
Ask HN: What is a notetaking app? What is its utility? - earenndil
I hear all this buzz about note-taking apps, but my question is: what do they <i>do</i>?  Whenever I want to take notes, I make a textfile and edit it in my texteditor.  Do notetaking apps have something to offer me?
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altsyset
I have been using OneNote over text files for a while now. Herr are my
reasons.

1\. Better organization. One note organizes my files into notebooks and pages.
This is really important to me to prepare study notes, as I find arranging the
notes just like the technical books' table of content I'm reading.

2\. To easily apply Cornell(two columns of hint and description) note taking
method.

3\. To search easily. Once I studied a book and took my notes well, there is
no better way to search and recall.

4\. Sketch with my notes. This helps me represent ideas I study into my own
mental model. Also great for representing my startup ideas.

5\. Record myself into the note reciting the material.voice memo.

6\. Doing all of the above on my computer and phone and finding everything in
place.

Again, there might be work around for doing all this. But once you get into
Evernote and OneNote you find it really hard to go back into text files.

~~~
laurentl
This is pretty complete but I’ll add a few more:

-rich formatting. It’s easier to scroll through your notes if the headings and sub-headings stand out. Also, automatic bullet lists with multiple indentation (I do a lot of these)

\- ability to add pictures / screenshots. Comes in handy if you’re taking
notes in class and you have the slides or pdf at hand. You can add a tricky
diagram right into the notes, and draw over it if necessary.

\- small timesavers, like the ability to mark a line as a to-do item (Ctrl+1
for One Note on Windows); you can then filter according to the to-do tag. This
effectively gives you a centralized to-do list which you add to from whatever
you’re currently working on without switching context. Or if you write an
operation (e.g. “1+5-2”) and add “=“ One Note will compute that for you. Saves
you the hassle of switching to another app. Or hitting tab to create a
(rudimentary) table.

I also use mind mapping tools when trying to organize a large topic and I’m
more interested in the overall picture than the details. I find that a mind-
map/tree-like outline + notes or specific documents for the leaves or subtrees
works well for me.

~~~
altsyset
Ya, screenshot, todod ... Perfect

------
stockkid
> Whenever I want to take notes, I make a textfile and edit it in my
> texteditor.

That is what I do as well. It is simple and does not distract me from my main
task. I find that I do not really need features that many note softwares
provide de facto such as tagging, WYSIWYG editor or multimedia support.

However I feel that note taking softwares add values by making it easier to
categorize and retrieve the notes later. For this reason I wrote a small
command line interface called Dnote
([https://github.com/dnote/cli](https://github.com/dnote/cli)). It stores
notes in 'books' and supports full text search.

My workflow is:

    
    
      $ dnote add bookName
      # launches vim. I type my note and quit  vim. The note is saved locally.
    
      # later...
      $ dnote find "some text"
      $ dnote view bookName`

------
Cypher
Sublime 3, Atom or even Visual Studio code are great. They offer huge amounts
of features. The ones I use everyday are multi cursor for selecting/editing
multiple lines and regext for patterns in words. These features can make you
seem like a god to a notepad user.

An example task, say you got a huge doc filled with numbers you could regex to
select all co joining numbers of a phone number length then move them to the
start of the line then multi edit and add [ ] around them. To do something
like that just in notepad would be a nightmare but in of the others you could
do that in 10 seconds.

Invest some time in learning them as they'll make you far more productive.

~~~
earenndil
I already use vim (which is arguably more powerful than both of those), but my
question is geared more towards apps that are marketed specifically as being
for taking notes (like evernote that a sibling linked).

------
tomjen3
You can do that with Boostnote, but while you edit markdown + a bunch of
extensions (better table support, latex math, etc) the other half of the
editor renders it (same as e.g github does) which makes certain things
(tables, math equations, images) much, much more readable.

It stores the notes as plain text, though the file names aren't nice (it
generates a GUID, because you don't have titles as such in the program).

------
greenyoda
One of the well-known note taking apps is Evernote. You can look at their site
to see what it does:

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

~~~
muzani
What a lot of people miss about Evernote is that it's not built for simple
notes.

It's nice for things like business card scanning, receipts, remembering your
bank account numbers.

But I find the best use for it is for things like gaming. I can store images
and sketches of base build designs. Multicolored tables. I can even drop a
full spreadsheet for the tougher games like Football Manager. That way there's
no linking and sifting through Google Drive spreadsheets.

------
quietthrow
Most people have listed features here. Slightly different take:

It allows you to recall information quickly. It serves as your “exobrain”.
Your info at your finger tips. Anywhere in the world. Anytime. That’s quite
powerful when you think about it deeply. As you do that you will also realize
what you capture (and what you don’t) is equally is directly proportional to
the information’s utility

------
zhte415
A note-taking app: A note, what is a note? What is an app? Personal notes,
clients, collaboration, users of the notetaking app?

At my desk I have a chair and desk and PC and screens and pieces of sticky
paper, cut-up pieces of scrap paper, and coloured pens on-hand to take notes.

In the wall we have a safe to store any notes. And a document retention
policy. And a bigger safe downstairs.

At the gym I have a note taking app on my phone, that doesn't include titles
or anything other than body text. That works for recalling really quickly, and
is not 'structured data' other than a data and preview.

I use email to send notes to myself, and this allows attaching files which
might or might not be needed again (document retention policy).

I have a personal wiki that allows wiki-like harnessing of rich media, and is
available-anywhere, a constantly living document, document-of-documents, not
restricted to a computer or OS or platform for accessibility.

So... what is a note, the use of the note, the potential for sharing and/or
collaboration and/or storing?

Is a note a note in dictation, distraction, and no note leads to better
noting?

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arduinomancer
Personally I also just use text files but these are some strong reasons I see:

\- Some people want more than plaintext formatting (e.g. markdown lists,
tables, bold, headings, etc...)

\- In-lining images

\- Being able to edit on mobile

~~~
RomnyWordsworth

      Being able to edit on mobile
    

I just use text files in Dropbox; it syncs files between desktop(s)and
mobile(s) automatically.

~~~
arduinomancer
Yeah that's what I'm currently using as well. I find the in-app editor is not
ideal though. Takes more clicks to edit or create a text file than something
like the built in notes app on iPhone.

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croo
Depends on the app for example I use Standard Notes. For me the utility is
search, tagging, security and sync between devices.

