I am looking for an alternative for OneNote for Linux. A clone would be perfect, the interface of it and the ability to paste pictures into a very wide notes field is great. Please help me!
Check out Obsidian! The canvas feature is very similar to onenote snd obsidian in general is the best notwtaking app/ personal knowledge management system in existence
Obsidian is what I use mostly, it syncs great with syncthing across all my devices. It doesn't have drawing support, so whenever I need to doodle something I end up in samsung notes again.
You can, but there is no form of exporting your handwritten notes. There's also sort of a tendency to "bend" what you've just written a bit after you lift your stylus. Like it's vectorizing and slightly correcting the path you just drew.
I have had moderate success using the built-in Scribble feature to convey my handwriting into text in the main editor. It's not super great but is serviceable. It's real opinionated about when and where new paragraphs should appear.
You can export excalidraw files as images or svgs. My main issue has been subpar support for Samsung pens, which is in part due to Samsung requiring an SDK to detect button presses or gestures... which means hitting the toolbar button to erase stuff
It tends freeze and mess up your writing when it autosaves. Not much of an issue if you set it to every 5 minutes, but annoying at the 15 second default.
Lastly, large drawings have performance issues. A few "pages" of notes and you can start to see the renderer struggle to track your pen correctly.
Tbh I'm probably just going to use another app and export images into my obsidian repo.
Ah, if Obsidian would've supported hand written notes using a stylus or something, I would've switched instantly. It's sad cause I don't want to keep using Samsung Notes tbh, but it feels like my best option so far.
@Stronk +1 for Obsidian! I love it. It's definitely different than OneNote. Notion may actually be a better fit for you, but I encourage everyone to check out Obsidian just to see if it's for you! Excellent software.
For my needs, Joplin was a good open source alternative.
Between the two I went with Obsidian because, while the apps are closed-source, the data is accessible. All your notes are just stored in plaintext (with markdown) as simple files in a directory structure.
Joplin, in contrast, uses a SQLite database which adds a layer of complexity.
Yep, Joplin is great too, that's what I use currently! I also like that it has built-in syncing with nextcloud and dropbox; as far as I know, obsidian only has their own paid-for syncing (unless you sync externally like the person below using syncthing)
This was one of the main selling features for me (before I tried it and experienced all the other killer features). I've experienced a bad case of vendor-lock before where it was hell to export my data. So having it all available in plain text at all times is really reassuring.
Create a folder, put markdown files in it, sync* and backup* the folder however you like and edit the files with whatever you like*.
Within my folder I have a daily journal - start each day with a list of what I hope to achieve today and make notes throughout the day as I progress on those tasks. The next day that journal becomes something I'lll refer back to in the morning to decide what to do next. Depending on the project - weekly or monthly might be more suitable than daily. Or maybe something else entirely.
I also have folders an files for longer term tasks.
If you want to collaborate, make a second folder and choose a sync platform you can all agree on.
(* I use GitHub for Sync, Backblaze B2 for backup, and Visual Studio Code for editing, with extensions for markdown and making GitHub a little easier... specifically GitDoc for auto-commit/push/pull and Markdown All in One for formatting/etc. Also Copilot is handy for some note taking tasks. The "foam" extension mentioned here looks like it might be great too)
@IuseArchbtw I switched to Zettlr a few years ago and never looked back https://zettlr.com/ there are tons of markdown apps in other platforms that can give you the cross-platform feel but for desktop this is it for me
I use Joplin and sync the notes between devices (including Android) with Syncthing. There's lots of other options for syncing, but I already had Syncthing set up and liked it
Joplin is amazing. I think I have it syncing through OneDrive (I don't use OneDrive or any Microsoft products so I'm not sure why I did that), but it has so many options to sync using things you may already use
I've been using Notesnook for nearly a year and I'm really happy with it as well. Very feature-rich and easy to use despite a focus on security. I had a scare recently with an important note seemingly disappearing, and I was saved thanks to a really nicely implemented note history functionality that I didn't even know existed.
I will say that some of the design decisions can be a bit confusing, so it's worth testing it out before buying. Even a year in I find myself a bit thrown off by how exactly the relationships between notebooks, topics, tags, etc are expected to work.
I selfhost my Joplin server and use the clients on my Linux desktop, my windows laptop, iphone and Android. It is definitely one of my favorite selfhosted apps. To prevent any issues with sync, the first thing I do when I open the app is to click the Sync button and do the same when I close the app at the end of the day. This way I ensure that I am always working with the latest version. It has not failed me so far, considering I am a very heavy user and have quite a few notes running at any given day.
And I'm another who self hosts Joplin. My wife and I use it on our desktops and mobile devices. We specifically switched to it from One Note and it's been perfect for our use!
I used it extensively as I was writing (I'm an author) to make notes about things I needed to go back and correct, or an idea to incorporate, etc.
Nice one 👍. I've been looking to replace onenote handwritten notes for years with something with better Linux support. Interested to give this a try! Thanks for sharing!
I use qownnotes in combination with nextcloud. Supports mark down, git like history and syncing with the nextcloud notes app, which you can also use on your phone.
Big fan of Obsidian. Especially for written notes. If you are working with a lot of images I'd give its canvas feature a try. I'm not using it personally, but I think it might fit the bill.
I dont use canvas, but I deal with plenty of images and screenshots. I usually just have a topic top level folder that contains notes and a nested media folder that I store the images in and link to them
I dunno if this is weird or what but personally I can't stand markdown editors. It's 2023 and Microsoft Word is a fairly polished thing that I expect replicated in some way in my note taking app.
Currently I'm using Notion and it's pretty nice. Free for students too which is great.
I was using Wiki.js which was nice but a bit clunky and I ran into a few showstopper bugs that I couldn't bother fixing.
Different strokes for different folks, but I wish markdown was in everything. I love the simplicity of it and how easy it is to bold, italicize, make a header, etc. while typing. I'll take markdown over docs or word any day of the week.
@Maxcoffee that's understandable. My boss also hates Markdown. It's not for everyone. I like how lightweight it is, how many things support it, the inline formatting, portability, etc.
Like I said though, it's definitely not for everyone.
My biggest pet peeves is partial support for markdown.
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