Ask HN: Is there a grid style Notepad?

2 points by vfinn 2 years ago | 5 comments

I'd like to be able to use a grid style text tool, similar to regular Notepad (or the likes), that would extend infinitely in all directions, and wouldn't require cumbersome linebreaks or spacings to reach a certain character point on the 2d grid/text. Instead of starting from the corner and having absolute coordinates, there would be a relative text center instead. Is there such a thing?

Usecase: I'd like to be able to write a history timeline in simple text, and if I did that in regular Notepad, it would be pure hell to navigate and level the text, if it had more than one line. There are most likely many tools for this, but I want it to be as simple and for as general use as possible, without any "graphical improvements/possibilities". Thank you.

Usecase 2: text style diagrams without pain :D.

edit: usecase 2, text changes.

vhodges 2 years ago |

I saw the title and went to look up a bunch of paper notepads :-)... (and can share if anyone is interested)

I tend to use Obsidian these days along with the excalidraw plugin (if you just want to try excalidraw without installing Obsidian: https://excalidraw.com/)

vfinn 2 years ago | |

Hehe. Yeah, paper notepads would be nice, but they aren't big enough (they'd have to be tens of meters wide), and if I taped them together, they'd be difficult to handle. Also, erasing stuff is a pain. At one point I was considering using a wall paint for writing on the walls :).

Obsidian is probably a nice tool, but I'd like to have my rigid grid. Graphs are ok, but I don't like how inexact they are.

I'd like just to type, and click switching between cells.

vhodges 2 years ago | | |

Excalidraw is nice, not a grid of course, but mostly text on an infinite canvas and has alignment tools to make it neat.

The other thing that popped into my head is maybe a Kanban tool (that would be a grid). You could do a quick paper prototype that easily with some postit notes on the wall to see if it works :).

CrypticShift 2 years ago |

As a "text editor", in MS Word (desktop), I know you can double-click anywhere and start writing (and rewriting on the same line won't affect the position of other inline "text cells").

As an "infinite grid", there is https://strlen.com/treesheets/, but it is not exactly geared toward your aim (more like a spreadsheet/outliner combo, or "hierarchical spreadsheet").

vfinn 2 years ago | |

MS Word, huh. Hmm... Yes I guess it satisfies this one condition I have. Haven't used it for ages. But it's a key feature for me not to be cornered right from the start, so I would think it's ruled out anyway. Also, moving along the axes should be difficult without changing the document first, which is quite annoying, iirc.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned a Microsoft product, since I like Unix more. I just thought the problem is understood more easily that way.

Treesheets seems quite nice. Maybe I'll try it out, but I'm still hoping to find a cleaner alternative.