
Show HN: I'm building a personal notes app focused on Data Longevity (beta) - ricg
http://kitestack.com/lnotes/
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ricg
Hey HN, creator here!

My goal is to build an app to capture personal knowledge over a lifetime.
Hence data longevity is key.

I’m looking forward to your thoughts, especially for my choice of using HTML
instead of Markdown as file format. I debated this for a while.

HTML has the advantage that can be previewed in any browser with formatting
and images intact. Markdown would require a compatible app (text editor aside,
which won’t show images). Also, HTML documents can easily be shared as single
file, even if they contain embedded images.

What do you think?

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mikro2nd
So basically exactly what Zim-Wiki does, except that Zim uses its own markup
(can be copied as Markdown/text/pandoc, though). Otherwise every page is just
a txt file, directory structure is respected, other files (images, etc.)
accessible/linkable from notes, etc.

Has the advantage of being not Mac-only.

~~~
ricg
From the current feature set, both are similar. Future features aside, the
main difference is the file format:

Why I went for HTML is the ability to embed images (via data URI). This allows
for a note to be a single, standalone file that can easily be shared or moved
around without losing track of its images.

Even if you want to open a note in 20 years from now you can do so with a
browser (assuming HTML will still be around then). You'll get a fully
formatted document. For Markdown you can always use a text editor, but to get
formatting and images to show, you'll need a Markdown compatible app.

UPDATE: I gave Zim a try and noticed another difference, file format aside:
the app I'm working on will show all files in your folder structure, including
PDFs, etc. It renders a preview with QuickLook and allows to open the document
with its default app.

This comes in very handy when you want to mix & match notes and other
documents. For example, let's say you have a hotel reservation as PDF, you
could attach a note with driving directions all in the app.

