Show HN: I wrote a local-first notes app for Mac, with data longevity in mind

by ricg • 5 years ago

128 101 5 years ago

ricg38• 5 years ago

Hi HN,

I spent the past 3 years working on a personal notes app that focuses on data longevity. Everything is saved as simple files and folders. In fact, you can open any folder as notebook. External documents/files/PDFs can live alongside notes (the app shows a preview).

Files are saved as HTML to ensure that even in 20 years form now you can still access your notes with a browser even if the app should not be around.

Tags, bi-directional links, rich text, images are supported. I also added a few neat features to extract knowledge from notes like a spreadsheet view and one page summaries.

For example, let’s say you keep monthly project review notes, each with a section “Lessons Learned”. You can generate a page with all “Lessons Learned” sections from all notes tagged #postmortem to see them all on a single page.

I’m very happy that the app finally went live. Many of you will know that the last 20% of actually getting a project out of the door seem to take just as much work as the first 80% (hat tip to Vilfredo).

Looking forward to your feedback!

oceankid• 5 years ago

Congratulations on the launch! Downloaded and seems quite polished.

Recently found and use 30% of something called Obsidian so native UI and attachments are welcome.

I saw the option to view as Spreadsheet but wasn’t obvious how one was made? The concept of fields seems cool. Are there plans for data extraction/APIs?

Congrats again!

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for your feedback! The spreadsheet view works in combination with metadata fields.

Let's say you have a number of notes for your contacts. You tag each note with #contact and add a few fields like "Name", "Department", "Diet".

Type #contact into the location bar to find all contacts and switch from there to the spreadsheet view.

You'll get a list of your contacts and you can quickly tell who is a vegetarian, for example. Great for planning a party (once in person meetings are a thing again).

Another neat thing:

Add a new note and add the tag #contact. The right sidebar will now suggest fields and headings that you used in other contact notes. This way you can use the same fields to keep your notes consistent.

jitl2• 5 years ago

Really nice design; do you have a “rename field” action for editing all those metadatas across matching tags at once?

wodenokoto• 5 years ago

Looks really cool. The introduction video was very informative, but on a kinda unrelated sidenote, the way the narrator talks reminds me of a 90s infomercial - the cube-swipe also has a pretty nostalgic vibe.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for your feedback! I was looking for a voice over that does not sound as polished as a radio ad. Sounds like I went a bit overboard with that :)

torstenvl• 5 years ago

Love the idea and, from the screenshots, the execution looks great. I've been looking for something like this and I'm still undecided, with Joplin and StandardNotes leading the pack for my use case.

It looks like you've settled on an App Store-only distribution model and a subscription-only pricing model. I'm curious about how you made that decision - subscription-only would suggest you're revenue-sensitive and want to provide continued updates, but App Store-only distribution means giving up revenues and putting someone else in control of updates. As a result, from the outside looking in, it seems a little incongruous. Just wondering :) obviously don't feel obligated to answer, either way it looks like a great piece of software.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Awesome, thanks for your feedback! Yes, I plan to provide continued updates. I have lots of more ideas (block based editor, large calendar view, smart search folders, …). I considered a one-time paid with paid upgrades model, but decided to use a subscription.

What would be your use case and is there something in particular that leaves you undecided between Joplin and StandardNotes?

cyberge99• 5 years ago

Not the commenter, but I’ve been in a similar struggle to find “thw perfect note app” since evernote went South. I’ve been trying Obsidian, Joplin, Bear, and Craft.

A must have for me is a code-block (three backticks enter or similar).

A killer feature would be a rest api so I could integrate with cli tools (bash, jq, grep, etc) without having to parse html.

I’m excited to try this out.

hadem2• 5 years ago

Like others have mentioned, I'm not a fan of the subscription model either. After watching the demo video and reading through your site, I instantly went to download the app in the app store, only to be disappointed in, yet another subscription.

I'd gladly pay for the software and repurchase at major releases (if I wanted to upgrade)! I'm not looking for more subscriptions though. Give it a thought. I'd like to be one of the paying customers :-)

huhtenberg• 5 years ago

My dude, hear the words of wisdom and you shall be handsomely rewarded if you heed them.

You are not Adobe or Autodesk to pull off a subscription model. Not successfully.

Sell a perpetual license that is valid for the current version plus anything that is released in X months after that.

Then, sell an option to extend the access to upgrades for Y% of the original purchase price once X months are almost over. If X months are over, sell the same option with a mark-up.

This is universally perceived as a fair arrangement and it gives you a recurrent revenue from people who do keep on using your software (just like with the subscription). Best of both worlds.

convivialdingo• 5 years ago

Congrats, looks great! I'm a huge fan of notes in general and I use a few different apps. I love the idea of quick linking and tags. Layout is polished.

I'll definitely have to try it out.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Awesome! Let me know how the app works out for you. One pet peeve of mine is that many notes apps make it easy to enter notes, but when it comes to retrieving content all I'm left with is full text search.

I added two additional ways, the spreadsheet view and one page summaries. The summaries are shown towards the end of the demo video. If you take lots of notes, this might be useful for you to extract knowledge from your notes.

lolski• 5 years ago

I haven't tried it but it looks amazing. Well done.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks!

rubatuga• 5 years ago

I would purchase it if it was one time only, outside of App Store distribution. But otherwise amazing notes app!

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for your feedback and your kind words!

bjtitus• 5 years ago

This looks really awesome!

I always find myself looking for a mobile companion for these types of apps, though (it's what made me stop using Roam). Do you have any plans for a mobile app in the future? I assume the files could probably sync over iCloud as an optional feature.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thank you! Yes, I have plans for an iOS app, but want to add a few things to the Mac app before that. I have a block-based editor 70% ready and want to get that shipped before working on an iOS version. Syncing will work through iCloud Drive. Since the app already saves as plain files and folders there is not a lot of work needed there (mainly conflict handling).

beachwood23• 5 years ago

This looks really cool.

But my pet peeve is hidden pricing for paid products. If it's worth buying, then show the price up front. I can't easily view the price anywhere on the website, and it's not displayed on the App Store description either. I was ready to download the app and try it out if I could view this information up front

shadowoflight2• 5 years ago

To be fair to OP, Apple makes it dead easy to see how much the IAPs are for a given app (in the case of this one, $2.49 monthly or $24.99 yearly).

michaelmcdonald• 5 years ago

Apple does, but the product's website does not. As the above poster was pointing out: if the product is worth paying for the Op should make that clear.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Sorry for the confusion. The app launched only yesterday. I just added the pricing details to the website. As another commenter pointed out, the tricky part is that the App Store adjusts prices for each country, but I will figure something out.

alfonsodev• 5 years ago

Did you build this in Swift UI?

Would you make different technology choices if you started today?

ricg38• 5 years ago

No SwiftUI, just plain Swift and AppKit/Cocoa. I considered SwiftUI, but at the time it was not ready and was missing a few core things I needed, like an outline view (this was 3 years ago).

Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone for a Catalyst app like Craft, for example, but again, at the time when I started Catalyst was in a very early stage. Today I'd probably give it another try. I also considered a Swift wrapper around an HTML/JS core (kind of my own slim Electron version) but decided to go for a native Mac app.

mxuribe• 5 years ago

Great-looking application! I really love the direction to use html; kudos for supporting data longevity!

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thank you very much for your kind words!

hunterb1234• 5 years ago

I've been happy with FSNotes if someone is looking for a light markdown note taking app for Mac/iOS that syncs via iCloud.

This looks good if you are looking for something a bit more for school or something.

colecut• 5 years ago

I've used QOwnNotes which is open source and cross platform Windows/OSX/Linux, but sadly I don't think there's a mobile version...

Using HTML instead of Markdown gives some nice advantages if you want to use more than just text, so I am going to give this new app a try.

hunterb1234• 5 years ago

A lot of markdown note apps including FSNotes (https://fsnot.es) support the TextBundle (http://textbundle.org) format so you can embed images in the same document.

HTML is nice for more advanced documents, but I prefer note taking in markdown as it's a simpler syntax, even when viewed in raw text.

I think HTML is perfect for this app because it's more for academic use and less personal use like grocery/todo lists, reminders, etc.

Having a synced mobile version is crucial as you want to access your notes on the go right? (at the grocery store, etc.)

ricg38• 5 years ago

Yes, it is aimed more at academia and professionals who want/need to preserve knowledge in a structured way. Support for footnotes is planned.

bachmeier3• 5 years ago

Simple curiosity, with no claim of good or bad. Why a Mac app in 2021 when that excludes such a large part of the market?

jitl2• 5 years ago

When it’s not Electron/Web: wHy nOt an eLEctRoN wEB aPp

When it’s Electron/Web: wHy nOt nATivE

When it’s iOS: wHy nOt aNDroId; 80% oF tHe wOrLd

When it’s Android: i pErSoNALly prEfeR iOS fOr tHe UX

Maybe I should take a break from HN

bachmeier3• 5 years ago

Maybe I should take a break from HN

Wouldn't be a bad idea, since it seems to bother you that different people ask different questions, and none of your cases is related to my question. Unless you think "why are you intentionally limiting your market" is the same as the ones you've listed.

PS: I think your keyboard is broken.

eps4• 5 years ago

Oh, please, your reddit is leaking. Don't do it on HN.

smoldesu• 5 years ago

A well-made UX in GTK or QT can look fairly native on Mac with little-to-no effort, and would let you also distribute it to Windows/Linux/Chromebook (the other 93% of the PC market, for those of you who aren't paying attention)

I love Mac apps, I like their silly use of euphemism and laissez-faire design language, but I will outright not integrate it into my lifestyle if I can't run it on my 5 other devices too. Getting work done comes first, and I'm sure as hell not going to boot up my QEMU container just to add a bullet point for my shopping list.

zorr• 5 years ago

I had similar thoughts. The app looks really good and interesting but mac-only is a non-starter for me as I can only use it on a small subset of my devices.

That being said, congrats to OP for launching. The execution seems to be great with attention to detail and focus on the right things.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for the kind words! Re: attention to detail: nobody has discovered the easter eggs yet!

eps4• 5 years ago

Mac desktop market is 1/10 of that of Windows. There are however multiple "buts". Windows users are more reluctant to pay for software. When they do, they want to pay less. They tend to have less regard for aestheics and well-crafted UI/UX, but those that do will be sold instantly on the app that have 'em.

Regrettably, the percentage of Windows users that do value build and design quality over the abundance of features and low pricing is, maybe, 10-20%. On the plus side, however, this acts as a natural filter and you end up with the userbase that really groks what you make and how you make it. This alone is a huge plus. "Those who like it, like it a lot."

Long story short, if you can take your well-made Mac app and port it to Windows, retaining the polish - do it. It's totally worth it, in all aspect of it. Just make sure it looks and feels native, and it's not an Electron ;)

ricg38• 5 years ago

I can confirm the first part from my own experience. I ported one of my other apps to Windows (native, had to learn C# and UWP). The Windows revenue unfortunately is way, way less than Mac/iOS.

kitsunesoba• 5 years ago

It's often easier to start out with focusing on making a really good product for a single platform first, and then branching out to other platforms. That even counts for things built with Electron, Qt, etc since even if 90% of the app is cross platform there's still a sizable surface between the app and each supported platform that needs to be tested and polished.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Yes, you've got to start somewhere, especially as solo-dev.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Well, I did a thorough marked analysis, weighted pros and cons and...

...no, I really just wanted a good notes app that had all the features I wished for. So I went ahead and got started (not done yet :). That was 3 years ago. 2 years ago I wrote an importer and transferred all my notes over from the app I was using at the time and have been using my own app ever since. And I plan to use this for the rest of my life to save the things I learn(ed) along the way. That's why the focus on data-longevity.

newman314• 5 years ago

You have a typo on the landing page.

"Learn from the past an become a smarter person today"

ricg38• 5 years ago

Fixed now, thanks a lot!

eps4• 5 years ago

As they say -

I am a simple man, I see a well-made installable desktop software, I upvote it. Even if it's just for Mac.

Well done, OP. Break a leg.

  -- Edit --

Ah, damn! A subscription! For a desktop app! Noooo...

I have to withdraw my praise and the upvote. Subscriptions for installable apps are completely unacceptable.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thank your for part 1 and I hear you for part 2 :)

miles• 5 years ago

Congratulations - looks beautifully crafted. Sadly, MAS and subscriptions (as opposed to a one-time purchase with paid upgrades for major versions) make it a non-starter for me, especially given that it was made with "data longevity in mind".

ricg38• 5 years ago

I hear you. Trouble is, paid upgrades are tricky to implement in the MAS. About data longevity: if you cancel your subscription, you cannot add new notes, but you retain full access to all existing notes and all features remain active (you can edit existing notes, move stuff around, etc.). A knowledge base that locks you out once you cancel would be of no use...

ibdf• 5 years ago

I agree with this - I can only have so many subscriptions and unfortunately a notes up is not top priority even though it looks really nice.

rkhassen93• 5 years ago

Yup - was 100% excited and was going to buy it until I saw it's a subscription. Now 100% not excited and not gonna go there.

It just never works out for me to be worthwhile.

Sorry.

rspoerri• 5 years ago

Same for me, i was interested until i saw it's subscription.

latchkey2• 5 years ago

I am currently a simpleton Notes.app user. It does the job enough for me.

I just downloaded this, tried it out. Fantastic work. The editor is excellent and behaves how I'd expect. I love the calendar right there. The app uses a small amount of memory/cpu.

What keeps me on Notes:

1. Subscription. I'd pay for a one time license. I'd pay for upgrades, but I'd want to own it.

2. It needs a mobile version with sync.

3. I don't see a way to switch into light mode.

baran1• 5 years ago

1. strangely these days I'm a lot more relieved to see subscriptions over one-time payments because those projects tend to have the funding to update their software.

2. agree, syncing is to a mobile device is required

ricg38• 5 years ago

1. Thank you :)

2. iOS with iCloud support is planned.

jll29• 5 years ago

1. Subscription. I'd pay for a one time license. I'd pay for upgrades, but I'd want to own it.

I'd love to have this, but as latchkey says for a one-time purchase. Ideally, the app would be open source and available for Mac as well as Linux, so one could add bespoke extensions. Note the reason I say "open source" is not because I would want it for free, but because open source means I will still be able to use it in 20 years on whatever platform will be mine then.

Wish list:

- plug-in for Emacs, Atom and Sublime.

- versioning support (Git integration)

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for your feedback!

1. If you cancel your subscription you cannot add new notes, but you can still access, edit, move, etc. your existing notes. All features remain active (and you get updates, important for OS upgrades).

2. iOS and iCloud Drive support are planned

3. It changes between light and dark mode automatically with the setting of macOS.

latchkey2• 5 years ago

1. No, thanks. That isn't a model I want to adopt. What happens when the single small developer stops working on it or decides to sell the app to someone else?

2. Great! It doesn't do me any good to keep a shopping list in my notes and not be able to edit it at the super market. =)

3. This needs to be a setting that the user can choose. I like my OS dark, but my notes editor light.

butz• 5 years ago

Looks great. Are there similar applications for Linux? No remote capabilities and storing data in open format is a must. Preferably native app, not packaged web app.

schultzie• 5 years ago

Obsidian.md is my go to for notes. It also has tons of extensions which take it to the next level.

As the name suggests, all notes are stored as markdown files.

throwthere• 5 years ago

It's hard to justify a $24/year longterm commitment when FSNotes App works just as well and is free.

mattl• 5 years ago

"Learn from the past *an* become a smarter person today"

Typo on the homepage.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for the heads-up! Fixed now. Of course it had to be that heading ;)

mvind• 5 years ago

Number 5689 note taking app on HN.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Writing your own notes app is a rite of passage ;)

sheeeep86• 5 years ago

Looks beautiful and well thought out, I look forward to trying it out

ricg38• 5 years ago

Let me know what you think once you get a chance to try it!

andjd• 5 years ago

I agree with the comments that a subscription model and delivery through the Apple's app store seem at odds with the 'with data longevity in mind' objective.

Requiring a subscription makes me ask what happens when you stop supporting the project? Relying on the App Store makes me wonder what happens when Apple decides to ban your developer account?

I'm not saying these are dealbreakers, but I'd like to have some sort of answer to these concerns.

Having a self-hosted way to download and pay for the app would increase my confidence level, even if I did decide to purchase through the app store. Similarly, there are 'subscription' apps that let the user keep using the latest version of the app if they cancel the subscription, they are just no longer able to get updates. You can also make a pledge to open-source the app if once you're no longer commercially supporting it.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Yes, absolutely valid concerns and I've though about those.

When cancelling the subscription, all existing notes and all data remains fully accessible (read and write). It’s a knowledge base, after all. Projects with more than 50 notes will not support adding new notes, but all other features remain fully functional.

About the idea of keeping the latest version without updates: interesting, but tricky to implement in the App Store. You'd need a feature switch for everything. OS compatibility updates would still need to go through or the app would not survive in the App Store (typically this is what would get users to upgrade for apps distributed outside of the App Store).

Even if the app were to disappear, you could still access your notes with a browser and copy the data over to another app. Not as convenient as using text files, but the ability to embed images into the notes led me to go with HTML.

Happy to answer more questions!

mhd3• 5 years ago

I'm still using Notational Velocity, talking about longevity...

ricg38• 5 years ago

Curious about your workflow since you've been keeping notes for a long time. How often do you refer to old notes and how old are those? What methods do you use to find them (e.g. search, navigate a folder structure, etc.)?

mhd3• 5 years ago

Oh boy, my system is old, didn't say it's good... I'm not retaining ephemeral notes, no work logs or anything like that. That's on separate "systems", often text files within the projects or actual paper. This makes things a lot easier.

Notational Velocity is mostly search based. I mean, it's a list of messages, a text editing field and a searchbar, nothing more. So system-wide shortcut to pop it up, Cmd-L to search and there you go. I'm mostly doing a bit of "SEO", so intentionally write content in the node that makes it easier to find. Tried tags, but that just added another layer and "Here's another good Bash Shell tip for Linux Servers:" makes it both more readable and provides hooks for searching.

Synchronisation has change a few times, it's just text files after all.

I'm trying to check whether the Zettelkasten method would help me, so I've currently switched to Obsidian and might try some others. They're still writing text files, so I can backport them easily when/if I'm done with it. Right now, I'm not sure whether just having a GUID/timestamp is enough even within NV. Sure, I can't just click on it, but that means that I just have to Cmd-C/Cmd-L/Cmd-V after it.

And being quite fond of Emacs, I try and fail with Org-Mode once a year.

albertzeyer• 5 years ago

When data longevity is a goal, I would expect it to be open source, such that I have a chance to port it over to Linux or other OSs and also be able to port it to future OS in 50 years or so.

I'm also not sure whether HTML is such a great format. Maybe it's fine for reading the files and content in the future but for interop with other tools, I think sth like text or markdown would be better. Or Org-mode.

amjd• 5 years ago

Great work! Love the effort you spent on making notes retrieval easy, all while keeping a beautiful and simple UX. Especially commendable for a solo dev.

Don't be overwhelmed by the negative comments on the pricing model. To be honest, I'd prefer a one-time purchase over subscriptions too, but the recurring pricing you've kept is modest and isn't a dealbreaker for me. And as someone else commented, the monthly subscription in a way gives a sense of safety that the app is going to be actively developed and maintained.

Also I like that you've decided to keep the app usable for all actions other than adding new notes if a user stops paying. I'd need that guarantee before I can commit to a new note-taking app and migrate all my notes.

I'd echo the request of introducing mobile apps for this as well. Preferably on both iOS and Android, as I find that while a lot of folks use Mac because of their work, a significant number of them use Android phones. Also, markdown imports would be great, if it's not already supported.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thanks for your feedback and encouragement!

I'm not taking this personal, I appreciate the feedback and I knew beforehand that subscriptions are controversial.

I contemplated the pricing model for a very long time going back and forth between the two options in my head multiple times.

In the end, the argument that convinced me what that with a subscription my focus is on adding features for my existing users. I'm constantly thinking "How can I make the app better for my users to keep my subscribers"?

Whereas for a single purchase I have to constantly think "What can I add to attract more users"?. All my other apps use one-time payments and sometimes it really pains me to put feature requests on my backpack knowing that I will never get to implement them, because they would not increase the visibility of the app.

Mobile: I have an iOS app planned, but it will take some time because I have a number of features that I want to add to the Mac app first (block based editor, smart search folders, larger calendar view).

njhaveri• 5 years ago

This is surprisingly sophisticated and loaded with features for a 1.0, congratulations on the release! I totally know what it's like to work on a productivity app for a long time before it feels like it meets the minimum bar for release, serious props for making it over the line. The smart summaries feature in particular looks really interesting.

While I confess that I'd also like the option to purchase a 1.0 license and then pay to upgrade to 2.0 later, I fully recognize that the App Store makes that sort of arrangement extremely awkward and difficult to achieve, and think you priced it more than fairly anyways.

ricg38• 5 years ago

Thank you! Those last 10% always seem to take just as long as the first 90! Ask me one day about that typo that a friend discovered that showed in all marketing materials so that I had to redo all screenshots and the demo video.

Pricing: yes, agreed.

One Page Summaries: I have more ideas on that front. I'd like to add a way to "save" the summary config as kind of a "smart search" so that you could have them in the outline on the left or even embedded as a block inside a note.

Another idea is a kind of command line syntax for the location bar:

. / #meetingminutes / H2:Lessons Learned | View:OnePageSummary

This would find all notes tagged "meetingminutes" in the current note and below, pull all sections with level 2 headings "Lessons Learned" and show them as summary on one page.

waspight2• 5 years ago

How many new subscriptions did you get from this HN post?

ricg38• 5 years ago

One

waspight2• 5 years ago

I see. Do you know about how many page views you got? If I may ask. The interest seemed higher than one subscriber

Show HN: I wrote a local-first notes app for Mac, with data longevity in mind

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