/tap – Powerful and customizable note-taking system

https://www.tatatap.com/

by jermaustin1 • 5 years ago

269 118 5 years ago

I have completely ditched note taking systems in favor of a flat structure and strong search features. I just make a bunch of .md files and edit them in vscode.

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

I do this. I also have a small plugin that causes F6 to pull up scratchpad.md

rPlayer6554• 5 years ago

If people are interested, Joplin is a great FOSS note taking software built on markdown but adds e2e encryption, a web clipper, a nice desktop UI, Integrated syncing (you can use Dropbox or something like that, or pay for their service), and more. The mobile app needs some work, but overall I like it.

tonguez• 5 years ago

Joplin was dog shit when I used it. Basically it tries to save the file after every single character you type so if your document becomes long enough it starts using a shit load of data and crashing your phone. There was also something weird where you couldn’t scroll to the bottom of your note In a reasonable amount of time, I forgot what the reason was but overall the thing seems like typical FOSS dog shit where they’re talking about all these fancy features like nextcloud integration. if you just want to type a note, you know the most basic thing, it can’t do that, but of course the devs are working on some super advanced feature which is irrelevant because the base product doesn’t work. yes this was on android

codazoda• 5 years ago

I like the approach to plain text or .md files but for some reason the tool being in the web browser makes me much more productive. I suspect it's because I'm already in the browser all day.

Because the browser makes me so much more productive, I built my own second brain software tool and I posted it as a Show HN yesterday (it's a rough first go).

https://joeldare.com/i-built-my-own-second-brain-software-to...

kushan2020• 5 years ago

I am building something similar browser based https://bangle.io

chrisweekly• 5 years ago

Been there. Consider looking at Obsidian, which is a great client operating on local .md files (which you could still edit in VSC -- tho you'd be missing out).

riffic• 5 years ago

you may be interested in these then (vs code plugins):

* Foam - https://github.com/foambubble/foam

* Dendron - https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron

Obsidian is great as well, but there are caveats that may make it not so great with your preferences

mstngl• 5 years ago

And not to forget LogSeq (https://logseq.com) which is often mentioned in a row with the above and somehow the new kid in town. Works with local markdown files but lives in your browser (so useful even in environment with low privileges). Allows linking and querying notes and blocks swiftly.

novok• 5 years ago

I think the key issue with notes that you just edit in plain text files on your computer is the lack of sync, mobile access and access to a quick ui on the mobile side.

qbasic_forever3• 5 years ago

Syncthing solves the markdown sync issue for me flawlessly on every platform. You can always use Dropbox or any other plain old file sync service too (OneDrive, NextCloud, etc.). At the end of the day it's just a bunch of files so you can use anything--sftp, rsync, xmodem over dialup... it's just files.

keithnz• 5 years ago

This is what I do, and I use Obsidian as a layer over it as it is designed with this kind of structure in mind. You aren't locked into it in anyway. It even has a Vim mode.

punkspider• 5 years ago

Same here. I use .md files in Sublime Text, which I keep in Dropbox, and I access them on my phone with Obsidian.

mempko3• 5 years ago

LISP in your notes? That's cool. For my note taking I use the great tiddlywiki. A lot of features seem to overlap with the tiddlywiki. What seems nicer is the syntax, which is cool. As a tiddlywiki user, what's the advantage of this note taking app over that one?

(https://tiddlywiki.com/)

qbasic_forever3• 5 years ago

This is a hosted service so you can just access it and read/write your data from anywhere. With tiddlywiki you need to go through a lot of machinations or even run your own server to access it anywhere.

mempko3• 5 years ago

Yes, it being hosted is definitely nice. It's not a big deal for people like me that know how to host software but I can see that being a huge plus for folks who can't/don't want to manage their own server.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

I'm not sure, just seeing tiddlywiki for the first time now. Two of the main goals of /tap are having your notes meet you where you are: sms, email, API and introducing elements that allow you to consolidate other applications into tap: beans, formulas, events etc.

mempko3• 5 years ago

I see you are the creator of /tap? Great! I think the multi modal goal is definitely cool and could be really useful. For tiddlywiki, I have to host my own server and only access to it is via a browser. While I have access everywhere this way, it's sometimes slow on mobile phones.

FYI, I signed up but login doesn't seem to work for me. Does nothing. I had to verify my email but got a 'oops try again' message with the verify link. Maybe has something to do with not being able to login.

xanaxagoras3• 5 years ago

Looks interesting. However, no more subscriptions. I only use FOSS software or software I can buy for money.

claviska• 5 years ago

I sympathize with this. But as an open source author, I encourage folks to at least occasionally sponsor some of the FOSS packages they heavily rely on.

I love open source, but I also pay for apps and services that provide me with more value than what they cost. I’m not sure this provides me with that value, but perhaps to some it does.

Regardless, if software boosts your productivity, free or not, it’s worth at least a few bucks to subscribe or sponsor and support the authors.

xanaxagoras3• 5 years ago

I agree, I'm happy to support commercial software that allows me to buy a single release for a one time payment.

MandieD• 5 years ago

Amen to that - if I use something, I’m happy to buy it, or to make a one-time donation to a project, but no more subscriptions.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

The parser component of /tap is open source https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat if you already have a plain-text solution you may find having a quick way to parse utility elements is a useful addition.

jetrink• 5 years ago

Provided the SMS features are core to the system (and it looks like they are), then this is more of a service than a software product, in my opinion. It's surprisingly expensive to send or receive a text message - about a cent[1]. A light user would cost them about $0.50/month and a heavy user would cost them several dollars. I don't know how you could provide that without a subscription.

1. https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/us

joshgrib• 5 years ago

I'm a big fan of when there's a self-hosted option, then you could get around that need and keep your own data too

xanaxagoras3• 5 years ago

What piqued my interest was the little markup language they have for folders, events, tags, etc. I'm loathe to send anything over SMS, let alone anything private like a note of any kind. Those messages are sent in clear text and archived by all major carriers for years on end for later analysis and government surveillance. Solid no on the SMS features, seems kind of gimmicky anyway.

prezjordan• 5 years ago

S-expressions in the equation example

Yes.

You already have the app. Save notes to /tap via text message (SMS), the website or a bookmarklet.

K now I'm actually going to use this. Nice work. (Good landing page!)

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Thanks :-)

pedrovhb• 5 years ago

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I've been using todopy (which works on the todo.txt format/spec) to manage tasks, and hledger to manage finances, and after having tried a myriad of solutions for organizing life, it seems it's these simple CLI tools with text-based formats that work best for me.

This product kind of feels like that, but without the main upsides (easy extensibility, you own your data, it's all accessible locally so latency is non-existent). I don't really see much benefit vs having local files backed up by GKeep and/or a VCS instead.

Still might steal some of the ideas, though. In particular, tracking events is useful ("when was it that I last had to order gas again? Do I need it soon?")

joe875643817• 5 years ago

I release the parser open source https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat it could be a nice overlay on top of a local plain-text note-taking solution

zcmack• 5 years ago

a subscription to a notes service that is intentionally more barebones than the other options is something i really don't need. currently using joplin and its been working pretty well.

BergTheBold2• 5 years ago

I don't see where to submit a service request. There are errors in the browser console when I log in: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading '$router') at app.e2dbfb1e.js:1 at h (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at r (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at Nt (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at e.zt.confirmTransition (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at e.zt.transitionTo (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at se.init (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at Cr.beforeCreate (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:35) at ie (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:41) at Hn (chunk-vendors.439a26c5.js:41)

BergTheBold2• 5 years ago

I'm still very interested in the service, though, and I'll probably continue to check in on it.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

hello [at] tatatap.com shoot me an email, we'll sort it out.

nixass• 5 years ago

If there's "pricing", "plans" or "subscription" tab on the website I will ignore the tool 100%, especially for this purpose

lostintangent5• 5 years ago

Congrats on the release! I _really_ love the simple approach this tool takes. Though personally, I view note taking as “commodity” enough, that I prefer to own my data, and use my existing editor setup. If folks are looking for a productive, yet low-ceremony note taking workflow, GitHub.dev might be worth a look, since it provides the benefits of using Markdown, a GitHub repo, and VS Code, all from the browser: http://aka.ms/githubdev-fun, https://twitter.com/lostintangent/status/1429483662257446916.

I also _really_ like the concept of “spells”, so congrats on this experience as well. It would be interesting to explore implementing the same behavior using GitHub Actions (many of which, probably already exist?), with push/cron triggers. The benefit of that is that you could share your note taking workflow as a repo template, and then others could fork it and be up-and-running without any new accounts/tools/etc.

asleepawake• 5 years ago

This reads like the reply to the Dropbox release.

lostintangent5• 5 years ago

Is cloud storage anywhere near as opinion-inducing as note taking workflows though? :) There are like a dozen new entrants each month, and so it’s probably meaningful for folks to get super clear on their core requirements. Otherwise, you’d spend all your time evaluating tools, as opposed to actually writing.

djur• 5 years ago

The Dropbox reply[1] was fully negative, while this one is mostly positive. It also suggested that the business wasn't viable, which this comment does not. Doesn't read like it at all, honestly.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

zkldi• 5 years ago

This has to be one of the most overdone comments on this site -- Not everything even slightly critical of a product is like the dropbox reply.

avrionov• 5 years ago

How do you access your notes on mobile?

lostintangent5• 5 years ago

It’s a little bit clunky, but you can use GitHub.dev/<repo> on your phone. I do a lot of browsing/quick edits that way, and it works well enough. That said, I also use Working Copy for iOS to sync my notes repo, and will use that sometimes as well.

Personally, I don’t find that I do a lot of “deep writing” on my phone, as opposed to quick recall or in-the-moment scratch padding. So as long as I have a way to access my notes, make quick edits, and then sync them with my laptop (where I’ll do my primary thinking later), then I’m pretty content.

qbasic_forever3• 5 years ago

Look into gitjournal if you're storing and editing markdown from git repos: https://gitjournal.io/ It's very nice in my experience.

austinvhuang• 5 years ago

I'm working on local-first OSS for this sort of second brain thing called OpenMemex. The data store is sqlite (wasm/rust frontend) with programmable integrations in mind:

https://github.com/austinvhuang/openmemex

lostintangent5• 5 years ago

Looks really interesting! Thanks for sharing

kamalkishor1991• 5 years ago

This is exactly what I am building. It has vs code editor, markdown, GitHub sync and many more interesting features for developers https://upnotes.io

GitHub.dev is great but I personally prefer to take notes locally without internet affecting my node taking.

mteoharov• 5 years ago

After signing up for a trial I went to input my phone so I can use the SMS feature and there is this: "*Currently only supporting US phone numbers.". It would have been nice to know this prior to signing up.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Noted. Feel free to email me at hello [at] tatatap.com we might be able to figure something out

csbartus• 5 years ago

Great stuff !! It's juicy. Basic features, at first sight, which prove very useful and extensible, customizable at a second read. Things you don't think you need, but it would be very nice to have.

I use plain markdown + folder structure because I have nothing better (I left Obsidian after an update made all my notes unavailable).

If there is a note-taking service to subscribe for, this will be. The only impediment, for now, is that I'm making notes in the editor, not online and/or via messages.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Hey HN,

Creator of /tap here. Thanks for all the great discussion! If there's anything I can answer related to the product, process, reasoning, where /tap is headed LMK!

ithkuil• 5 years ago

I like the reminders spell. Unfortunately it works only with SMS text message and only US is supported, which means I can't use this product :-(

Why not reminders by email?

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Yes. It will happen.

optymizer2• 5 years ago

I follow an unwritten rule that I will always congratulate anyone on shipping anything. Shipping anything is hard and deserves praise, so congratulations!

Unfortunately I'm also realizing that I got to a point in life where I just roll my eyes when I see yet another note-taking, or to-do app, or any other spin on the same trivial problem that we solved 1000 years ago and now are just beating a dead horse, almost like a developer endlessly rewriting a piece of code to make it perfect instead of taking the old "it's good enough" approach and moving on to fix the other problems in the codebase.

The note-taking apps are good enough. Even pen and paper is good enough.

I know I shouldn't react like that, because it's not fair to the author - they had an idea for a better product and worked hard to ship it, and probably learnt a ton along the way; maybe they'll even make a good chunk of money, but is there no point at which we're allowed to say "You don't get much praise anymore because you're the millionth developer who figured out how to duct tape some methods written by others to create a weather app. We collectively ran out of praise for solutions in that specific problem domain. And we're sure as hell not paying for it"?

I feel like everyone's just trying to make a buck with their tiny spin on the same idea. Of course there's a subscription on the note-taking app. And let me guess, the next note-taking app is going to have more real-time interactions, and fancy animations, and it's going to sync with the notes your cat takes and you can print them out once a month on this slick looking notepad that gets mailed to you.

I hate that I ended up old and cynical. I used to have starry eyes.

haswell• 5 years ago

The note taking space is interesting to me. You say the problem is solved, and yet, every time I see a new app in this space, I perk up because I hope that maybe this is the one that will resonate/work for me.

Note taking is a deeply personal process. Physical notebooks as a medium are infinitely flexible but apps are not. This means that 100 different people writing notes on paper might be doing so in 100 different ways.

I’d argue that this is why this is such a crowded (or rich) product category.

I often find that <very popular “ultimate” note taking app> is not for me, and I find myself hoping for something that fits my particular needs and habits. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to build my own.

All of this to say: I don’t think the cynicism is needed here. Even if this is a solved problem for you, it’s not for all of us, and I think the evidence that this is true is found in the fact that developers keep looking for new ways to solve this problem.

optymizer2• 5 years ago

I have to say this makes sense to me, and I've always known that I'm just not in the target audience for these apps, but if you'll allow me to poke some fun at your comment for a second, I'd paraphrase it as "my note-taking needs are so intricate that nobody has hit the right spot yet. I need a perfect soup of features coded and exposed to me in just the right way so that when I finally write down a note I have a mental orgasm" :)

Joking aside, I personally think it's more important to focus my attention on the substance of the note, rather than the process of taking the notes, though the two aren't in conflict with each other, except for the times when they take away from your time and mental bandwidth.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Totally! I made tap and I still use org-mode for a lot of stuff! I think we all think slightly different things when we hear "notes" It is both an artifact and also a system for capturing the artifacts. the artifact is often, but not always, just some boring text -- but the way it is captured and used can be really interesting and as varied as the artifacts themselves. _so. many. possibilities._!

MR4D• 5 years ago

My opinion is slightly different - I don’t think note taking is about the app, but rather about the process. Because of that, all of us will always be looking for something to make that process something better than we currently experience.

To me, it’s either paper, Notepad(or any simple text app), or Excel. Everything else is about the process.

But then, maybe I’ve become old and crusty and just don’t know it yet. Sigh.

loceng• 5 years ago

I've come to think the missing piece is a system or process of helping each person experiment through different note taking styles or systems, until they find what resonates best with them, or exposing them to various systems, different ones which they may realize work best for different contexts of what they're doing - for different projects or mental contexts, etc.

I too have an idea for a "note taking" app - essentially better streamlining, automating, and extending what I currently do - but maybe the process or steps I currently take are integral to what I currently do working. Who knows. Will I ever get the chance to create the custom "note taking" app that I envision? Who knows.

For now, because of my situation with severe chronic pain and how it impacts/disrupts my executive function, I will have multiple TODO lists on q-cards, and dozens and dozens TODO lists in various notes on my laptop and phone, none of which are synchronized - most of them lost to the past and therefore inherently part of a backlog of relatively unimportant things that otherwise would surface again in my mind or life if they were important enough.

mcbishop• 5 years ago

I assume most note-taking apps originated with someone figuring out what system / process resonates for them. But ultimately that system / process is optimal only for that person. I've given up on adapting an off-the-shelf app... in part because I lack the self awareness here to know what's optimal for me. It's only in the process of working it out for myself on a basic canvas (e.g. a spreadsheet, text files, pen and paper) that I'll have any idea what will work and stick. I'm many iterations into that process. I'll look to /tap for inspiration! It looks awesome, props.

heresie-dabord2• 5 years ago

Note taking is a deeply personal process.

Yes. All the more reason not to encumber it with large dependencies, proprietary code, or fragile, transient technologies.

I switched to using git as a repository of structured notes. The schema is simple. I can pull notes to various machines, I can archive the repository, I can track changes.

"Everything should be as simple as possible and no simpler." -- attributed to a rather good physicist.

jrm42• 5 years ago

See, the thing is-- MANY times in the past I've "perked up," nearly 100% that I'll switch from the thing I started with -- and end up ALWAYS going back, forgetting how much I have to put in.

This is why I think some cynicism here might be healthy; I think software has a LOT of wasted repeated effort by developers; mostly due to a little too much "let me make a product" mentality and not enough "free/open source" mentality*

and again before the pitchforks come out, I'm emphatically not saying FOSS is always superior, but I do think this balance is presently off.

protomikron• 5 years ago

So ... what features do you often miss/would you like to see implemented?

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Thanks! I made /tap and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The thing is, working on tap has been and continues to be fun! I think there are so many note-taking apps because a. they _can be_ easy to make and b. because everyone has their own way they want to take a note. I think of tap less as a note-taking system, more like the system to make the system. Sure there's a long way to go to _fully_ realize that, but I think we're headed in the right direction.

I like seeing tap used for stuff I didn't anticipate. And that's what it's all about for me. Like, you could just use the API and never log into /tap at all.

Also, maybe you're not into this kind of thing, how many note-taking systems have S-expression formulas that support nested functions?

smoldesu• 5 years ago

how many note-taking systems have S-expression formulas that support nested functions?

Obsidian, Workflowy, Roam Research, Dynalist, Quire, Asana and Org Mode, just to name a few off the top of my head.

dmje• 5 years ago

Congratulations are indeed due, so ditto there.

I have to say I have the same response - dammit, not another one - but I'm rather more interested in our complete fascination with these tools. Like - I have my note taking / knowledge stuff pretty much nailed [+] but STILL I always find myself clicking through on posts like this. Like many others on HN, I'm absolutely, unbearably, totally addicted to considering and re-considering my methodology in the notes / to-do space, even though I'm really happy with what I've got.

When I try to analyse this I realise there's a part-dopamine level thing (I love a beautiful, clean UI and idea), partly a wishful thinking (man, if only I could remember X, maybe this is the tool to help me!), and partly (this is the hard one to admit to but I would bet money on many other HN types as being here with me) an addiction with process, pure and simple. Anything to not actually have to DO that thing I need to do - oh look, I could review a tool that'll help me procrastinate a while longer.

It reminds me of the me when I was 16 and "revising" for GCSE exams. I spent about 90% of my time re-formatting and colouring in my revision timetable rather than actually doing the work of revision. That me is still here, only now it's notes apps rather than colouring in...

Finally - I think admitting that there simply isn't a perfect tool that will enable All The Things and Make Me A Much More Effective Person is much, much harder than the alternative which is to keep the Holy Grail somewhere in my consciousness, and keep on clicking those damn notes app links :-)

[+] In case anyone cares, I've used them all but I'm really happy with current 3-pronged approach: Evernote for transient / meeting / throwaway notes. TickTick for to-do's. Dokuwiki for longer term / journaled / documentation type stuff. All connected together via the common beauty of hyperlinks. Hook for Mac is amazeballs for this...

xpressvideoz• 5 years ago

I second TickTick. I've used tens of to-do apps and it resonated with me the most.

friedman23• 5 years ago

Note taking is solved, find me an app that solves note organizing and note retrieval and I will pay for that

hanche• 5 years ago

I wonder sometimes if note organizing isn’t a lost cause. If we could just solve note retrieval, who cares about organizing? I want to make a note when I find out something useful, and I want to retrieve that note when I need the information (or when I find out more, so I can amend the note). Organization seems orthogonal to that desire.

interleave• 5 years ago

Oh my, I've gotten similarly cynical as of late for practically the same reasons.

But before anything else, congratulations on the launch!

I've narrowed down to pen and paper[^1] and Obsidian for later remixing and publishing[^2]

Having gotten used to how usable and fast pen and paper is, I wanted the same feeling: Take a quick markdown note while working without having to keep Obsidian running in the background, switch to Obsidian to write and to leave my keyboard.

None of the existing note-taking menu bar apps[^3] had what I needed. So I made my own that fits my needs perfectly[^4].

A single global hotkey ⌘-⌥-N opens the note popover, ⌘-S saves the note into my Obsidian vault.

If you want, check it out! It's the simplest, least-frills way I could come up with to jot down a markdown note

[^1]: My pen and paper notebooks: https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/%E2%AD%90%EF%B8%8F...

[^2]: My digital garden: https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/

[^3]: Note-taking Menu Bar Apps: https://www.macmenubar.com/note-taking-apps/

[^4]: QuickDown.app: https://github.com/akaalias/quickdown

humblepie• 5 years ago

I like seeing new ideas, and I'm one who has already settled on one note-taking technique. Discovering new ideas helps me incorporate new methods and also see some flaws to my techniques. That's all fine.

It's understandable we sometimes feel fatigued on watching these assembly-line of apps coming our way, but it's new ideas and not products that excite me.

blippage• 5 years ago

The note-taking apps are good enough. Even pen and paper is good enough.

It works for me too! I have a working piece of paper that I jot down notes on, plus whatever I need to do. If the "to do" is "long-term" enough, I have a lined A4 piece of paper for this purpose. I add it to the list.

For note-taking, I write stuff down in my "lab book", or on my personal website. Easy.

It's like the time I cobbled together a couple of ESP32's to act as an alarm system. The problem is, the Wifi was a bit marginal, and Wifi is always subject to drops anyway. My dad's solution: use a whistle.

RivieraKid• 5 years ago

I feel like everyone's just trying to make a buck with their tiny spin on the same idea.

Lol, exactly. My first thought after seeing the landing page was "there has to be a Pricing link in the top right menu".

From a rational perspective, there's absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to get financial reward for their work. But subconsciously there's something about it that really annoys me, I'm not sure what.

verifex• 5 years ago

I know what it is, it's the idea that someone can write code once, and someone else should pay to maintain it forever using a subscription model. The craziness of this space is that people think that maintaining a tiny footprint on a server somewhere is somehow worth $10 a month boggles my mind. You can buy access to most basic file-syncing services for that much. Why isn't a note-taking app, even a very advanced one, not just a simple one-time payment? If you want to haggle about paying for new versions, sure, but most of the "services" space is full of rent-seeking people, which is probably the thing that rubs you the wrong way.

Another way of thinking about it: Most MMORPGs that charge monthly fees are around $10 a month too, does a note-taking app somehow involve as much work as maintaining the massive-infrastructure and maintenance nightmare of running a MMORPG? If not, why is the pricing so similar?

jrm42• 5 years ago

So, having also spent LOADS of time and energy in this space, I basically agree, but I feel like there is a "solution" out there that requires a slightly different "level of abstraction." Let's take two "extremes" that I know, At one end ( pretty much always is Emacs) and at the other, perhaps something like Obsidian or Zim-Wiki.

I think the missing link here is "programmability" or "extensibility." Feels like there should be something as extensible as Emacs by the individual user that could also be as initially user friendly as an Obsidian or Zim-Wiki -- but why those might not be good enough is that there's really no "extensibility built-in," which I think is distinguishable from mere "tons of plugins?"

danShumway2• 5 years ago

There's some very cool ideas here, I like the approach it's taking with composability, it's an interesting project. And the integration into other systems seems kind of inspired in some ways, getting a summary email or doing stuff with text messages seems gimmicky in theory but I bet it actually feels great and ends up being useful in practice. Probably a lesson there about the benefits of integrating with multiple systems/primatives that people already know how to use and build on as a way of encouraging them to be more flexible/creative.

However, and it's a big however:

Speaking as someone who once did a ton of handwritten notetaking in OneNote, and then realized that the export options at the time made it practically impossible for me to carry those notes forward as my setup evolved, and that I was about to potentially lose somewhere between 1 to 2 years of my notetaking life, the "I need to know that when I put my brain in this that I can get it back out" worry is pretty real.

It's not even just data export, OneNote had this cool thing where it would search the text of handwritten notes, which encourages you to take handwritten notes. It's great because handwritten notes feel good to write but are disorganized, so you could kind of bridge the gap. But the problem is that then even if you do get the images out, all that functionality is gone suddenly. So similarly, lets say I do use an API to back up all my notes, am I going to build extensive infrastructure around integrating with SMS and a CLI that all just gets thrown away some day?

After OneNote, it's very hard for me to consider using a notetaking app that doesn't talk about its data format/export on its homepage. Digging through the blog posts, I can see some talk about Open Source data formats, which is good, but only partially assuages my fears. But in general, /tap is immediately talking about REST APIs on its homepage, which, cool, I do think that's a cool idea. Is there actually an overlapping Venn diagram between people who are using a note system that's so comprehensive it's sending them text reminders, and people who know how to make REST requests, and people who aren't very paranoid about owning their own data?

I pay subscriptions for other people to host stuff that I don't want to dig into the technical weeds for; I pay for Wallabag hosting because I have stuff to do with my life that doesn't involve running security updates on a Wallabag server. I'm really happy to pay for services like that, especially if its in the $1-10 a month range, which /tap is. But importantly, I could self-host Wallabag if I needed to, today, without losing any functionality and without needing to rebuild any of my infrastructure that integrates with Wallabag. I could migrate my data both to the new self-hosted service or to a competing service, or I could even pay another 3rd-party to host Wallabag for me again, and point my URLs to their servers. So I don't have a bunch of hesitations in the back of my mind about giving someone money to host that kind of service because it's less of a risk to do so.

On the other hand, with /tap, with a system where I am literally putting part of my brain into the computer, I think I need stronger guarantees about how it's going to work and what will happen after it gets bought by Google.

joe875643817• 5 years ago

I hear you. What guarantees about how it works do you have in mind?

You may be interested in just the parsing component of /tap, which is open source https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat

danShumway2• 5 years ago

I did see the parsing component, and it looks good. My worry though is that even with the parsing format being good, you're not really selling this as a parser; it doesn't seem like the text format is the most exciting part of this.

With notes in specific, because they're such an important part of my life, I'm taking a very long-term view; what still exists after 15 years? Everything else is kind of ethereal and doesn't matter because I can't really invest into building systems around something that will disappear suddenly. So I look at /tap through that lens: what parts of this still exist if tomorrow the developer either gets bough by Google or joins an Amish community?

It seems like it's only the parser? Not the SMS stuff, not the visualization or searching, not emailing, not how the ledger works, not the API. And again, it seems like a good parser, but I already have some decent parsers I use for taking notes in text format, that's a somewhat crowded space that's hard to compete in.

----

I may not be the kind of customer you are trying to target, and that's fine, but I'll try to explain more clearly what I mean.

When I think back to OneNote, I built systems around something that stopped working for me, and then those systems all had to be rebuilt from scratch. It was a huge loss of time investment that outweighed any monetary investment. If I'm thinking long-term about my notes, I'm paying $7 for... basically just document storage, I can't really build around the API or the SMS or email integration, because that stuff doesn't exist in a permanent form, it's all ethereal and it all goes away if you join Google. In some ways it's even worse than that, because the focus on SMS integration means I'm likely to get heavily reliant on SMS for notetaking, which is a huge issue if I ever need to self-host anything and realize suddenly that building apps around SMS handling is very difficult. I've now kind of accidentally made my life much harder.

But I compare that situation to something like Matrix/Wallabag, apps where prices for official hosting are basically in the same neighborhood as /tap and that cost me very similar amounts of money to subscribe to:

- I'm getting a lower barrier of entry that means I can start relying on the project before I ever learn anything about hosting.

- I'm getting the chance to build infrastructure around an actively supported piece of tech, where I don't have to solve all of my own problems.

- I'm paying for short-term uptime guarantees.

- I'm paying to have to think less about security.

- I'm paying to not have to think about the horror of integrating with SMS/Email notifications

In theory, I would be paying for the same stuff in /tap, but in practice I'm not because the SMS features and integrations and stuff don't actually exist in the long-term. Everything except the parsing format is ethereal and is going to go away.

So I have a short-term uptime guarantee from /tap that's higher than my own would be, at the cost of needing to redo my entire infrastructure and needing to figure out hosting from scratch in the future. I can think less about security right now, at the cost of needing to build my own product some day where all of those security problems will come back in full-force even worse. I have a lower barrier of entry now, but later on I have to drop everything and start from scratch, and I won't be able to really do anything with my notes when that happens other than parse them until I rebuild my own solutions for stuff like repeated tasks. I can build infrastructure around an actively supported tech stack, except that tech might all vanish one day, so I can't really rely on any infrastructure that I build, or on any other service that relies on /tap.

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It's difficult to put into words, but I want to feel like I am paying for a service, not for a technology. With Matrix/Wallabag/insert-whatever, I get to temporarily not think about problems that are annoying, but I could think about them if I needed to. If something goes wrong, I could even pay another person to think about them and keep putting that problem off. And that means the service is just making my life easier, I'm just paying for people to solve problems for me and to deal with things I don't want to deal with. I'm paying for someone else to help me use a piece of technology.

In contrast, with /tap, I'm paying for access to that technology just as much as I'm paying for any service, which far from solving problems actually introduces problems in my life, because it would add new API requirements for whatever custom solution I'll need to eventually build when the company pivots or gets bought out or dies.

In a weird way, because notes are a long-term investment, the exclusivity around the tech means the value proposition for me as a user is much lower than the value proposition from more open applications, because kind of summing up everything above, a concept that encapsulates a lot of these ideas is that I'm paying for peace of mind, I'm paying to have someone take my worries away and to stress about stuff like hosting for me. And /tap's approach to peace of mind seems to be "don't worry, you can rebuild everything yourself if something goes wrong." The only way I'd get peace of mind out of that is if I paid you for hosting and then only used the REST API and only after reimplementing the entire REST API myself locally. But it's not worth $7 a month for me to do that, I want solutions that I don't have to plan around a bunch, I want solutions that don't give me anxiety when I think about the future. Parsing is a very small part of that, I'm not really worried that no one would be able to figure out how to parse a documented text format if /tap went down, I'm worried about everything else.

Again, I am probably not your ideal customer, so I think take that with a grain of salt. But my perspective is that I want a service that makes me feel more confident about the long-term, not less. I feel like if I was setting up auto-responders or integrating Tasker with my SMS app on my phone around /tap -- I don't think I'd feel confident about any of those systems, /tap seems to be encouraging me to build some very long-term fragile solutions/integrations for my notetaking setup.

dysoco2• 5 years ago

You might be already be aware of this but you might want to take into account the fact that many countries do not use SMS at all, first because it's non-free/expensive and secondly because people have just grown used to not even realize it's an option.

Here in South America it's ALL Whatssapp, I don't think I've ever sent an SMS in 10 years.

Naac• 5 years ago

The same thing is unfortunately happening in the US. I would assume that iphone to iphone communication over imessage also does not go through traditional sms.

LasEspuelas2• 5 years ago

I would love to introduce you to every one of the group sms monstrosities that arise every time my children join a new activity. Why do people insist on doing this?

joe875643817• 5 years ago

Noted. FWIW SMS is not a requirement to use /tap. And I would love to build more messaging integrations. email me with suggestions!

dysoco2• 5 years ago

With WhatsApp you already cover probably 90% of Latin America and Europe; Telegram would be really nice to have since it's gaining traction and it's popular among tech-savvy users.

Russia and Asia probably use other apps like WeChat, honestly no idea.

junon• 5 years ago

Whatsapp has a business API pretty much exactly for stuff like this.

rytrix• 5 years ago

Noted. FWIW SMS is not a requirement to use /tap. And I would love to build more messaging integrations. email me with suggestions!

LINE messenger in Southeast Asia KakaoTalk in South Korea

mbanerjeepalmer• 5 years ago

Telegram not would also do the job.

theelous3• 5 years ago

Europe here - I saw the sms part and just wrote it off as some boomer note taking app. People use sms in the US? Just ...why?

derrikcurran• 5 years ago

SMS sucks, but it's ubiquitous. The rest of the messaging market is heavily fragmented.

jraph• 5 years ago

Europe here too. SMS is still my main way of writing short messages to people. I refuse to use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp and that's what most people use. I could not even use WhatsApp, my phone is not supported.

Thankfully Signal is taking off in my friend circles, but SMS is what will work best on my phone and what will wake it up. Signal works well when I'm on my computer.

SMS is also what I'm 100% sure will work when contacting someone through their mobile phone number.

johnchristopher• 5 years ago

Ooh, interesting. Leveraging SMS mass pricing with shot commands. Brings back memories from the before Smartphone era. I wonder if this could take off with people so used to GUI now.

anonymouse0082• 5 years ago

The only issue I have yet to solve with SMS is security. They are by nature completely and totally open... and there doesn't seem to be a good fix other than sending encrypted text, which defeats the purpose of the convenience of SMS

jonititan• 5 years ago

Were you inspired by Zim?

https://zim-wiki.org/

joe875643817• 5 years ago

I haven’t seen Zim until now, very cool.

fellowniusmonk• 5 years ago

This is the most similar note taking app to my long term note taking app I built for myself. Very good!

beebeepka• 5 years ago

Open a text file. Enter text. Save with a proper name. Done.

No need for connectivity or any additional complexity

ModernMech• 5 years ago

The flag made of hands is a thing out of my nightmares.

CalebAzunobi• 5 years ago

Nice

pugworthy• 5 years ago

There are so many, "the best note taking/whatever thing ever" posts, I just don't read them anymore. It's a saturated market at least for me.

* edit * I see I'm not the only one

subhro• 5 years ago

Another subscription….

sigh

fredguth• 5 years ago

Signup asked for email/password and complained of invalid phone number.

bhandel• 5 years ago

Brice here from the /tap team, please email us at hello [at] tatatap.com and we’ll get you sorted out. Thanks.

pqs2• 5 years ago

Congratulations for the launch. I really like the idea of being able to interact with my notes through messaging. I would like to see this as a feature of Evernote. Now I can email notes to Evernote, which I use all the time, I can also send Telegram messages to Evernote, thanks to IFTTT, but I cannot perform searches using email or messaging, which is what this tool is made for. I hope that the guys at Evernote copy the idea once they solve the more basic issues they have now.

pqs2• 5 years ago

I have also thought that this app is, in fact, a CLI app, through messaging. It reminds me taskwarrior a lot, which is a task manager that allows to add notes to the task, similarly to how /tap does.

/tap – Powerful and customizable note-taking system

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