a "free" 100 note
limit plan, with the next immediate one for professional use at $12 a month,
which is quite steep.

~~~
oliebol
Not sure if this is the page you're talking about, but here's some basic info
about privacy etc: [http://help.milanote.com/frequently-asked-questions/how-
safe...](http://help.milanote.com/frequently-asked-questions/how-safe-is-my-
data)

We're also looking at some other pricing options at the moment to make it a
bit friendlier for personal use ... stay tuned :)

------
rehemiau
Why would I use it over OneNote web app?

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thenomad
I love this. Fantastic app. I'm going to be using it for the design process on
the next part of my VR game, by the looks of things.

Major complaint so far - it's a bit laggy on FF.

~~~
oliebol
Yep our Firefox support is definitely not perfect, give it a try in
Chrome—should be much smoother :)

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cocochanel
Fantastic app! I was a bit reluctant to try it out because I prefer desktop
apps, but I gave it a try and I love it. Instantly changed the way I work.

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aalexgabi
I like the app. I wanted to migrate some notes and start using it.
Unfortunately it's way too expensive for me. I would not pay more than 20
euros per year for a notes app.

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bewe42
I prefer Scapple but this comes close. I'll be curious if they offer a desktop
version.

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hiphopyo
My recent findings is that it's better to not take any notes at all. Instead
of adding some item to your todo list, do it immediately and don't send it off
like some nasty surprise to your future self. The smaller my notes.txt the
less complications I have to worry about and I can go on living a happy and
fulfilled life.

~~~
pwython
That may work for some people... but this looks more geared to creative types,
where drafting and collecting ideas is the first step of a longer process that
isn't easily accomplished in one sitting. Saving rough drafts and wireframes
is quite common and necessary if you want well thought-out and executed
pieces.

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richardboegli
Have you got a comparison matrix to OneNote or Evernote? That'd be handy.

~~~
oliebol
Not in terms of features, but this article might give you some idea of what
we're trying to do differently to Evernote: [https://medium.com/milanote/why-
using-evernote-is-making-you...](https://medium.com/milanote/why-using-
evernote-is-making-you-less-creative-c87b77ced69c)

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amelius
Can I drop Adobe Illustrator or Sketchup content and edit it in-place?

~~~
oliebol
Unfortunately not—it's not really a design tool per-se, it's more of a visual
workspace for combining images and text :)

