

Paperwork: An open source Evernote alternative - DieBuche
http://paperwork.rocks/?hn
(note: i&#x27;m not the author, but i believe he&#x27;s welcoming help in taking it further)
======
drvortex
As other's have mentioned, the WebUI is a major no-no.

Evernote's strength lies in its Desktop application and very useful clipping
service.

The fact that Evernote uses its own cloud storage instead of say an encrypted
folder in Google Drive/Dropbox etc is a negative of the service. Sync is
required but implemented in the most undesirable way in Evernote currently.

Paperwork is promising, but seems to have replicated the negative of Evernote,
while foregoing the reason why people use Evernote in the first place.

So, if you want to Paperwork to take off:

1\. Implement it as an offline Chrome App with Dropbox+Google Drive sync. 2\.
Implement a web clipping+screenshot extension.

~~~
laurent123456
That makes me think, has anyone tried to build a note taking app based on git?
A tricky part for this kind of app is networking and synchronization of notes,
and that's all taken care of by git. The "only" thing left would be to
implement the mobile and desktop front ends.

~~~
takluyver
Magpie, which I think was on HN a few weeks back, is an attempt at precisely
this.

[https://magpie-notes.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](https://magpie-
notes.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)

~~~
jessaustin
I must have missed it a few weeks back, but thanks for mentioning this because
it's just what I need!

------
troels
It's a good start, but I feel the UX could do with some refinement. Why is
there no default notebook upon signup? Why isn't there a big fat "Add a note"
button on the top of the list of notes? Why do I have to explicitly press save
after editing a note? And why is is soe obscure icon of a floppy disk, instead
of a button with the text "Save changes" on it? Etc.

All the functionality is there, but as I see it, an app like this is all about
good UX and very little about the technical features.

~~~
foxylad
> And why is is soe obscure icon of a floppy disk, instead of a button with
> the text "Save changes" on it?

If you've ever tried to use a computer in a foreign country, you'll realise
why icons are an extremely good idea.

I agree the floppy disk symbol is dated though, as is having to save a file.

~~~
hangonhn
No. People make the mistake of thinking symbols are universal. They are not.
Symbols are always interpreted in the context of the user's culture. A cross
in the US might mean ambulance or hospital but it means something different in
Turkey. Icons are not substitutes for internationalization. Floppy disk icon
might not translate well in China given that it was dead by the time computers
became common in China. It probably doesn't even translate well in the US with
younger users.

------
micheljansen
Looks like a good start!

I played around with it a bit and it's still pretty far from being a true
Evernote alternative.

A lot of the value in Evernote comes from its crazy powerful search and rich
ecosystem. Both are currently still lacking in Paperwork.

As of yet, it does not search within PDF documents and it does use OCR to
extract text from images, though both could be achieved with open source
technologies such as Solr and Tesseract.

The lack of ecosystem (iOS/Android apps, desktop integration etc.) also makes
sense, but the APIs are all there, so there is no stopping anyone from adding
those.

------
encoderer
I dream of a future where there is a standard rest interface for cloud file
storage, that somebody will put an API in front of any non-compliant services,
and that applications can talk to any datastore with minimal hacking.

This has been done before with, eg ODBC.

~~~
diafygi
Here's some projects you should check out:

* RemoteStorage.js[1] (they plan on adding support for Dropbox, Drive, etc.)

* CloudRail[2] (nonfree source)

* CloudDock[3] (proxy service)

* byoFS.js[4] (encrypted cloud storage, I maintain this)

[1]:
[https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js](https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js)

[2]: [http://cloudrail.com/](http://cloudrail.com/)

[3]: [http://clouddock.co/](http://clouddock.co/)

[4]: [https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS](https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS)

~~~
JohnDoe365
Camlistore
[https://camlistore.org/community](https://camlistore.org/community)

------
ilian
Another open source Evernote/Onenote alternative is TagSpaces(tagspaces.org)
It runs completely offline on Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Android, and since
recently it features a server edition, running on top of a ownCloud
installation.

~~~
krupan
Tagspaces is nice. Works the same on Linux, Mac, and Android (probably Windows
and iOS too, I haven't tried). I like that it doesn't try to tackle note
taking _and_ synchronization. You can use
dropbox/spideroak/btsync/owncloud/whatever-you-lik for that.

------
mrdrozdov
For note taking I use the open sourced Notational Velocity [1] (actually I use
nvAlt [2] which is a fork that has some extra features like Markdown support).
My two favorite features are that it can store your notes as plain text files
in a folder of your choice, plus there's syncing through Dropbox or
Simplenote. Notational Velocity is a Mac app, but with Simplenote you get
x-platform support.

[1] [http://notational.net/](http://notational.net/)

[2]
[http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/)

~~~
devindotcom
Yeah, I love Simplenote sooo much. The official app got a lot better when
Automattic took over, so I use that on Android, but NV on Mac and ResophNotes
on Win7 are excellent.

Not good for rich text and images and web clippings and such, just great plain
text syncing.

~~~
r109
I love simplenote too, replaced my notepad.exe.

------
mdewinter
How is this different than Wallabag?
([http://wallabag.org/](http://wallabag.org/)) Wallabag is mature, has mobile
apps, self hosted or on their servers and allows you to export stuff as PDF,
epub or json.

~~~
gregd
I'm not seeing that they're claiming to be better than anything, just a,
"self-hosted alternative to services like Evernote (R), Microsoft OneNote (R)
or Google Keep (R)."

Are you a contributor to Wallabag?

------
myliverhatesme
Nice! I've been using Evernote for a while now. I have a MacBook Pro I use for
work, but I use Linux at home. After using both the web client (because that's
my only option in Linux except Wine) and the native OS X client, it's clear
that the Web Client is lacking.

I'm looking forward to an open source alternative.

------
pookieinc
Nice beginning!

I agree with everyone that the UX needs some clean-up (default notebook
created automatically, large Add Note button, etc.), however, there is one
functionality that Evernote removed a long time ago, and I'm still searching
for an alternative, and this new app also doesn't support it.

The feature to create unlimited child notes. It used to be that you could have
a tree structure with a parent note, then a few child notes, then a child of
those child notes, etc., but last I checked, there's only one layer of depth.
Only one child note can be created for each notebook and you can't set that
child to be the parent of another note. I love all the other features, such as
tagging, clipping, etc., but this was a killer feature that I haven't found
anywhere else.

Do any of you know an alternative app that has this feature in a note-taking
application?

~~~
iliis
Workflowy is basically a exactly this: a tree of nested items. It's more
bullet-point style but works for quite well for me.

[https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/)

------
Quequau
I'm surprised to see that NeverNote hasn't been mentioned yet.

[http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/](http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/)

~~~
jimktrains2
Isn't nevernote just an evernote front end? This appears to be a service, not
just a client.

------
rayiner
I've been looking at a good document management/note-taking app, to use in
legal work, and I've found it surprisingly difficult. My needs are simple: 1)
Rich-text notetaking; 2) DOCX/PDF markup, ideally with annotation extraction;
3) indexing and search of DOCX/PDF with preview; 4) drag & drop desktop
integration; 5) mac + pc. The cloud-only solutions are right-out. Evernote
comes pretty close to hitting all the points, and the Skitch-derived PDF
annotation summary is awesome, but the Mac/PC databases aren't compatible so
they can't be put on a shared drive.

~~~
7952
I am starting to think that those kind of features should be integrated with
the OS. So many cloud style apps are just irrelevant because they sit in their
own ecosystem that excludes how most businesses actually organise things (with
files on shared drives). I should be able to annotate things with the same set
of tools and have the OS intermediate.

------
fwn
I just created an account with fake data and it looks quite promising. Are
there plans to recreate the function of the Evernote Webclipper?

I love Evernote. Since they are very slow and expensive, a real competitor
would be great for them.

------
gexla
I think with open source user tools (as opposed to developer tools) you are
better off directing your effort to projects which already exist.

That's not to say that you can't or shouldn't try to scratch an itch. It just
seems that attempting to create an alternative to Evernote is a target which
is unlikely to be successful as an open source project or as a commercial
project. Evernote has a budget, a full time, full-stack development team and
lots of mojo. You aren't going to create a better Evernote. Instead, you
should aim to create a far more powerful tool to address the target which
Evernote is shooting for. That's the only way a small, scrappy dev shop with a
product lacking polish is going to rattle a much larger competitor. Sure, this
is open source, but it still needs to be compelling enough to grab momentum.

If you feel you don't have an answer which is much better, then perhaps throw
your weight behind an existing open source project which is already kicking
ass in that space. For example, Org Mode is arguably far more powerful than
Evernote. There are pros and cons of each, but part of your effort could be in
addressing the weaknesses of Org Mode.

~~~
reitanqild
As a (beginning) org-mode user I'd say a few people will never use org-mode.

As a person who works or has worked for a few companies that would never
accept sending company data out to evernote I say making a better product for
them shouldn't be too hard as long as you can install it locally. ("old"
OneNote 2010 is brilliant here, but the new one insist on logging into the
cloud. Fortunately the old one is more than good enough for now although I
have a few things I'd really love to see. )

------
goodmachine
Good stuff. This would be a nice project to have running on Sandstorm
[http://sandstorm.io](http://sandstorm.io)

~~~
UserRights
sandstorm looks really interesting! Does this provide a global authentication-
/ rights- / group-management api so all apps could share access rights and
user credentials in one database (or ldap store)?

~~~
teleclimber
I don't know the current status but these are things that are core to
sandstorm. I'd check their discussion board and maybe ask if you want a clear
answer. They're a pretty serious bunch.

------
maelito
Another nice, open source and very simple note taking web app is
[http://laverna.cc/](http://laverna.cc/)

~~~
ridgewell
> we are using IndexedDB and localStorage

Unless you hook it up to a cloud service, it's more or less dependent on your
local browser storage which is easily lost.

~~~
maelito
"Synchronizes with cloud storage services (at this time only Dropbox and
RemoteStorage are supported)"

------
adamqureshi
Interesting, I am curious if this can be used by psychiatrist / psychologist
who need to take patient notes. Notes need to shared between psychiatrist /
psychologist / social worker. Typically a patient needs all three. Also the
notes would need to be secure (hipaa) compliant. I wonder how much work would
be needed to build a MVP using paperwork as a start.

~~~
briandear
My company iCouch has what you're talking about in the new version we're
launching Feb 6. However, we are HIPAA as well as HITECH compliant. The HIPPA
compliance is a bit with the code, but more in how your infrastructure is
organized and your policies in place. One of our (almost) competitors
TherapyNotes does almost exactly what you're describing. I say almost not to
disparage but because notes are their core business, while for us, notes are
just one feature of the platform.

If you want to chat more email me at brian at iCouch.me. I'd be glad to share
some knowledge about the space if you want.

------
tehabe
I kinda hoped for a satirical website which advertised the usage of pen and
paper for taken notes. I'm disappointed now.

------
jamesu
I ditched evernote after I lost my data twice. Sadly I have yet to find a
solution which I feel would be an adequate replacement. Even Paperwork is far
from it. Either the proposed alternative is even buggier than evernote, or it
doesn't implement the full featureset I need.

I kind of feel that for me the pinnacle of Evernote was version 3. The lure of
being able to dump _any_ information into it and sort it later was basically
what got me using it. I could launch the app, type in "Phil", and get Phils
contact details from a business card I scanned in previously. I even used it a
few times to save maps and a travel itineracy to my phone for conferences I
attended. As the marketing put it, it was like a reliable "second brain". I
don't think any of the alternatives I have tried have nailed this at all.

~~~
pgrote
How did you lose your data twice?

~~~
chris-at
I only lost my data once but that was enough. My note got stuck in a sync
conflict (even visible in the logs).

Support told me to save my note before moving to another device ... I guess I
was the first user to forget that. They never apologized for their bug and I
was a paid user back then.

------
rkrzr
I would suggest to consider TiddlyWiki instead: It's open source, it is a
super simple low-tech solution (it's just one self-contained file) _and_ it
comes with built-in encryption. You can additionally just put it in your
Dropbox to have it automatically versioned and synchronized.

------
jkot
Another dissapointment. I want personal Wiki combined with calendar (something
like Zim). It should run acrosss many devices offline. And synchronize using
existing network infrastructure (Git or email). I will probably have to write
it by myself :-)

~~~
mxuribe
I've actually abandoned evernote in favor of zim wiki for almost a year now,
and have been quite happy. Admittedly, I don't use pdfs, deferring more to
text and basic image-style notes. (So, my requirements are admittedly
simpler.) Also I haven't synched across devices (yet!) but zim can be set up
to simply save the content/notes within a directory that gets auto-synched by
another app (such as owncloud, dropbox, etc.)...so I would recommend you try
these features of zim wiki before writing something yourself. I think if you
gain some direct experience with these features will either motivate you to
adjust the zim code to your liking...Or, give you experience to know what
direction and specific feature set you would like to code via your own,
separate project. Either way its a win for you, and the open source community!

~~~
jkot
I synchronize Zim via Git plugin. I am happy with Zim, I just would like
better UI, native android, and perhaps calendar and even email integration.

I did quick search, and it actually looks feasible. Libs are available, PyQT,
text file for storage, sync and storage reliability provided by Git. I even
picked up name 'Lookout' :-). Now I only need the right motivation, perhaps if
akonadi or k9 mail piss me off again.

~~~
K_REY_C
I think Zim is the best thing out there at the moment. Is it trivial to
encrypt via the Git plugin?

~~~
jkot
Not really

------
Maro
There's also Simplenote. I can recommend it. It's pretty cool, it's just
plaintext, and it just works. I migrated to it after I got sick of the
formatting in Evernote getting screwed up and sync issues causing data loss.

~~~
TuringTest
Simplenote is not open source.

~~~
donatj
But the API is entirely open, so you can use an open source client.

~~~
adrusi
But for any meaningful kind of data freedom you have to own the server, not
just the client.

~~~
donatj
The server is so simple it would be remarkably easy to reproduce based simply
on the API spec.

------
jonstewart
Is there a way to do something meaningful with the demo without creating an
account?

~~~
micheljansen
You don't have to use a real email to register (there is no verification), so
just use anything@anything and you're good.

------
winter_blue
I would have liked if Paperwork (or any other note-taking app) had the option
storing your notes in text files (plain or markdown). Then, the back up and
syncing could be handled by Dropbox/Sugarsync/other.

------
drKarl
I periodically check for good open source alternatives to Evernote.

Previously I found

[https://github.com/grena/gruik](https://github.com/grena/gruik) Demo
[http://gruik.io/](http://gruik.io/)

[https://github.com/shubik22/BetterNote](https://github.com/shubik22/BetterNote)
Which clones the Evernote UI, demo
[http://www.betternote.us/](http://www.betternote.us/)

------
DieBuche
I'm not the author, but I believe he's welcoming any help on taking this
further. There's a neatly organized list of things to do in the Github
issues.[1]

See also his request for help on HN.[2]

[1]
[https://github.com/twostairs/paperwork/issues](https://github.com/twostairs/paperwork/issues)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8942823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8942823)

------
PythonicAlpha
I am not familiar with Evernote and the other tools -- but when I try to test
Paperwork, I got stuck:

How can I create a note? When I press "New note" simply nothing happens. I can
take no notes, add no documents -- nothing. Just two big white areas that are
plainly saying and doing nothing.

Ok, I found the problem: When I use "German" interface language, it does not
work. With English interface language there comes a new dialog. Guess, this is
a bug.

~~~
joshlemer
You should submit an issue on Github :)

------
inapis
I've been thinking about something like this for a long time! But mainly
focused on security and privacy features! This one looks good as a starting
point!

------
hardwaresofton
Also, for those who want to try it out, and don't want to register, I made an
account:

username: test

pass: testtest

email: test@test.com

This is awesome, definitely a great start (as others have said). I'm currently
working on a similar thing (in that it is open source and replaces some of the
pay/ad-powered products that exist in that area) and appreciated seeing this.

Have you considered starting a small hosted service?

------
foolinaround
This looks very promising.

Could you please share the roadmap? When is the support for desktop clients
planned?

When can evernote documents be migrated?

------
aaron987
I think a very simple step that could be taken to improve adoption would be
making it more obvious that you don't need an email to try the demo. I would
mention it right on the demo "Signup" page.

Judging by some of the comments here, something that simple would likely get
more people to try it.

~~~
shurcooL
How do you get past the signin page without using an email?

~~~
joshlemer
You can use a fake email account, such as shurcooL@shurcooL.com

------
jsilence
The plethora of interesting alternatives mentioned in the comments looks like
an indicator that instead of one more however well done attempt at solving the
problem we actually need a set of well defined protocols and formats that
allow for interoperable solutions that suit everyones needs.

------
leoplct
Amazing! You should use the "Heroku Button" for a quickily implementation

[https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-
button](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-button)

------
caseyf7
Is there an open source version of the Evernote web clipper or something
similar to Pocket? I would love that.

------
Zibulon
Why is an account needed for the demo??? That turned me off enough to give up.
I am tired of having to create an account for everything and anything - and it
makes managing passwords harder, or promotes using weaker passwords. I don't
want to live in a world where each step I take on the internet requires a
separate account/password!

~~~
gregd
I guess this doesn't bother me anymore. I've used Lastpass for the last 5 or 6
years. Not having strong, separate passwords for any site requiring an
account, is so 2007...

~~~
aaron987
My experience as well. Plus, my passwords became stronger. If I know I won't
remember it anyway, why stop at 10-15 character passwords? I just crank it up
to 40 characters of gibberish, and let LastPass do the remembering. I love it.

------
robertlf
Looks nice but who knows if it will be maintained five years from now?

~~~
kbart
Nobody can guarantee that, but it's open source so _you_ can always do it
yourself. I would be more worried about Evernote, Dropbox, Google Calender and
other proprietary solutions, because if they decide to close the service,
there's not much you can do about it.

------
kasabali
"...web UI..." oh no. Not really an alternative then.

------
Tepix
The website with its light gray text on white background is very hard to read.
Consider joining the contrast rebellion
[http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/)

------
piplgobde
I really love it when an open source alternative born.

Will check this out!

------
kumarski
Cool stuff.

Multiplatform is the difficult part.

------
UserRights
Very good initiative, thank you very much!

If you would like to switch to are more capable framework it would be much
easier to add some collaborative features. I recommend strongly looking at the
Python Pyramid framework or at Flask (or at Django, if you want more "rails
that lead you") as soon as possible, so this could grow into something really
powerful. Many java frameworks also have everything you will need.

Unfortunately there are still many frameworks used nowadays, that are missing
very important things around groups, ACLs / RBAC and collaboration. I do not
know why, but especially in the PHP world these things seem to be looked at as
some "advanced science", with a few exceptions.

Not integrating these features from the very beginning into your product will
determine the long term direction of your project without you even knowing
about it. This is the dangerous result of using popular, but very limited and
limiting frameworks that do not support your growth.

An experienced developer will of course identify these weak points of a
framework immediately, unfortunately many people still waste a lot of time
with these misleading trap-frameworks, just because they are cool today.

It is important to spot at the weaknesses of these half-assed "frameworks" and
clearly tag them as dangerous for serious project work. Laravel is ok for a
quick and dirty prototype that helps you to model your ideas, like a
brainstorming session, but should not be used for a real project. And this
modelling phase should be very short, quickly moving on to the more involved
engineering process that takes all aspects of a modern web app into
consideration.

Hopefully it is not too late for your project to switch - it will be a very
good investment of time, I promise!

~~~
getrolled
I think a lot of what you are saying is completely untrue. Laravel is a very
capable framework for this kind of thing. PHP has come a long way since the
days of PHP4, and Laravel/Symfony 2 are leading the way in that sense.

> _Unfortunately there are still many frameworks used nowadays, that are
> missing very important things around groups, ACLs / RBAC and collaboration._

The framework doesn't give you everything, but there is a huge community out
there for these kinds of things. For example, there is a package that plugs
right into Laravel called Entrust:
[https://github.com/Zizaco/entrust](https://github.com/Zizaco/entrust).

> _An experienced developer will of course identify these weak points of a
> framework immediately_

What other weak points do you see in Laravel?

> _Laravel is ok for a quick and dirty prototype that helps you to model your
> ideas, like a brainstorming session, but should not be used for a real
> project._

This seems like an extremely biased opinion again.

I am not trying to start a framework or language flamewar, but it just seems
like you are more comfortable with Java or Python and as such you see those as
being better. Objectively I think that is far from the truth.

