What can I replace it with?

Let's see... In the meantime, I got Milanote and now Obsidian. I hear Joplin is good too, but I haven't used it yet. To be honest, Obsidian is so far a godsend for me.

Any other suggestions or should I just stick with what I have for now?

    • Clever_Clover [she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I can answer this one, no, emacs does function on windows, and so does syncthing, though, I don't know if that would be what I'd recommend to someone (who isn't a programmer) getting into emacs is a bit of an investment

      • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, it's a bit of an eccentric setup, not a general recommendation, but it is what I do and I am happy with it. Emacs has ports to nearly as many operating systems as Doom (GNU Emacs predates Doom by 9 years). Org-mode itself, while primarily implemented in GNU Emacs, is a publicly specified plain text format, kind of like Markdown on steroids. There are apps for Android / iOS which support org-mode specifically, making it useful for mobile note-taking, and then some mechanism like Syncthing (could use DropBox or Git or anything else really) allows you to synchronize your notes between various devices. With time, it is finding native support in platforms like Github / Gitea / etc.

        @Clever_Clover@hexbear.net isn't kidding about the 'investment' though. Emacs comes from a period before the conventional desktop environment. From a period before keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-c / ctrl-x / ctrl-v were standardized for things like copy, cut, paste. It can be tweaked (through LISP scripting adding third party modes) to use more conventional keyboard shortcuts, but its idiosyncratic keyboard interface has benefits of its own. Its entire nomenclature (i.e. what a "window" is in Emacs vs. a conventional OS, or that a familiar feature like the "clipboard" is known as the "kill ring," or that highlighted text is called a "region," and that all of these things behave somewhat different than 'normal'). There are reasons for this (for instance, your "clipboard" actually stores a ring-buffer of strings, and the action of "cutting" text is referred to as "killing"), but it is a fucking rabbit hole for sure.

        • Clever_Clover [she/her]
          ·
          1 year ago

          What are your recommendations for android apps that support org-mode?

          I do use emacs extensively for programming mainly but I've recently been feeling the itch to actually make real organized notes so org-mode is a pretty natural choice for me, I've actually played with org before to write a small paper for uni (exporting to latex) and it was a nice experience

          And another question, how do you organize your notes with a setup like this (syncthing and phone app)? And can you link from a note to another one? Do you just have all of your notes in a single directory or are they like organized into folders for topics?

          • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I've used Orgzly on Android. It is not as rich in features as GNU Emacs (it's not going to invoke a python interpreter to evaluate embedded snippets, for instance), but for ordinary outlines / to-do lists and stuff it works fine. With Syncthing, the workflow is, I have a "sync" folder, and a "notes" folder inside it, and I just dump things in there until there are enough individual notes on a particular subject that it makes sense to stuff them into their own folder (but org-mode makes very large, deep outlines pretty manageable). On Android, the Syncthing app is able to do its job at the filesystem level, and you just need to open/save notes in that folder. You do also need to run Syncthing on a VPS or something if you want your notes to sync while you are not connected to your home WiFi or when your other devices are shut off (paying for a cheap VPS and maintaining it in lieu of paying for a specific service).

            Org mode has support for linking to other notes, though I haven't really taken advantage of that. In practice, most of my notes are not synchronized, and live in the same folder as whatever projects they pertain to. I once had a Syncthing instance running on the open internet (and it was pretty cool), but I don't do this currently. Having Syncthing running was also useful for syncronizing my keepass password database, configuration files, and other useful doodads.