
What is the best cross-platform note taking tool? - StuieK
http://www.slant.co/topics/697/~what-is-the-best-cross-platform-note-taking-tool
======
nutate
Pen and/or pencil and paper. Mead, Moleskine, Rhodia all make great paper
notebooks along with Staples, OfficeMax having house brands. Pens and pencils
are available from a variety of sellers as well.

Lacks text searchability, distributed backups and portability (it's not on
your phone all the time).

Has multiple tactile benefits. Can always be scanned for digital backup if
need be. Far less likely to be hacked, never has a version that randomly
deletes a note. Forces you to keep notes in an actual place not essentially a
series of memory addresses of local and/or remote computer.

As someone who's played with nearly every item on this list from tiddlywiki to
vim wiki to the mind mappers evernote, .plan files, etc etc. Paper is still
the most flexible. I just think differently when I'm not limited by keyboards
and/or almost OK drawing interfaces (aka penultimate, paper (the app), etc).

A little DoxieGo scanner and paper is the place to be. Otherwise you'll find
yourself looking back at your vast cache of notes in cloudnot.es (or whatever
new YC15 startup comes up with the new hot note app that revolutionizes your
life) that document your thoughts from 2014-2019 and you'll end up
wondering... what really mattered here? How do I save this... Why did I save
this? Do I need this note on what I wanted to buy my ex-boyfriend for
valentine's day 2017? Etc etc.

The ephemeral nature of paper is perhaps its biggest feature, forcing you to
save it or delete it. Or just go full Warhol and save everything:
[http://edu.warhol.org/aract_timecap.html](http://edu.warhol.org/aract_timecap.html)

~~~
jlees
I love pen and paper, and use it a lot. But I'm still struggling for a
solution to capture things like bookmarks/mobile thoughts in a way that I can
use alongside paper. Right now I use a combination of Google Keep and Pocket,
which are great for capture but I fail to review them regularly enough IMO.
Paper you can't help reviewing every time you use it :)

------
spindritf
Tomboy¹ with Tomdroid² and Rainy³ for sync. I know, mono, but it's free, open-
source, self-hosted, and a Gnome classic.

EDIT: added [http://www.slant.co/topics/697/viewpoints/12/~what-is-the-
be...](http://www.slant.co/topics/697/viewpoints/12/~what-is-the-best-cross-
platform-note-taking-tool~tomboy)

¹ [https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy)

² [https://launchpad.net/tomdroid](https://launchpad.net/tomdroid) (.apk, not
the Play version)

³ [http://www.notesync.org/](http://www.notesync.org/)

~~~
themodelplumber
Does sync really work well for you? I had crazy problems syncing Tomboy in the
past, but that was ~4 years ago.

~~~
spindritf
Rainy didn't exist 4 years ago. I had some occasional problems with notes
losing their categories or causing conflicts for no good reason but it has
worked relatively well.

------
aufreak3
Workflowy is one of the best I've come across and one I use personally for
text. The interface is super productive and the degree of depth possible with
that simplicity is just stunning.

The real downside for me is that my notes are on _their_ server. I really hate
that. So .. I keep getting back to org mode .. which isn't available
everywhere.

~~~
chime
Is there a real demand for this? I made
[https://zetabee.com/text](https://zetabee.com/text) in 2010 and have been
using it myself every single day since there. My app is plain-text and has
lots of keyboard shortcuts. I could most likely convert it to work with any
JSON key-val store, including localStorage (which will disappear if you clear
your cache).

After almost 4 years, my app is currently used by less than a few hundred
people so I never thought there is a big demand in this area. I just made it
for myself. It'll take me some time to re-code it (and most certainly open-
source it) but if enough people like what it does and how it works, I'm all up
for it.

~~~
aufreak3
The thing about Workflowy is not the saving/backing-up/etc functionality per-
se, which is the easy part. It is the user interface design that makes it so
productive. It's like you can zoom in to any aspect of your life and you can
have your whole life as a single tree on it - so yes, there _is_ only one list
per account on Workflowy (afaik), and this is the beautiful part.

The closest I've come is to use org-mode in emacs with the foldout package
enabled [1]. This works well actually and I even wrote my thesis this way
(which I can't do using Workflowy btw ;) .. but you got to manage the syncing
etc yourself.

It is valid to argue that a tree structure is not the ideal mind-map, but the
speed advantage of editing a tree structure way more than compensates for a
more complex graph structure ... and you can always hyperlink.

[1]: [http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
orgmode/2007-10/msg0...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
orgmode/2007-10/msg00435.html)

------
akiselev
For those looking for a physical alternative that also converts to digital
notes (and synchronizes notes with a audio recorder on the pen), LiveScribe is
particularly amazing: [http://www.livescribe.com/en-
us/](http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/)

It uses a special dot matrix notebook (5 pack for like $25-30) that allow it
to record all notes written and synchronize with audio so that you can press
the pen anywhere in your notes and replay what was said while you were taking
notes. Comes with some smartphone app integration and desktop sync stuff.

------
npsimons
Org-mode in Emacs, hands down.

------
hyp0
This submission looks like it's to promote slant (and checking, the submitter
is from slant). Nothing wrong with that!

I think because comparisons often cause a flurry of opinions, experiences and
religious wars, slant seem to have instant publicity baked into the very
essence of their idea (of comparisons).

Interestingly, nobody has commented on slant itself - suggesting that the
interface is seamless, invisible. Arguably, the very best feedback possible!

------
bdfh42
I am making use of StackEdit [https://stackedit.io/](https://stackedit.io/) \-
brilliant and works fine across devices.

~~~
michaelbuddy
nice. open source too according to this:
[https://github.com/benweet/stackedit](https://github.com/benweet/stackedit)
\- so it stores the files locally and then you can share / store docs across
drive and other storage sites including wordpress and more. this one deserves
another look.

------
x0054
Does anyone know of a good tree structure notepad for OSX? Something like
MyNoteKeeper [1] on windows. The key features I have been looking for are a
tree structure where each node can have text and files associated with it, and
can have children nodes.

[1] [http://www.mynoteskeeper.com/](http://www.mynoteskeeper.com/)

------
runjake
One nice option is KeepNote ([http://keepnote.org](http://keepnote.org)). It's
written in PyGTK and is portable across Linux, Windows, and OS X. It stores
things in HTML. It's pretty flexible and has a handy screenshot tool built-in.
It's not sexy, but it's flexible and does the job.

------
tynan
Check out NoteCasePro. It's the only solution I could find that allows me to
sync an encrypted file myself that I could open in Android and Linux
(/windows/mac). It has a ton of advanced features, but I just use the basics
like hierarchies and image embedding.

------
the1
[http://www.markdownnotes.com/](http://www.markdownnotes.com/)

would be perfect if it's packaged as an offline chrome app. and can sync with
online server of users' choice (s3, dropbox, ... etc)

------
ctopjian
I use [https://evernote.com](https://evernote.com) and the we clipper add-on
for chrome is perfect...

------
nimrody
Is there anything that can be used as a "research notebook"? Specifically, I
need to embed graphs/images within the text.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Evernote is pretty good at that. The text can contain inline images, video
clips and binary attachments -- the note editor is basically a small word
processor.

~~~
nimrody
That's what I currently use. However, the recent HN post about Evernote had
paying users complaining about data loss!

------
sogen
Simplenote is great: works in the browser, has OSX apps (Notational Velocity
is great and free), and a free iOS app too

~~~
foolproof
Although Simplenote now has an official OS X app [¹] I'd strongly suggest
nvALT [²] which is essentially Notational Velocity with some nice additional
features and under active development.

[1]
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simplenote/id692867256](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simplenote/id692867256)

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

------
analog31
One interesting aspect of a paper notebook is that you know exactly what
information you're carrying across a border. Of course paper notes have
security issues, but all of those issues are known and easy to understand. The
front door is open, but there are no back doors.

------
davecap1
I find a notebook and pen works best for me :) Otherwise I save markdown files
to dropbox.

~~~
themodelplumber
That's exactly what I do. I go through lots of Miquelrius notebooks like this
one: [http://www.amazon.com/Miquelrius-Wirebound-
Notebook-6-Subjec...](http://www.amazon.com/Miquelrius-Wirebound-
Notebook-6-Subject-College/dp/B009E6WFN6)

I use Freemind sometimes, too, for example when I have a huge project in front
of me and I need to get a quick sense of the various parts and their sub-
tasks. I apply little icons like a bomb with a lit fuse for "waiting on
client", green checkmark for "done," etc.

~~~
pasbesoin
As an aside: $13.99? Seriously?

I'm willing to pay more for quality, but that seems rather high for what one
is getting. The description does not even include acid-free/buffered paper.

I understand that Moleskins and the like are a thing, these days. But what
makes this item worth $14 per 300 page notebook?

I don't mean this as some sarcastic, rhetorical comment. I'm genuinely curious
as to what makes this notebook worth that price.

(A question from someone who has e.g. spent more than he might need to on "the
right" pen... :-)

~~~
themodelplumber
I've never paid that much for one, but if a local store sold them I'd be more
than happy to oblige. They are very thick as notebooks go, so I get a lot of
use out of them. I know what you mean about the pen thing, too :-) I review
pens and pencils from time to time on my personal site:
[http://www.friendlyskies.net/category/stationery/](http://www.friendlyskies.net/category/stationery/)

------
samsquire
This is a nice design for reviews where each product has individually voted
features.

Would be cool to be able to facet search on aspects like you might on an
ecommerce website. (So you could compare products from different
perspectives.)

------
nextos
org-mode Emacs

~~~
arca_vorago
I have been working at learning Emacs and have just recently started using
org-mode and love it. I tend to not trust anything but a VPN or SSH connection
these days and being able to just ssh into a box of mine (down with the cloud)
and quickly take notes is not just handy and fairly secure, but it's cross
platform because SSH. (putty if I'm stuck at a windows machine)

------
jw_
org-mode + emacs.

------
pacomerh
I'll give Wunderlist a vote, its simple and cross platform. When taking notes
never over complicate.

------
suprjami
Not fucking Evernote. This poll is already tainted by Valley startup Mac
hipsters moving to Vietnam taking only their iPad Mini and a pair of trousers.

------
jebblue
Gedit + git.

------
philsnow
ssh to emacs org mode

------
executive
Wunderlist

------
clarry
vi

------
thenerdfiles
Vim to Dropbox with markdown files.

You get encryption for free with :X.

You can also easily set up Vimwiki.

You can do real-time collaboration with Floobits.

You can store them in git repo and access them via Github (or
[http://prose.io](http://prose.io)), and manage with git-flow.

~~~
thenerdfiles
I'd also combine Vimwiki with todo.txt, the commandline tool. You can pipe
your todo list with tags and categories to Vim, thus wikifying it, or pipe it
to pandoc and export as PDF, HTML, LaTeX, slideshows, etc.

