Show HN: I'm building a personal notes app focused on Data Longevity (beta)

by ricg • 6 years ago

2 3 6 years ago

ricg2• 6 years ago

Hey HN, creator here!

My goal is to build an app to capture personal knowledge over a lifetime. Hence data longevity is key.

I’m looking forward to your thoughts, especially for my choice of using HTML instead of Markdown as file format. I debated this for a while.

HTML has the advantage that can be previewed in any browser with formatting and images intact. Markdown would require a compatible app (text editor aside, which won’t show images). Also, HTML documents can easily be shared as single file, even if they contain embedded images.

What do you think?

mikro2nd• 6 years ago

So basically exactly what Zim-Wiki does, except that Zim uses its own markup (can be copied as Markdown/text/pandoc, though). Otherwise every page is just a txt file, directory structure is respected, other files (images, etc.) accessible/linkable from notes, etc.

Has the advantage of being not Mac-only.

ricg2• 6 years ago

From the current feature set, both are similar. Future features aside, the main difference is the file format:

Why I went for HTML is the ability to embed images (via data URI). This allows for a note to be a single, standalone file that can easily be shared or moved around without losing track of its images.

Even if you want to open a note in 20 years from now you can do so with a browser (assuming HTML will still be around then). You'll get a fully formatted document. For Markdown you can always use a text editor, but to get formatting and images to show, you'll need a Markdown compatible app.

UPDATE: I gave Zim a try and noticed another difference, file format aside: the app I'm working on will show all files in your folder structure, including PDFs, etc. It renders a preview with QuickLook and allows to open the document with its default app.

This comes in very handy when you want to mix & match notes and other documents. For example, let's say you have a hotel reservation as PDF, you could attach a note with driving directions all in the app.

Show HN: I'm building a personal notes app focused on Data Longevity (beta)

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