Recommendations for a note taking app?

offgridguy · 10-03-2016, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankbell

For quick reminders such as URLs to specific items and HTML snippets I reuse on my blog, I use the QuickNote plugin for Firefox (there's a similar plugins for Seamonkey). It doesn't have a sync feature, but I don't really care about syncing and I'm not all that big on having my notes on someone else's server.

Thank you. I especially agree with this part.

Quote:

I'm not all that big on having my notes on someone else's server.

Although I do use Dropbox occasionally, I generally eschew cloud storage of all types.

linuxs64 · 10-03-2016, 11:39 AM

I use an old (DOS era) but very effective outlining & idea management software: MaxThink, authored by Neil Larson, pioneer of hypertext/www/wiki, (Edward de Bono's protégé?). It's not free, but if you do buy it, get the DOS version (email author), avoid the Windows version.

Windows version lacks the intuitive fingertip feel, due to heavy use of mouse, this hampers users flow of ideas.

Some snippets from the manual.

Quote:

MAXTHINK MANUAL - Table of Contents

Cover

Publisher's Statement

Where to Start

Preface: Author's Statement

Table of Contents

In the Beginning
Kinds of Writing and Uses of Hierarchies

Getting Started
Disk and System Details

Ways to Display
File Loading, Display Conventions, Menus, and Keyboard Commands

Loading, Viewing, and Options
Introduction to LOAD, VIEW, and OPTIONS Commands

EDITOR
How to Create and Edit topics

Quitting MaxThink
Commands and Options for exiting the program

COPY, MOVE, UNDO, and DELETE
Analytical Thinking -- Breaking Information into Component Parts

Information Age Laws by Neil Larson, MaxThink

The value of information lies in how it is organized.
Hierarchies are abstractions that make nature comprehensible.
All writing are hierarchical, and the quality of the underlying hierarchies determine the readability of writing and displays the clarity of thinking.
Organizing matter increases net entropy; organizing information can decrease net entropy.

PRIORITIZE Command
Evaluative Thinking -- Integrating Information and Values

PRIORITIZE finds the best order in seconds.

The beauty of the PRIORITIZE command is that it lets you rapidly organize information by attributes in your mind. In this sense, PRIORITIZE goes beyond organizing information because it identifies and clarifies relationships in both values and information. After you've used this command, the resulting list shows how you've organized your values.

BINSORT and RANDOMIZE Commands
Synthesis Thinking -- Combining Existing Information in New Ways

Creative Thinking

When creative thinking is mentioned, you probably think of flashes of lightning or imagine light bulbs automatically turning on.

In contrast to the characteristics of creative thinking, the analytical and evaluative thinking processes discussed in the previous two chapters seem to most people to be ordered, understandable, and measurable. Why not the same for creative thinking?

You are spectacular in pattern recognition and deficient in short-term memory.

To begin with, the human mind is brilliantly organized to avoid thinking. In fact, perhaps only 1/10,000th of the information flowing through the nerves ever comes to your attention for a conscious decision. Instead, your mind automatically recognizes and responds to familiar patterns. Only if no guiding patterns exist does your mind ever let you know that you're alive, well, and breathing.

Computers are just the opposite.

This shouldn't surprise you. According to George Miller's research at Harvard, humans -- the ultimate rational animal -- can actually keep seven (plus or minus 2) different ideas in their minds at one time. At least, after 10 million years of evolution, 10,000 years of society, 1,000 years of education, we're only slightly better than dogs and cats (which can only keep one or two ideas alive at a time).

Bad? Heck no! You may be short in the short-term memory department, but you're hell-on-wheels in pattern recognition. That's just the opposite of a computer, which tends towards epic short-term memory and zero pattern processing capabilities. That's why machine intelligence (with AI, expert systems, operations research, etc.) is a big zero.

Now, it is your pattern-processing skills that determine your abilities for creative thinking (seeing new patterns in existing data). That's why the light-bulb/lightning-flash metaphors are appropriate when you suddenly find a new way of organizing information.

Synthesis

These processes of assembling information in new ways are called SYNTHESIS. Synthesis is another one of Bloom's high-level thinking skills (don't forget ANALYSIS). Here's how MaxThink aids this process.

How to BINSORT a List

Let's consider a different kind of synthesis thinking. Where the RANDOMIZE command depended on almost instantaneous mental systhesis, the BINSORT command is the reverse, as it focuses on the careful assembly of information in new ways.

Now pay attention! Many users (writers and other such creative types) say BINSORT is their favorite of all MaxThink commands. Perhaps the easiest way to describe BINSORT to you is in metaphor:

Classification scheme

Imagine yourself as a truck farmer with a million cantaloupes to sort before sundown. First, you set up a series of classification bins for size, quality, or aroma. Then, after a quick inspection and a flip of your wrist, cantaloupes start flying into appropriate bins.

Create bins

Or, you've got a new 500-piece picture puzzle that needs expert assembly. First, you lay out all the pieces (create topics), look for the unique colors or flat edges (create the bins), then gather the pieces together that share some quality in common.

Bottom-up outlining

So far, you've understood MaxThink as a tool for organizing subtopics or as a list manipulator. BINSORT introduces a new outline concept of building an outline from the bottom up. Sounds unusual? Let's try it:

Load data

Action Results

Press: F L Selects the FILES menu and LOAD command

Press Enter Confirms the loading of a new file

Type: Chap-8B (Enter) Loads the file

The example list of TV shows contains some winners as well as the obligatory mindless drivel. Your task is to sort the wheat from the chaff. The first step is to create the categories.

Enter category names

Action Results

Press: F10 Creates a new topic

Type: Favorite Show Text appears

Press: F10 Creates another topic

Type: So-so Show Text appears

Press: F10 Creates another topic

Type: Mindless Drivel Text appears

Press: F10 Creates another topic

Type: No opinion Text appears

Press Esc Returns to the MAIN menu

You've just created the four categories for all the TV shows. The next step is to mark them as bins by:

Mark bins, then select the BINSORT command

Action Results

Press: F5 Highlight appears before "No Opinion" topic

Press arrow key to move cursor to "Favorite Show" topic

Results

Cursor moved to specific topic

Press: F5 Highlight appears before each of the category topics

Press: B B Selects the BRAINSTORM menu and BINSORT command

At this point, the marked topics move to the top of the list. These category topics are separated from the TV-show topics by a diving line labelled BINSORT. Here's how to categorize a topic, postpone the decision, or put a topic into multiple categories.

Selecting a bin

If you select one of the category topics (using the cursor or topic number, then press Enter), the TV-show topic just below the dividing line is moved to a subtopic position of the selected topic.

Rotating the list

If you press Enter, the TV-show topic just below the dividing line is moved to the end of the list.

Duplicating a topic

If you press ALT-C, the TV-show topic just below the dividing line is duplicated.

Now, try your luck at tossing topics (bin-sorting) into categories. For example:

BINSORT Helps

Action Results

Press: F1 Review the BINSORT keyboard options

Press: Esc Returns to BINSORT

BINSORT

Action Results

Press a category number Select a bin

Press: Enter The topic disappears -- list moves up

Repeat the two previous List becomes shorter - topics are sorted commands until the list is categorized

That's all there is to it... except for a few hints.

Using a single bin

If I can't clearly see enough commonalities in my topics to create a set of categories, I often create a single bin, rotate the entire list by it to remove a few topics, then repeat this process on the remaining topics.

Too many bins

While I haven't yet mentioned much in the way of outline philosophy, generally, each level in a good outline should end up with three to seven topics at a level. This matches the capabilities of most readers to keep parallel ideas in mind regardless of how high their IQ is. For that reason, any more or less topics indicates sloppy categorizing (and showing poor mental housekeeping) on your part. O-o-ouch! More on this later.

Using SORT to gather your bins

MaxThink includes several powerful sort options that you'll learn about shortly. If I have a very long list of topics (50-500), I'll often enter each category topic throughout the list as I read through it, but include a leading hash mark (#) in only those topics. Once I've reviewed the list, I sort it so that the hash-marked topics (#) are all together at the top. I remove the hash-marks, F5 mark these topics, then select the BINSORT command. Slicker than waxed ice!

UNDO and LOCK Commands
Experimental Thinking -- Curiosity and Observation

GET, PUT, GATHER Commands
Systematic Thinking -- Organizing Information in Preplanned Ways

SORT Command
Organizing Information by Attributes Contained within the Information

LEVELIZE, CATEGORIZE, TAG, UNTAG, FENCE Commands
Perceptual Thinking -- Aristotelian, Boundary, Focused, Structural, and Linguistic Approaches

JOIN and DIVIDE Commands
Frame Thinking -- Organizing Information into Idea Units

JUMP and X Commands
Ways to Rapidly Traverse Information Structures

Z Commands
Instantly Switch and Transfer Information between Two Separate Outlines

CLONE Command
Converting Outlines into Cross-linked Networks

REF Command
Automatic Cross-reference and Indexing of Text

MACROS within MaxThink
SHIFT-F6, ALT-K, and Sign-off Messages

DOS Equivalent Commands
DOS Commands from within MaxThink

SAVE, LOAD, WRITE, and PRINT Commands
Translating Information into Alternate Formats

File Management and ALT-I Command
Organizing, Indexing, and Managing Large Numbers of Disk Files

ALT-Z, ALT-S, and Project Management
Task Definition and Date/Time Stamping

Report Generation
Fielding and Abstracting of Selected Information from an Outline

RTF Files and MaxThink

Hygen Multimedia Hypertext

Using DesQview
Running MaxThink with DesQview

SLIDE and SHOW Programs
MaxThink for Presentations

Multimedia Storyboarding with MaxThink

Context-free Thinking
Effective Thinking in any Situation

Appendix topics

rkfb · 10-03-2016, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordie

I actually use vi. Just use the mouse to open a terminal in whatever location you want. Type

Code:

vi (name your text file)
enter

The text file will be written wherever your terminal was opened. It is fast, efficient and works across all desktops

That's so evil.

What you should actually do is:

Code:

emacs -nw (name your text file)
enter

Richard Cranium · 10-03-2016, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkfb

That's so evil.

What you should actually do is:

Code:

emacs -nw (name your text file)
enter

Ah, if you did that, you'd be able to use org-mode while you're at it.

Contrak · 10-03-2016, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kikinovak

This being said, I often have more complex note-taking tasks. Recently, a user suggested to give CherryTree a spin, which I did, and it's exactly what I need for taking notes and more or less organize my work. So I highly recommend this nifty application.

Cheers,

Niki

Thank you for recommending CherryTree and to the user that suggested it to you. This beats creating text files all over my computer. On top of that, trying to find the right text file for a particular note is a real pain. I've been playing around with it these past couple days trying to find the right workflow with it. Ended up putting the ctx file in an owncloud folder. Now I have my notes available on every computer. SWEEEEEET!!!!

Alvin Chey · 10-04-2016, 05:20 AM

I am currently using Zim Desktop Wiki for taking notes. http://zim-wiki.org/index.html

It is able to:
- create multiple notebooks
- globally manage and organized your notes in a notebook
- easy to organized into headings and indentations
- simple task management, journal, calendar (via existing plugins)

offgridguy · 10-04-2016, 10:04 AM

Thanks to everyone for sharing the great ideas.

kikinovak · 10-04-2016, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Contrak

Thank you for recommending CherryTree and to the user that suggested it to you. This beats creating text files all over my computer. On top of that, trying to find the right text file for a particular note is a real pain. I've been playing around with it these past couple days trying to find the right workflow with it. Ended up putting the ctx file in an owncloud folder. Now I have my notes available on every computer. SWEEEEEET!!!!

Funny thing, I ended up with the same solution. I have one big Notes.ctb file in my OwnCloud folder, so I can sync the notes on my workstation with my laptop.

Cheers,

Niki

montagdude · 10-04-2016, 11:39 AM

Now we just need a true note-taking app (one that takes the notes for you) instead of a note-storing app. That would really be something.

kjhambrick · 10-04-2016, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by montagdude

Now we just need a true note-taking app (one that takes the notes for you) instead of a note-storing app. That would really be something.

Yes. I got all excited when I mis-read that CherryTree was a Note TAKING App.

I was gathering SlackBuild Dependencies to install CherryTree on my Laptop.

Then, when I visited the Cherry Tree Website, I saw that I've got to use my Keyboard and Mouse ... awww shucks ...

How quaint ! (

with apologies to the late James Doohan

)

-- kjh

offgridguy · 10-04-2016, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjhambrick

Yes. I got all excited when I mis-read that CherryTree was a Note TAKING App.

I was gathering SlackBuild Dependencies to install CherryTree on my Laptop.

Then, when I visited the Cherry Tree Website, I saw that I've got to use my Keyboard and Mouse ... awww shucks ...

How quaint ! (

with apologies to the late James Doohan

)

-- kjh

The dependencies were all included with the sbopkg tool that I used.

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...ce/CherryTree/

It's a great app (even if it doesn't TAKE notes)

kjhambrick · 10-04-2016, 12:29 PM

Thanks offgridguy.

I am most definitely a Luddite when it comes to Slackware Package Management ... I still use installpkg / upgradepkg / removepkg ...

One of these days I imagine I'll get into myself the 21st century, but not just yet

-- kjh ( Hello Computer )

BCarey · 10-04-2016, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orbea

vi is a symlink, by default it will open elvis. However reinstalling vim should overwrite the symlink. You could reinstall elvis to get the old symlink back or just open elvis directly.

Code:

$ ls -l /usr/bin/vi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Oct  1  2014 /usr/bin/vi -> elvis

No need to reinstall anything. Just delete the symlink and create one pointing to vim. It's one of the first things I do after installing Slackware.

Code:

rm /usr/bin/vi
ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi

offgridguy · 10-04-2016, 01:49 PM

Thank you.

sombragris · 10-04-2016, 10:10 PM

I second the suggestion to use CherryTree. It's great.

Besides it, I'd recommend KJots (from KDE's KDEPIM Suite), and ... Microsoft's OneNote (which is web based for Linux but it's still pretty good).