
Show HN: Dendron – a roam like open source markdown note taking app - kevinslin
https://www.dendron.so/
======
benrbray
The folks over at Athens Research [1] (open-source Roam alternative) have made
an exhaustive comparison [2] of current notetaking apps with bidirectional
link support.

[1]
[https://github.com/athensresearch/athens](https://github.com/athensresearch/athens)

[2]
[https://www.notion.so/db13644f08144495ad9877f217a161a1?v=ff6...](https://www.notion.so/db13644f08144495ad9877f217a161a1?v=ff6777802811416ba08dc114e0b11837)

------
mirrormaster
Looks really similar to
[https://github.com/foambubble/foam](https://github.com/foambubble/foam)

~~~
m-localhost
And then there was VSCode Memo[1] on Show HN 2 weeks ago (but got no love[2])
- what's the reason that these similar tools are showing up?

[1] [https://github.com/svsool/vscode-memo](https://github.com/svsool/vscode-
memo) [2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23752195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23752195)

~~~
omniscient_oce
I think it's because they are useful tools that a lot of webdevs see and can
see themselves reasonably implementing by themselves. (Like todo lists & habit
trackers)

~~~
x86ARMsRace
Also, quite a lot of tutorials are to-do lists, habit trackers and note taking
apps.

------
BlackjackCF
I love how this is shared a few hours after the post
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23888799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23888799))
shared by someone who is tired of note taking apps.

In all seriousness though, this looks dope. I'm installing VSCode just to try
this out.

~~~
kevinslin
the internet has quite the sense of irony :)

also, author of dendron here. if you run into any issues or questions, feel
free to message me directly at kevin@thence.io or leave an issue on the
github:
[https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron](https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron)

------
Brajeshwar
This is interesting and so is Foam[1]. I've a dumb question. Can I use
VSCodium[2] instead of VSCode? (I tried it super-quick with foam on VSCodium
and I gave up.)

1\. [https://github.com/foambubble/foam](https://github.com/foambubble/foam)

2\. [https://vscodium.com](https://vscodium.com)

~~~
awschnap
I manually cloned it into ~/.vscode-oss/extensions and it works just fine.

------
anayar
This looks dope! I was never able to fully get into Roam so hopefully this is
a bit easier and worth playing around with.

On an unrelated note, seeing this and "Tired of note-taking apps" on the
front-page at the same time made me lol.

------
irrational
My biggest issue with many of these solutions is mobile support. I don’t know
for sure, but I don’t think VS Code runs on iOS.

I have my phone everywhere and am on my phone much more often than I am on a
laptop or desktop machine.

My ideal solution would be one that stores my notes in a private git
repository. It should allow me to edit and read on mobile or desktop devices.

~~~
input_sh
GitJournal ([https://gitjournal.io/](https://gitjournal.io/)) on a phone and
Obsidian ([https://obsidian.md/](https://obsidian.md/)) on a desktop will get
you 90% there. They both do some modifications to the Markdown format (for
example, internal linking [[goes like this]]), but they're compatible as of
recently.

Obsidian doesn't currently have a built-in Git support, so you'll have to do
the push manually from time to time or create a script that will do that every
hour or so.

------
sawaruna
These tools (this, foam, obsidian, remnote, supernote, etc.) seem interesting
but I've been hesitant to try any. This HN comment[0] on a Foam post a few
weeks ago resonated with me. I feel like my ideas and personal knowledge base
in my mind is really dynamic and that the constant addition of information and
rearranging or establishing of new relationships between entities will be too
much effort.

I think, at least for my use, a more simply knowledge base (e.g. zotero,
are.na, etc.) where I'm able to store, categorize, and search for things is
the best option, and I'll leave the establishment of relationships to my mind.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667961)

~~~
awake
Its a good point. The counter point is the process of reviewing your notes to
formalize these connections helps cement those connections into your brain.
Basically when you have a thought _these two things are connected_ the system
lets you document that thought with minimal friction.

The connections between notes ideally provide an element of surprise. The
process is geared towards the long term while minimizing immediate friction.

------
tunesmith
It points to all this research in support of hierarchical storage, but based
off of skimming it it seems like all that research merely only supports
directed vs undirected, not tree vs graph. Meaning, a DAG still seems superior
to a Tree - does this allow children to have multiple parents?

~~~
cadbox1
I found myself wanting a graph based approach too, with multiple parents, so I
created Very Nested [1] to find out what it was like.

It's open source, outline focused (like workflowy) and uses GitHub for storage
and hosting. It also supports files and images.

So far, I've enjoyed organising my recipes [2] with it.

Feedback welcome, it's very new.

[1] [https://verynested.cadell.dev/](https://verynested.cadell.dev/)

[2] [https://cooking.cadell.dev/](https://cooking.cadell.dev/)

------
dangoljames
LET ME JUST SAY, a pox on these things that depend on VSCode. I don't use
VSCode, I never have, and I don't anticipate doing so any time soon for
coding, much less taking notes.

EDIT:

I did not say a pox on such applications; on the contrary. I'm actually trying
to find one that does everything I want, and am being brought up short on the
VSCode dependency just about every time I come up on a good candidate.

------
joshstrange
Hmm, being built on top of an extendable code editor is very appealing. The
ability to write TS/JS to extend Notion is something I've wanted. I haven't
really used VS Code (I'm deep in the Jetbrains ecosystem) but maybe I need to
give it another shot even if just for this. I loved Sublime Text before I
moved to IDEA.

~~~
kevinslin
vscode is pretty close to the jetbrains system. and its ecosystem of
extensions is probably the best out of any IDE

------
mattkevan
This looks cool. I’ve long wanted a note app where I can make a web of notes,
draw visual links between either entire documents or chunks of text to sort,
organise and create connections.

Best I’ve found so far are post-it notes, a big wall and lots of printouts.

Stuff like this look like amazing interesting digital-first alternative.

~~~
Cenk
I’ve found Supernotes ([https://supernotes.app](https://supernotes.app)) to be
quite useful for this

------
rcarmo
> CRM to keep track of clients, friends and enemies

I found that bit funny.

Seriously, though, I like that it seems to use front matter for metadata,
which makes it a lot more interesting than just relying on filenames (although
schemas are cute, I don’t think they’re that useful when you can use
metadata).

------
hpen
This looks complementary to my nested hierarchy kanban board kanception.io

Would you be interested in collaborating?

------
yodon
This would be much easier to understand if you set the gif's to repeat (I'm
viewing on my iPhone and need to refresh the page to view each gif before it
completes)

~~~
kevinslin
didn't know that was a thing. just converted it to loop. thanks for the tip!

------
yodon
Is there a tree view component for exploring the hierarchy or is there only
text-based search of the hierarchy?

~~~
kevinslin
no tree view yet but we do have a graph view:
[https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron-
template/blob/master/va...](https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron-
template/blob/master/vault/pro.dendron.topic.graph-view.md)

------
grayhatter
My reaction to this; a journey.

Hey I've been looking for something like this.

Ahh local first, and markdown. I might like this.

Fuzzy search? I've gotta try this!

Wait, is this electron?

Please don't be electron, please don't be electron, please don't be electron!

> Made ontop of VS Code

Well, shit I'm out. Damnit!

~fin~

I miss real applications...

~~~
kemonocode
I'm a very vocal critic of Electron, but giving credit where credit is due,
VSCode doesn't really feel like an Electron app at all. It's very snappy and
modest with its memory usage, so I'm quite certain the folks at Microsoft had
to sign a deal with the Devil to optimize it like that.

~~~
danielbarla
VSCode really is a strange counter-example, in a good way. I have 3 IDEs open
at the moment, and it is the most lightweight of them, by a factor of three.
(And yes, with all its extensions and features, I would say it's more of an
IDE than a text editor.) Comparisons to VS itself do not end favourably for
the native app.

It's also worth noting that while the overhead of Electron can be considered
incredibly wasteful for a note taking app, the ratio becomes much more
reasonable for something as resource intensive as an IDE. In this case, I
imagine most of the target audience would already be running VSCode for dev
work.

