
Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app - NIckGeek
https://getmicropad.com
======
mholt
Cool! I like this. A couple suggestions:

\- Instead of asking "Are you sure" to delete an element, just go ahead and
delete it, but make it undoable. This allows for quicker workflow.

\- If I double-click an empty space, I would like to immediately insert a Text
element and start typing, without having to aim the mouse again and click
Text.

I'll probably be coming back to this when I need some note taking. Thanks for
sharing this!

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks for the feedback! I like the undo concept, that should be do-able.

On the quick-typing thing I was thinking that I could make it so that if you
just start typing with the insert thing open, it'll automatically put you in a
text element. What do you think about that?

~~~
ygra
Generally for usability I'd suggest to take a good look at OneNote, which in
my eyes gets the "type and draw everywhere, with minimal friction" concept
very right. And while the underlying data model of such an application may
necessitate a collection of objects being scattered on a canvas, that doesn't
mean that the _interaction_ model has to follow that directly. So indeed, just
let me type anywhere.

Another thing that adds friction in my eyes is that when editing text your
first click changes the interface into text editing mode where the text
neither stays at the position you've seen it before, nor can you actually
interact with it with that first click. So when I see a word that I'd like to
change and I click there, that will only spawn the edit window for that text
object, instead of just placing a cursor there so I can directly edit it.

------
reacharavindh
I use Apple Notes for this, and it is surprisingly great. Being able to drag
and drop images and screenshots is great.

Having them synchronized to the phone instantly is very convenient. As a
bonus, I can add sketches when I open notes on my iPad using the Apple Pencil.
It is sweeter because I can even search for a text fragment I hand-wrote in
one of those sketches.

Saying all of this here because, I wish there was an open source/self-hosted
alternative that did that. This website showed portable apps on all platforms,
and open source, got me very excited until I realized I can't just drag and
drop images into a note. Neither can I add sketches on the fly.

Sorry, I didn't mean to critique your open source effort, and sound negative.
My intent is to highlight an alternative that I enjoy, and perhaps bring some
ideas for discussion.

~~~
NIckGeek
You can click anywhere on a note to insert an image element, but yeah drag-
and-drop would be cool.

You can quickly add a sketch by clicking on an empty note and then insert a
"drawing" element. It'll also work with the Surface pens.

I really appreciate the comparison, I don't use Apple notes so it's nice to
know what they offer.

Thanks for the feedback.

------
vekker
This is a wonderful looking project, thanks for making it open source! I am
thinking of forking it for my own side-project and contributing to the
development if possible.

As other commenters already noted, the UI/UX of the app will need some work.
Just some initial thoughts:

    
    
      - Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I would expect to be able to start writing right away rather than first creating a notebook/section/note, choosing a title, etc...)
      - I would like to tag my notes à la Evernote, and filter notes based on this.
      - Speaking of searching/filtering: it would be nice to list all search results (and organisation of the notes for that matter) in the main view.
      - Maximise screen real estate for the actual note taking: why is there such a huge header and side nav... on a 13" screen I barely have room to see my notes. I would like to hide all that in a hamburger menu.
      - Keyboard shortcuts!
      - The ability to drag and drop images or other documents would be nice
      - The text in the textarea when taking a note is so small & there is no padding.
    

Anyway, hope that's useful feedback.. thanks again for this work! I will look
further into it.

~~~
Cyphase
Here's vekker's list without the formatting:

* Organisation of the notes is cumbersome: it wasn't clear to me what is meant with a note and a section, and how to actually start writing (I would expect to be able to start writing right away rather than first creating a notebook/section/note, choosing a title, etc...)

* I would like to tag my notes à la Evernote, and filter notes based on this.

* Speaking of searching/filtering: it would be nice to list all search results (and organisation of the notes for that matter) in the main view.

* Maximise screen real estate for the actual note taking: why is there such a huge header and side nav... on a 13" screen I barely have room to see my notes. I would like to hide all that in a hamburger menu.

* Keyboard shortcuts!

* The ability to drag and drop images or other documents would be nice

* The text in the textarea when taking a note is so small & there is no padding.

~~~
vekker
Ha! Thanks for that, I'm mostly a lurker here so I was surprised to learn HN
puts everything on one line, I thought indenting it was the only way to have a
bulleted list.

~~~
forapurpose
Text indented with two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim, which is
intended for code.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc](https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc)

There is no bulleted list format; just start the line with a bullet (such as a
hyphen) and put a blank line between list items.

------
lf-non
People who prefer structured outlining (over non linear snippet collections)
may find fluid-outliner[1] interesting.

After not finding any good signup-free privacy-aware zero-installation
solution, which supported both rich text and markdown, I started prototyping
on the above. It is quite early stage but fairly usable. Any
feedback/contributions are welcome.

[1] [https://github.com/fluid-notion/fluid-outliner](https://github.com/fluid-
notion/fluid-outliner)

~~~
NIckGeek
Oh wow! That looks really cool. You could possibly even create compatibility
with my app using the parser that I wrote [https://github.com/MicroPad/Web-
Parser](https://github.com/MicroPad/Web-Parser)

~~~
lf-non
Releasing the parser as a standalone library/utility is a cool idea. I'll
check into this.

------
Boulth
I wish there were some screenshot. I'm on a weak airport wifi and cannot
really check this out now :(

~~~
NIckGeek
There are some on the snap store page:
[https://snapcraft.io/micropad](https://snapcraft.io/micropad)

I'll look into adding them to the main site.

------
pixelHD
Is there is a guide to help setup a self-hosted version fo this app? I'd
assume there would be a server which does the actual parsing and syncing,
along with a web app which is used to render onto a web page?

I absolutely love the idea by the way, can't wait to try it!

------
m52go
Hey do you mind if I ask you you handled code signing for your Windows and Mac
apps?

Mac seems relatively straightforward, but Windows seems like an absolute
cluster.

I'm releasing my own free open-source desktop app built with Electron soon,
and it seems like the biggest pain in the butt that no one seems to talk
about.

Overall though I love the idea, upvoted! Might even give it a go. Solves some
big problems I have with note-taking...I've resorted to Zotero + Cryptomator +
Dropbox for my own setup.

~~~
NIckGeek
Nothing is code signed currently, it's annoying but code signing for Mac and
Windows is not cheap.

~~~
m52go
I know, but the UX is hobbled pretty bad IMO. There's a good chance less-savvy
users are turned away altogether...

Good to know. I'm planning on not signing anything for my first release, think
I'll stick with that plan. Thanks!

------
tobyhinloopen
I was clicking around for a minute, not figuring out how to get started. You
have to click "Notepads" and "New" first. I didn't see "New" because when I
click a dropdown, I expect all menu items to be BELOW the initial button, so I
skipped "New" and thought "Import" was the first menu-item. I must be an
idiot.

Then I have to give my note a title... I don't know?? I just want to create a
note, not title it... so I enter no title and press "OK" and... nothing!

So I press "New" again, enter random keystrokes as a title, and... now what? I
continue pressing random buttons, now I try "\+ Section" (whatever that
means). I got a collapsable section and 2 new buttons. Great.

Now I press "\+ Note" and I finally get a "Hey, you can do stuff now!"
message.

Is it so hard to just initially create a note without having to create a
"Notepad" and a "Section" first? And you have to name both things before you
can do anything.

So I insert a text with markdown, enter some random text... now I want to save
it. I see a big huge blue button: That must be SAVE! Oh, it isn't. It's
"bibliography", whatever that means. The big red button? Oh that's delete... I
haven't created anything, but at least I know how to delete it just in case.

I also like how the label for the text-area is "formatting help" and is
actually a link to "formatting help" and not the label for the text-area.

Anyways, I found out you "save" by just clicking wherever. Fine. So I now
wanted to actually name my thing. I'm clicking the title in the header.
Double-clicking. Nope, that doesn't work. Looking for a rename button here...
Oh maybe the sidebar. So I see that cog icon and I think: There, that's where
you must be able to rename it, right?

And yes, a modal! With a RENAME button! Cool. So I press the RENAME button and
POOF modal gone. Wtf??? Since the blue button I saw earlier wasn't a
confirm/save button but a "open a modal" button, I assumed it opened another
modal, but no: Now it just closes the modal. Whatever.

So I open the modal again and notice the name is actually an input field
(gotta love Google Material Design). So I change the name and click the modal
away, assuming it is saved automatically just like with notes. My changes
aren't saved. Fuck.

So I open the modal AGAIN and assume the "RENAME" button is a SAVE button.
Finally...

This whole thing is a neat idea, but there is much room for improvement on the
GUI.

~~~
NIckGeek
Sorry to hear that you got frustrated. I did try to make little help videos
(and I have a note about structure in the help notepad) but I understand that
it should be intuitive without having to watch that or view the help notepad.

The bibliography list lets you attach URLs to elements on your note, which is
helpful for when you go back for essay-writing and stuff. The formatting-help
thing isn't actually a label but I understand the confusion there, I'll look
into ways to improve that.

I'd love if you would take the time to formalise some of your criticism in a
github issue:
[https://github.com/MicroPad/Web/issues](https://github.com/MicroPad/Web/issues)

------
aiilnns
I think it would be easier if there was no textbox, no click and insert text.
Merely click, have a blinking cursor appear, write anywhere. After you've
finished writing click again in an empty space and have the text box created,
so you can resize it.

Similarly for drawing.

Ditch the boxes altogether while writing/drawing and have them appear
afterwards for manipulation.

edit: Other than that your program looks quite promising!

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks! I was trying that for drawing a while ago but I was having a lot of
trouble getting it to work.

I'm thinking as a compromise for the mean-time I plan to automatically insert
the text-box when you have the insert menu open and just start typing.

Thanks for the thoughts. It's great to get constructive feedback.

------
chippy
I like the idea of it being non-linear.

In terms of features, being able to paste an image (e.g. like pasting into a
github comment, or into a gdoc) would be great. I find I use screenshots into
the clipboard more than saving to a file, however I don't know if others do as
much nor if Windows / Mac supports that.

~~~
jjoonathan
Mac: Ctrl+Cmd+Shift+4 to grab a rectangular selection to the clipboard.

Does windows have something similar? I've been using PrintScrn and Paint but
it's comparably very awkward. I know there are apps, but "working in places
where I haven't / can't install apps" is a requirement.

~~~
wodenokoto
Yes Windows have a snipping tool[1]

Although I use it every day, I haven't bothered looking up keyboard shortcuts
for it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipping_Tool](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipping_Tool)

~~~
reitanqild
Win - Shift - S I think

Edit: that might be specific to the OneNote clipping tool though.

~~~
ygra
It has been promoted to a normal Windows shortcut in one of the recent major
updates.

------
karmakaze
Interesting, though I'm not sure (yet) what I'd use it for. Here are my notes:

    
    
      - I was a bit lost in the empty state after dismissing the help.
        (perhaps not immediately entering full screen mode would be good)
      - Took me a second to realize the sticky-looking text isn't a note but rather the page.
        (I may have been thrown off by the word 'notepad' in the HN post title)
      - The '+ Note' and '+ Section' interleaved in what would be a nice outline is a little distracting.
        It also creates the note/section at the end of the list whereas the action labels are at the start.
        (maybe even better is if you can iconify them and place beside the parent container's text)

------
namanyayg
I've often felt limited by the current state of note-making/todo/spreadsheet
tools (ideally, they're all grouped into one app with cross platform sync),
and this looks like a great step in the quick notemaking aspect. Glad to see
it's open source as well.

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks. This also supports markdown to-do lists and I manage all of my tasks
by putting #todo on my notes (which then show up when I search for the
hashtag).

The only thing missing there is spreadsheets, which feels like it might be a
little bit of feature-creep. Thanks for the feedback :-)

------
gnufied
Nice app. As someone who uses org-mode for note taking, I tried micropad. Here
is a quick feedback:

1\. Add support for syntax highligting the code blocks in markdown may be?

2\. It is not obvious that full screen will hide the sidebar and how I can
bring it back.

3\. App has several bugs I think. Trying to create a image note with 1MB image
froze the application.

4\. Vertical space is a premium these days. A lot of vertical space in the app
is wasted. Not sure if this being an electron app.

5\. Whats up with app icon? I am using appimage on Fedora.

6\. For some reason the note taking does not feel effortless. I do not mean
this as massive criticism but as others have pointed out, allow deletion
without prompts and allow undo.

~~~
NIckGeek
Syntax highlighting would be really cool.

1MB images should work perfectly fine. It is an image element right?

I have heard that the icons might be a little weird. I've been unable to test
it because my install of Linux doesn't use icons. I'd appreciate help with
that one if anyone can help.

Thanks for the other feedback.

------
urlwolf
This Thing is creat. cons I find:

\- Hmm, no shortcuts? or keyboard support in general. Press arrow down to
highlight a search result fails

\- bounding box for a note not needed (see onenote)

\- Search the content of a note not possible?

\- Too much chrome while note writing?

These are simple things to fix. Great project!

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks! There are some keyboard shortcuts (there's a page in the help notepad
on them) but I would like to add more.

Not too sure what you mean on the bounding box thing, like the little border
around elements?

If you want to dismiss the sidebar just click the little ">>" or press "f".
Hiding the breadcrumbs in the focus mode is on my todo list. Thanks for the
list, I genuinely appreciate it.

~~~
Geojim
Agree about the bounding box, best seen when editing, rest of the time just a
distraction.

I've been chasing a onenote alternative for some time, this looks promising. I
have to add, I loved the old Onenote heirachy, notebooks down the left
(rotated labels), sections across the top, pages down the right.

And more screen shots always help for those too lazy to trial. And add some
default notebook/section/note naming, so people can just click and start
adding notes.

Great work

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks, the reason I made this was because of how big of a fan I was of
OneNote, but all the little things that I wanted to change (and first-class
linux support) drove me to write this.

------
pk78
Nice app! I created a similar app a while back. The difference is that you can
also connect the boxes(a mind map like concept) you create, otherwise, the
click-anywhere-to-add kinda feature is similar. I'd appreciate it if you check
it out - it's [https://www.mapsofmind.com](https://www.mapsofmind.com)

------
codepie
I have been using Zim[0] for quite few years now. With various plugins, it
allows me to write LaTeX equations, formatted code, tables etc. Overall it has
been really good, but I feel the only thing missing is the support for mobile
devices.

[0]: [http://zim-wiki.org/](http://zim-wiki.org/)

~~~
NIckGeek
This notepad app does support LaTeX equations (instructions are in the help
notepad). Sadly it might be an issue on mobile for you too.

MicroPad _works_ on mobile, but not very nicely. That is a key thing I want to
improve though.

------
MinusGix
Looks quite nice. Though some features which I think would make this more
appealing (at least to me): Ability to draw lines between two elements. Link
to other Sections/Notes. Copy & Paste images into it, rather than uploading.

Really nice tool, and I'll be sure to look at it to see how it changes.

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks. Dragging/copying in images is something I really want to do, so
hopefully I'll have enough free time to get to that soon.

The closest I can give you to lines right now is for you to insert a "drawing"
element and doing a line there. That's not a great solution though.

------
NIckGeek
I got featured in [https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/17/get-productive-on-the-
lin...](https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/17/get-productive-on-the-linux-
desktop-with-7-essential-apps) under #6, so that was pretty cool.

------
roryisok
I love the idea of infinite canvas, OneNote has this and it's really freeing.

> The web-client works on any modern browser. It doesn't matter if you're
> using a Chromebook, a Surface, or a toaster.

Apparently toaster beats windows phone, because it doesn't work on my Lumia

~~~
NIckGeek
I suspect that's because your browser doesn't support srcdoc with IFrame, I
know Edge is getting it on the next version, they're just a little behind.

Also, yeah. After trying OneNote for a couple years I was just hooked with the
infinite canvas concept.

------
scott-smith_us
Thanks for doing this.

SUGGESTION: A video demo link would really help short-attention-span people
like me. Something brief that shows it being used and highlights features that
make μPad stand out (e.g. "infinite canvas" \-- what does that look like)?

------
kingofpandora
This reminds me of the old KDE application, Basket Note Pads: [https://basket-
notepads.github.io/screenshots.html](https://basket-
notepads.github.io/screenshots.html).

~~~
lf-non
This is a blast from the past. Basket notes was my goto note-taking solution
for multiple years during college.

------
urlwolf
Also linking notes to make them relate to each other would be great. Imagine a
'police board' with visible connections instead of a whiteboard...

------
nasredin
ICYMI this is an Electron app called _Micro_ Pad, stylized with the macro
symbol of course.

Size: ~67 MB.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

~~~
NIckGeek
Yeah, that's the big issue with Electron. The "Micro" came from my original
plan for it, which was to have a super small python script generate static
notepad pages for you to visit in your browser. Obviously that's no longer the
case.

------
philips
The trend of open source, zero knowledge sync and cross platform tools is
really interesting.

standardnotes.org is another in that space

~~~
NIckGeek
I agree, although this isn't 100% zero-knowledge. The keys are managed server
side because the server needs to be able to read your notepad for the diff-
sync.

I have written what I hope is a pretty plain-english privacy policy here
[https://getmicropad.com/policy.php#privacy](https://getmicropad.com/policy.php#privacy)

------
vasili111
Nice project :)

1\. It will be nice to have the possibility to add videos to notes. Not just
links to files. I mean video files that are inside notes and can be played
inside micropad.

2\. Are there plans to add premium (paid) features besides paid sync in your
clouds or all functionality will be available to everyone?

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks!

1\. That's totally possible, although file-size could quickly become an issue
with syncing the videos (there's a 50MB cap)

2\. Nope, All actual client functionality is (and always will be) free + open
source. Even syncing is free (up to a point).

~~~
vasili111
>although file-size could quickly become an issue with syncing the videos
(there's a 50MB cap).

Is this cap from software or from the cloud?

------
mingodad
When I open it on linux without GPU I've got a high cpu load. Why a notepad
need so high cpu load doing nothing ?

~~~
NIckGeek
Is it the Snap version? I think that does some decompression on load.

------
andrewflnr
What's "open notepad xml"? The only useful Google results I could find are for
this project.

~~~
NIckGeek
It's just this project, it's what I call my file thing. I should probably
ditch that part though.

------
selimthegrim
For engineering notes, one might try
[http://www.blockpad.net](http://www.blockpad.net), with OLE like ability to
link formulas and tables between documents, shared repositories of such, and
calculations with units!

------
naikrovek
Don't OneNote and Evernote already do this kind of thing? (On mobile, haven't
tried yours, yet.)

You should be signing apps if the smartscreen prompt really bothers you. Be
mad at virus and malware authors that forced this, not Microsoft or Apple.

~~~
NIckGeek
Linux doesn't have the issue with codesigning. And no evernote doesn't (it's
more of a page mechanism) and yes OneNote does but OneNote one Linux is non-
existent and OneNote on the web is bad.

~~~
naikrovek
Code signing is not an issue, it is a feature. You can think of it as a way to
programmatically check that the executable has not been modified since
released by the developer.

FOSS sites often recommend that a downloader check the hash of a downloaded
file against one provided, never seeming to realize that if an attacker can
replace a .iso file that there is a high likelihood that they can modify the
MD5 hash shown to match their modified file.

Code signing prevents this.

Code signing is a good thing.

------
hkai
Couldn't figure out how to type into it.

Opened the menu, created the new notebook. Then it's just empty canvas. I
tried clicking into it but nothing really happens. The Android keyboard
doesn't show, which means there's no text input.

~~~
NIckGeek
Yeah, the mobile UX is really a sore point right now, on the sidebar, you
create a section and then create a note. When you open the note you should see
a message saying your note is empty. Dismiss the sidebar and when you tap on
the canvas it'll open an insert menu.

The mobile UI is definitely more of a read-experience but I'd love to change
that (and if any developers want to help with that it'd be awesome)

------
aagd
Does this use NodeIntegration? I'm kinda paranoid with Electron apps these
days...

~~~
NIckGeek
Nope. The client is on its own. The only connection to node is in preload.ts,
but that's a one-way relationship. Have a read of
[https://github.com/MicroPad/Electron/blob/master/main.ts](https://github.com/MicroPad/Electron/blob/master/main.ts)
if you're interested.

------
ToFab123
"Your web-browser doesn't support important security features required for
µPad v3 to function" is the message that greet you when you access the app in
Edge.

Which security features are Edge lacking in this regard?

~~~
NIckGeek
I rely on iframes to sandbox, and as part of that I need srcdoc. Edge will
support it in the next version iirc.

------
maneesh
You might really like [https://notion.so](https://notion.so) , which lets you
create non-linear notes but with a really cool variety of page styles

------
juancampa
It's funny that the main thing you do in a note-taking program is create notes
but there's no keyboard shortcut for it. Otherwise, cool concept, will keep an
eye on it

------
severine
Congratulations, looks great! Any chance of a 32-bit version?

~~~
NIckGeek
Thanks! I can look into it. If you follow the instructions on
[https://github.com/MicroPad/Electron/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/MicroPad/Electron/blob/master/README.md)
you should be able to build one on your machine too.

------
writepub
Hello HN. You might like to try a competing offering I developed,
[http://Write.Pub](http://Write.Pub)

------
carterschonwald
Cool!

Now make it compelling for folks who like ONeNote!:)

------
beefman
macOS 10.12.6 says the app bundle is damaged and can't be opened.

~~~
NIckGeek
Hmm. I suspect that's because I don't do code signing?

