Hey y’all. I’ve been testing a bunch of Note taking solutions and nothing seems to check off what I want and need.
I want a simple interface (both for list view and note editor/view), preferably similar to Google Keep, but a regular list is fine as well.
Key features:
A. being able to drag and drop re-order checkbox lists.
e.g.
- [ ] item 1
- [ ] item 2
- [x] item 4
- [x] item 3
I’d like to be able to just drag and drop the above to sort things correctly.
B. E2EE at rest.
C. CTRL+F inside the note view/edit!!
Honestly, the only functionality I truly want is A. But most of the solutions I found are either proprietary or can’t do it.
Self hosted options I’ve tried:
- Joplin (can’t do A; UX is not great)
- Standard notes (A + C is gated by their self hosted premium subscription; I don’t mind paying for my apps, but the prices are ridiculous)
- Silverbullet.md (can’t do A)
- Quillpad (very similar to Google Keep and can do A, but has terrible file syncing, not E2EE)
Notesnook looks almost as insane as Standard Notes to self host (mimicing AWS stack locally is nuts). Has anyone tried Notesnook yet? I don’t want to spend another afternoon setting something heavy up only to find that the feature I want is gated by a heavy $.
Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
EDIT: Woops! I am looking to use the notes app on both Android and Web/Desktop Linux. Preferably an open source solution.
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I use Tasks.org with caldav (Radicale) on android and thunderbird on pc, would that work?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tasks
I see tasks.org supports etesync, which encrypts data. I have never used it though
I use Logseq with ToDoList plugin to handle task list. Logseq is similar to obsidian but open-source. And to syncronize notes among devices, I use syncthing. No need to selfhost.
+1 on all of this.
Logseq basically saved my mind when I took on a new job where I needed to take a lot of notes quickly, easily and keep track of all the ToDos.
Syncthing keeps my laptop and phone in sync (with my NAS) so I can start notes on my laptop and then finish on my phone.
You can definitely reorder checkboxes, but on Android it’s still not quite a smooth experience, but it’s ok.
Obsidian and good ol’ paper and pen. (or epaper). The paper I use is on bullet jpurnal style.
I spent several years looking for the perfect selfhosted solution to this, but ultimately I realized an offline solution was just going to be better. So I started using Obsidian which is as simple or complex as you want with no paywall.
Some of the self hosted solutions I’ve tried were:
I settled on obsidian really quickly as well. And now sync thing + tailscale + obsidian means I am done experimenting and things just work.
Unless you’re using syncthing on Android which is a nightmare
Works fine for me.
What issues are you having?
Some hiccups for me but nothing egregious.
You can also get obsidian to sync using the guide here: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/s/GegPIcBjFg. It’s really good.
What I want is being able to hand draw something quickly in my notes, what’s the app that has text and drawings?
Emacs and org-mode.
Have you considered Kanban apps? All of them should support A+C. I’ve used Wekan and Kanboard. Hope this helps your searching!
Not sure of your specific needs, but I feel that self hosting (i.e. setting up a proper server) is unnecessary. Just pick a local first program and use it with syncthing.
The usual trio (which may be overkill) are Obsidian (admittedly not open source), Trillium, and logseq.
Joplin and Obsidian.
code editors might have the features you want, and its easy to repurpose a code editor into a notes app.
sync a folder between your devices (syncthing is great for this) and put markdown text files in it. I like to call this folder “Memo” since its like writing letters to myself.
edit the markdown using VS Code (desktop) or Carbon (android). I haven’t tested whether Carbon can do this, but I know in VS Code, you can reorder a list with keyboard shortcuts.
click anywhere on a line of text, then hold Alt and press Up arrow, and the text will swap places with the line above it.
edit: Syncthing and Carbon are open source. VS Code has some proprietary code added by Microsoft, but none of it is relevant to your use case, so you may prefer the fork called Codium.
Hi quaff!
The app I use for this purpose is called Notally, on android. It supports reordering the checkboxes, but it doesn’t do find in page or sync to web (although it can do backup /restore – I sync the folder with nextcloud and I can access the text files)
That said if you try it, you might love how simple it is and use it for something!
How about AnyType? It matches your requirements.
I use notesnook but I don’t self host, just the app locally. It has an option to insert a task list into the note, and that has drag and drop reordering. It also encrypts at rest, and has text search. Hope that helps your decision.
Thanks! I had tested Notesnook with the official server. It worked the way I want. but it seems their self host server doesn’t have that feature. Not obviously tho. Which is really weird, since I’m using the same client app (where I assumed this functionality would live).
You can do all this with Obsidian and plugins. I just saw a nice keep like interface one. You’ll have to play around a bit but it’s definitely doable.
I suppose I should have mentioned more directly, I’d prefer if it’s an open source solution.
If you change your mind: https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-obsidian
Thanks.
I just set up Notesnook lol I can drag and drop reorder list items (checkbox list) on the official server, but not when connected to my own… Same exact mobile app (just different server)… The fact that Notesnook and Standard Notes both claim to be open source, but don’t share all of their code with the open source world. Maybe it’s gated by env vars. Who knows. I have half a mind to give Obsidian a chance if it can do what I want.
You might want to list the platform you want to use it on. I’m assuming that you’re wanting to access this on a smartphone of some sort?
Ah good point. I edited my post! Android and Web (nice to have is desktop Linux support). Thank you!
