Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Looks nice enough, but I won't ever again lock my notes data into a file format that is either private or too complex to in practice do much with outside of the app. I have lost too many 1000s of notes that way in the past. Exports are rarely useful -- losing metadata & structure, or not being cleanly importable into the next note system.

For now I use Quiver (http://happenapps.com/#quiver) which uses a documented json format simple enough for me to do anything I want with if/when I move on. It's mac-only, and development seems to have stalled, but I threw together a crude Android client for my own use.



I believe the reason it's stalled is because the single developer moved to Berlin and has been pretty busy with that for a while. But, he does still seem committed and occasionally updates on Twitter. Only mentioning because I was curious also.


Fair enough. I wasn't knocking him. Quiver is a terrific little app, but rather niche and I can't imagine it nets enough money to be easy to carve out time for. I had a brief email correspondence with the developer a year or so ago, as I was considering building a commercial Android note taker based on the same file format. He was very open & willing to help.


I would love to see your android app. I've heard good things about Quiver, but I'm a Linux user. Perhaps the Android app could push me to develop a data-compatible Linux clone.


Sorry, you never will! By 'crude' I really meant it; and not just the UI, but the code. I thrashed it out as a kind of spike and it won't ever be seen by anyone but me (and even I only look reluctantly).

Writing a proper Android version is currently tying for first place with a micro.blog (http://micro.blog) client for my next project.

Should you really be interested in a Linux version, Quiver's author has written up the json format: https://github.com/HappenApps/Quiver/wiki/Quiver-Data-Format. It seems simple and sane.

I also like the general notion of "Standard Notes" (https://standardnotes.org/), but can't see text-only notes becoming 'standard' in the 21st century.


Thank you. In fact the Quiver data storage seems very easy to work with.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: