Ask HN: Favorite note taking/wiki software?

1 points by astrikos 8 years ago | 7 comments

I was looking into org-mode, but it seems to be a bit overkill for my needs at this point.

I've read a lot of comments and threads here on HN, but I couldn't find ones newer than 5 months on some of the software I was considering.

I want something I can use easily for university (Research papers/essays/ rich notes), and creative writing projects(I may pick up scrivener eventually)

I am particularly interested in Treesheets & Tiddlywiki. OneNote is nice, especially for annotation/drawing but Microsoft is kind of creepy. I could encrypt, but I also prefer open source.

Has anyone tried those all/others and have a favorite to recommend? I will probably write most of my notes for school on paper then transfer them, but for big projects, I prefer something more useful than like Microsoft word.

Thank you!!

bryanph_ 8 years ago |

You might be interested in an open source project I am working on https://github.com/bryanph/Geist.

jbeckham 8 years ago |

When i was still in college, I would use Google Docs + Dia. Google Docs has really good shortcut keys for doing outlines and anything drawn on a board, I was able to replicate using Dia (again, using the shortcut keys). I'd export the Dia drawings to png, add then to the Google Doc, and at the end of class, publish it directly to a Blogger site that was setup to share the notes with the rest of the class.

Today, I do use OneNote almost exclusively because I'm not sharing the notes and they auto sync across my devices. Having OneNote open on my desktop, open the same note on my phone, take a picture of a white board and insert it, let the sync happen, and it is on my laptop is a very common scenario for me.

astrikos 8 years ago | |

Thank you! I might just reorganize my very messy one note

jjude 8 years ago |

I have been using nvAlt[1] for the past 3-4 years. It is well designed and it is easy to use. All the notes are in text format and can be synced via dropbox (so you can pick up these notes in mobile).

I use Evernote[2] to store notes with images.

[1]: http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/. [2]: http://evernote.com/

astrikos 8 years ago | |

Thanks!!

Quequau 8 years ago |

From my perspective and usage Treesheets has the right features and more importantly the right scale and learning curve. I don't use it every day, nor for everything I could possibly do with it... but for the things I do use it for, I feel like it works really well.

I also have DevonThink but to be honest I lack the obsessive drive it apparently requires to make good use of.

astrikos 8 years ago | |

Thanks! That's super cool. What do you use Treesheets for in particular?