Notebook App w/ Offline Storage

• iOS: Notesy (WriteRoom, etc.)
• Android: Draft
• Windows: ResophNotes
• OSX: nvALT
• Individual apps can be swapped out as new/more functional ones appear without impacting the other platforms

• Plain text is universal
• Doesn't depend upon a particular application or file format
• Highly compact and portable
• Easy to migrate to a rich-text format

Egk said:

Hi!

I've spent a lot of time agonising over finding a decent notebook app. I have found a few that I liked like Outline, Evernote and OneNote, but they have their faults. No offline storage (the only killer here for OneNote), annoying behavior (Outline), bad interface (Evernote), and there are so many that rely on sync or a subscription.

I'm a bit dumbfounded, isn't there a decent notebook application that doesn't rely on sync? Essentially I just want to keep notes in a hierarchical order using folders, sub-folders and notes.

I actually liked Apple Notes, until I moved a note from one folder and it deleted all the information within. No recourse, just all gone. Apple and sync, eh?

Are there any other apps that have decent text editing functionality, and a way to add links, images and store notes like I described above?

I have tried the following:
- Notebooks (hate the text editing functionality)
- Simplenote (sync, nope!)
- NoteSuite (tries to be more than necessary, last updated over a year ago..)
- Notesmartly (tries to be everything, sync based)

So... I know I am fuzzy, but ironically I just want very basic functionality. Any suggestions?

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Egk said:

Thanks for all the posts and suggestions! Here is a brief answer to them before I go on my own:

Scrivener: It's great, I have tried, never really got into it unfortunately. Doesn't have the right feel
Tinderbox: Seems to be everything and it's ugly

Plain text is just a bit too plain. Although I agree on it being future proof, it wouldn't be suitable for me. I can be incredibly productive and write a lot, and I need ways to differentiate certain things I wanted to do (marking, tagging) very easily.

Evernote has a horrible interface on the Mac and it's a death of 1000 papercuts (annoyances) every time I use it.

Notebooks isn't viable due to bad editing. I spent most of my time brainstorming, organising and editing.

After Notes messed up a note for me I won't rely on it again. Apple and sync? Just no. I'm actually trying to find ways to get off Apple (not hardware) due to it. It wouldn't be so bad if one had proper support, but it's incredibly lacking.

OmniFocus isn't for taking notes and keeping them, it's for creating projects and project actions. I use it, but I want something complementary for my project notes.

I have actually decided to bite the bullet and go for Onenote actually. The only thing I hate about it is the sync issue, but none of the other applications was up to par with it anyway. Most of the other applications either did too much or too little, or had annoyances that would just piss me off little by little.

Since Onenote is what I want, except for the sync part, I decided to go for it. I'm not happy, but there aren't any good alternatives (that I found) and I'm tired of spending time looking for now.

Click to expand...

Egk said:

Thanks for all the posts and suggestions! Here is a brief answer to them before I go on my own:

Scrivener: It's great, I have tried, never really got into it unfortunately. Doesn't have the right feel
Tinderbox: Seems to be everything and it's ugly

Plain text is just a bit too plain. Although I agree on it being future proof, it wouldn't be suitable for me. I can be incredibly productive and write a lot, and I need ways to differentiate certain things I wanted to do (marking, tagging) very easily.

Evernote has a horrible interface on the Mac and it's a death of 1000 papercuts (annoyances) every time I use it.

Notebooks isn't viable due to bad editing. I spent most of my time brainstorming, organising and editing.

After Notes messed up a note for me I won't rely on it again. Apple and sync? Just no. I'm actually trying to find ways to get off Apple (not hardware) due to it. It wouldn't be so bad if one had proper support, but it's incredibly lacking.

OmniFocus isn't for taking notes and keeping them, it's for creating projects and project actions. I use it, but I want something complementary for my project notes.

I have actually decided to bite the bullet and go for Onenote actually. The only thing I hate about it is the sync issue, but none of the other applications was up to par with it anyway. Most of the other applications either did too much or too little, or had annoyances that would just piss me off little by little.

Since Onenote is what I want, except for the sync part, I decided to go for it. I'm not happy, but there aren't any good alternatives (that I found) and I'm tired of spending time looking for now.

Click to expand...

Egk said:

I didn’t set up another email account. Everything was Apple-only.

Even with markup it’s not good enough, I need to highlight, tag to-do’s and things like that.

A pure MS environment is what I am mostly used to (growing up with it), though there are a few apps that keeps me from using it. It’s not really that much of a big deal, except that I’m still having issues with bluetooth and wireless. Decided to buy a wired keyboard since it’s so bad. Really disappointed, but that is another topic.

Click to expand...

• It's more of a notebook than a scrapbook. It's great for writing and much better than Evernote in this respect. It has some decent formatting options (but missing line spacing which I find quite frustrating). I know many advocate Markdown instead but in my experience, Markdown is great for writing for the web but for note taking, it's just lacking.
• Access everywhere. There's a Mac, Windows, Android, iOS app. And there's an online version.
• Can access offline.
• Great structure. You can create notebooks > section groups > sections > pages

• Slow-ish sync. It's not terribly slow but definitely not as fast as Simplenote.
• Can't export to word on Mac version.
• No line spacing format.

• Evernote: Poor export options; 60MB per month sync limit for free account; no offline access on iOS and Android apps for free account; cluttered and confusing interface but this can be resolved by using Alternote.
• Text files / Markdown: somewhat frustrating to write for taking notes and adding images. Manually organise files.

tacticalvi said:

I was in this situation about a week ago. Spent hours and hours researching and trying different applications out. Although far from perfect, I went to OneNote in the end.

My reasons (I'm a uni student using it for taking uni notes):

• It's more of a notebook than a scrapbook. It's great for writing and much better than Evernote in this respect. It has some decent formatting options (but missing line spacing which I find quite frustrating). I know many advocate Markdown instead but in my experience, Markdown is great for writing for the web but for note taking, it's just lacking.
• Access everywhere. There's a Mac, Windows, Android, iOS app. And there's an online version.
• Can access offline.
• Great structure. You can create notebooks > section groups > sections > pages

Some things that I don't like about it:

• Slow-ish sync. It's not terribly slow but definitely not as fast as Simplenote.
• Can't export to word on Mac version.
• No line spacing format.

Why I didn't choose:

• Evernote: Poor export options; 60MB per month sync limit for free account; no offline access on iOS and Android apps for free account; cluttered and confusing interface but this can be resolved by using Alternote.
• Text files / Markdown: somewhat frustrating to write for taking notes and adding images. Manually organise files.

Click to expand...

Fuchal said:

I was about to leave Evernote, but Alternote stopped me. I really like using it.

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