Father_Redbeard

Father_Redbeard , 5 months ago

I haven't found one that I like as much. My biggest hangup, and this is probably dumb, is the ability to edit the icons for PWAs so they don't show the stupid browser icon that screams "I'm a web shortcut!!!". I tried Hermit as a PWA/lite app replacement and Android just slaps the hermit badge on it instead. For whatever reason that annoys me enough to stick with Nova.

Father_Redbeard , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Not a bad idea. I get picky about aesthetics though. Dumb, I know. But I'll give it a try. Just seems silly to me that default launchers can't manage editing the dang app shortcuts

edit: Samsungs OneUI launcher does not put the badge on a PWA. But I'm not sure I trust them any more than Nova at this point....

Father_Redbeard , 6 months ago

Obsidian for sure. Look at the Excalidraw plugin for handwriting/drawing. It's quite good.

Father_Redbeard , 6 months ago

The app is not. That said, since it's literally a front end for markdown files, the file format is universal and can be opened on anything with a text editor. No conversion or export needed.

I know some folks won't use it if it's not FOSS, and I respect that decision. For me there isn't an open source alternative that is as good. Joplin stores your data in an SQL file, that's a deal breaker for me. Logseq seems to be so outline/task oriented that I've not been able to use it the way I want to.

Father_Redbeard , 8 months ago

Not FOSS but I see so many YouTubers that DM talk about Obsidian for notes. I use it and love it myself, just not for DnD stuff.

Logseq and Joplin are FOSS and are often brought up. Joplins android app is garbage, if that matters to you.

Acreom isn't FOSS yet, but it's on the roadmap and I liked that one.

Notesnook is FOSS but has some features behind a paywall that might be deal breakers for some folks.

Father_Redbeard , 8 months ago

Links: Wallabag, if you don't want to self host it's very cheap to have them do it.

Text: Obsidian, but I'm also playing with Notesnook

Images: Immich

The text apps I listed are the only ones that could be considered "offline" though.

Father_Redbeard , 8 months ago

How is it freemium? You either pay them to "host" your files or you don't. There is no other cost involved. IIRC, Joplin Cloud is a similar set up if you're not equipped to selfhost or just don't want to. It's not FOSS, sure. But it's a hierarchy of flat markdown files that can be read by any text editor on any OS. Making extracting your data very simple. Joplin stores your notes in a database file that requires an export or conversion function to get it back out, should they go out of business, etc. The database and the absolutely horrible Android app is what had me give up on Joplin entirely. If it's working for you thats great. I'm certainly not trying to convince anyone. My use case requires easy, universal access to my notes. And .md files in folders is the lowest friction way I can think of. I'm currently paying for Sync, but once my year is up I'm going to try Syncthing again or the CouchDB sync plugin to save money. $8/mo is too much.

Father_Redbeard , 8 months ago

I guess my point is that in your example, Joplin is the same. The feature hidden behind a paywall is for them to host the sync function for you. Both Joplin and Obsidian offer that. Yet you can roll your own method using Syncthing, Nextcloud, etc for either of them. If it's FOSS or not that's a deal breaker, I get it. I gave Obsidian a pass in that regard since the file format is so wide open and universal.

You may want to keep an eye out on these two as well. Both are missing some features now, but have them on their roadmap:

Acreom

• not open source yet, but planned
• no E2EE, but planned
• can't self host the mobile app side of things, but the desktop versions work without an account and use markdown file format like Obsidian (and others)

Notesnook

• Open source
• E2EE
• Can't self host yet, but on the roadmap. The dev confirmed to me that there would be no fee tacked on for self hosters once released, something that either Standard Notes or Simple Note does (can't remember which).

Father_Redbeard , 9 months ago

Have you looked at Notesnook?
It has E2EE and data at rest. You could use it without an account if you don't care about sync. But if you ever did it has apps for every platform as well as a nice web app. There is a free tier and a paid tier. I finished my trial of the paid plan and was offered a 30% off coupon code for a 1 year membership. For $25 I figured worth a try.

Father_Redbeard , 9 months ago

Notesnook for sure. I really disliked Joplin. Particularly the Android app. Just really poorly designed.

Acreom promise but it's new enough they don't have E2EE or even local only on mobile. Both are on the road map. Dev seems engaged and cool though.

Edit: I didn't see the open source req, acreom isn't. But it's still a cool app. And I'd they can get local only on mobile, then you can sync however you want as it's just flat Markdown, similar to Obsidian.

Father_Redbeard , 9 months ago

I did their one time trial and then moved to the lowest paid tier for a month. Other than not getting ads it didn't feel much more effective than some selective search-fu with duckduckgo. Any hints or tips on making it more effective? I can see the value proposition, but couldn't justify it with the actual results I was getting.