I still need a place for my notes

After trying countless systems for gathering my digital notes, I still haven't found the software that is just right.

Like you probably do, I spend many hours every day in front of my computer, a Mac laptop. Working with computers (and also humans) involves working with lots and lots of small details, some of which I would like to process and capture in the form of text notes.

Writing notes in a physical notebook has a great feel, and can boost creativity, but paper is not really a good medium when it comes to retrieving and searching through lots of diverse information.

My idea of a note-taking app

Capturing notes on the computer is the right thing to do, and I would love doing it, if there was an app that could realise my humble vision for great note-taking software:

• It is a native Mac app, or it could be a web-app.
• I type notes in Markdown, and have the notes displayed as rendered HTML, when browsing through the notes.
• It is easy to export all notes in text format with all meta-data included.
• Each note has a title, and the possibility to add tags.
• I can search my notes for words, phrases and tags.
• Notes can be grouped in collections, let's call these collections "notebooks" for lack of better terminology, that I can share with others.
• It should be simple to create links between notes, in the style of a "personal wiki".
• It would be really nice, if I could export a subset of the notes (e.g., a notebook) as static HTML files, to serve as a "knowledge base" that I can share on the Internet.

If it's a native app, it would be good if the app was also cross-platform, and allowed for syncing between devices, but it's not really that important to me.

I did try these apps

Here are my collected thoughts on the note-taking software that I've used and found inadequate. Some are popular, and some are obscure and nerdy. They are listed here in no particular order:

• Evernote is the ubiquitous note-taking software that many people couldn't live without, but I feel it's too complex and over-engineered. Evernote seems destined to be a huge shoe-box for all the digital information you may come across, rather than being a place for your text notes. Also, I can't link between notes, and Evernote doesn't support Markdown.

• Together is an Evernote-like shoebox for all your stuff, including notes. I use Together for storing scanned documents, such as purchase receipts, bank papers, and other stuff I like to keep around, and that I have no need to sync to "the cloud". However, it doesn't work well for my idea of note-taking, as it doesn't support Markdown, nor can I link between my notes.

• Simplenote is a great cross-platform app for text notes and plain lists, the sync functionality is awesome, but it only supports Markdown in the web-app, and there's no way to link between the notes. Also, I really don't like that Automattic is giving the software and sync service away for free, since I don't know if using the software makes me a customer or the product. (Why does Automattic spend a lot of money to sustain this app?)

• Scribbleton is a promising "personal wiki" software that was first released as an alpha version in the summer of 2014, and haven't yet (IMHO) been taken to a "release" stage. It's a multi-platform app, implemented using a cross-platform UI library, which unfortunately shines through. It does support linking between entries (as it is a wiki), but it doesn't support Markdown.

• Tomboy is a personal wiki software, and though I'm not a fan of the multi-window interface, it's very usable and full featured. (I've only tried the Linux version.) Linking between entries works great, but it doesn't support Markdown.

• Vesper is an iOS note-taking app that has some really good features and great design, but it's iOS only (for now), and it's not possible to access the notes from my laptop. I look forward to the Mac version of this app, though I still won't be able to link between notes.

• Leafnote is a little note-taking app for the Mac, for gathering notes in "projects" that are each organised in a tree-like structure. After trying it in practice I realised that I don't like organising my notes in a tree structure. Also, I can't link between notes, and the app doesn't support Markdown.

• Quiver is marketed as the programmer's notebook, and it is close to being great, if it wasn't that it displays Markdown as source code, not as rendered HTML. Also, it is not possible to link between notes.

• Outlinely is a super fine piece of outliner software, I love it and have used it a lot, but my notes are not all suited for outlines. Also, no Markdown, and no linking between entries that are not a direct parent or sibling in the outline tree.

• WorkFlowy is an awesome web based outliner, but the same comments apply as for Outlinely, above.

• Notational Velocity is a really awesome open source note taking app that aim to remove a lot of barriers to creating and using digital notes. The original version (which apparently hasn't been updated since 2011) does not support Markdown, but the fork by Brett Terpstra does. The Markdown notes are, however, not rendered in HTML, and the rendered Markdown is only visible through a preview window.

• Day One is the journalling app that I use for my personal journal. It's a magnificent piece of cross-platform journalling software, and it would probably work fine for notes too, if the vendor actually supported having two separate journals. Also, it does not allow for linking between entries.

The temporary situation

Currently, I don't have a good solution for my digital notes. My system is to use iA Writer, or a text editor, to capture my notes in a given situation, and then save the text file to somewhere in the file-tree under my Documents folder.

I can usually find my notes again by browsing through the files or searching using Spotlight. But, I miss simple note-taking features like tagging and linking between the documents.

Another problem is the ever increasing mess of small files. Since my notes are spread widely, I don’t always recall that I have been working on notes for something related, so I tend to start a new document, even when it would be better to amend an existing document.

Update October 5, 2015

Apparently, new notetaking apps are released daily. Here is a list of note taking apps I've noticed lately:

• FAQT a web-based note app with focus on sharing (think knowledge base).
• Nottingham OS X app in style of Notational Velocity
• Metanota OS X app that syncs to Simplenote and Evernote.
• Justnotes OS X app that syncs to Simplenote

There are probabably many more that I've missed.