I am searching for an app to take notes and sync them using synthing. Joplin appear to do the job, and it can clip entire webs from web browser with an addon (which is a plus). But I would to know if somebody is using any other alternative.
Thanks (I couldn’t find any other place to post this, I want an app which can work offline and syncs ok when online)
I’m using Simple Notes which can write bare text files on the Android internal storage. Then I use Syncthing to sync this folder between my computer and phone.
You could try to use RedNotebook. It has calendar and tagging capabilities and save notes as bare text files in its own folder.
Is that https://simplenote.com/ or something else?
I missed to say that I wanted to sync notes between my linux computer and my android phone, RedNotebook appear to be a desktop only app.
Joplin is awesome; you may want to look into using its Joplin Server docker image rather than syncthing; I’ve had trouble with the zillions of files + Android + syncthing
Joplin is the least bad I could find so far.
The editor on the Android side is extremely basic, and they have run into trouble bringing the necessary improvements. I’m guessing there may be no easy way out other than rebuilding the Android app from scratch.
There is no WYSIWYG, so good luck managing Markdown on a regular mobile keyboard: editing something as simple as a to-do list is a major inconvenience.
If you go with Joplin, you’ll probably find yourself doing the bulk of your editing work on a PC.
Their web clipper is functional, but not great. BTW it needs a server running, to which the add-on connects.
Unlike Joplin, Simple Notes doesn’t explicitly support synchronization, so in order to have notes created inside the app synced automatically, you’d have to set up Syncthing to synchronize its own folder under /sdcard/Android/Data, which I never tried, so I don’t know if, how well it works.
Alternatively, Simple Notes can open files from the file system, like an existing Syncthing share.
The plus side is that Simple Notes can manage To-Do lists without having to deal with formatting directly.
OTOH regular notes are limited to plain text, and there is nothing like Notebooks to organize your files, your notes will simply appear as tabs, so there is a limit to how many it can comfortably accommodate.
After checking some of the alternatives, I will try harder joplin. First using syncthing and eventually the joplin server. Thanks to all for your time
I have been using Orgzly on my cell phone and Emacs with org-mode on my computers. It works really well.
I have been using Obsidian on my computer and Markor on Android for the occasional editing. In the end my notes are just markdown, so they will outlive the software used to create them.
I can recommend Markor which is really awesome. It’s possible to encrypt the notes. The files are stored on sdcard and can so easily synced with syncthing. On PC I use Visual Studio Code and for encryption niels / jpencconverter · GitLab (Disclaimer I wrote the encryption). Works like a charme, no vendor lockin and you could easily change the tool if something better comes on the market.
I have been using Joplin for several years, and although I did test some other alternatives in between, I haven’t been able to find anything else with equal or similar functionality.
One thing to note though is that Joplin is quite heavy, so you do need to have a decent hardware in order to be able to use it effectively. Especially on mobile, it struggles on older phones, where synchronisation takes forever and the application itself can become extremely laggy. That said. I personally do use it on an older Intel Atom tablet, but only to view the notes, not to edit them.
Joplin also creates tons of files that need to be synced, all of them located in a single folder, and this can be an issue if placed on slow storage (e.g. HDD or SD card, etc.).
+1 for Obsidian. I use the mobile version with syncthing and it’s great.
@bbigras where do I get the Obsidian Android version?
As of 2021/04/26, the mobile apps are in closed beta. It is currently available to all Obsidian Catalyst license holders.
In a few weeks, once the app is more stable, we will roll out to the general public.
I think they are trustworthy. They did lower the required license level the other day as they said they would. So it shouldn’t be long for the next step.
Hi guys!
You made my evening! It seems I have found the tool that I was looking for more than ten years! I mean Obsidian. It seems flexible enough to be one of the most important tool for collaborative work in my lab, I hope…
Thanks a lot!!!
For collaborative work, I have high hopes for Anytype (which should reach beta in the next months).
Offline-first, encrypted, decentralized (I think, with ipfs), collaborative.
Standard Notes
Syncthing is amazing, but it has to be running (on a phone) to sync with Obsidian. Standard Notes can be used securely across devices (including iOS if ever get an iPhone) by itself.
