Skip to content

Comment on What is the best cross-platform note taking tool?

Comments

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.

Is there a real demand for this? I made 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.

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...

Nice work, I like it

It's on the three major desktop platforms (Linux, OSX and Windows), and it's on Android. Not saying it's super easy to use on Android, but I've been rocking org-mode on my N900 for over three years. Combined with git+ssh and my own private server (you could easily setup on a cheap VPS), it's been a lifesaver many a time. I've been too lazy/busy to look into it, but something like git-annex assistant (http://git-annex.branchable.com/assistant/) seems like another good stepping stone.

Me too. I am quite reluctant to keep any data plaintext in cloud services, but I couldn't live without Workflowy. I asked them about the possibility of self-hosting, but unfortunately it wasn't in the cards at the moment. I'll keep using it anyway, because it goes with my mind like PB goes with J.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.