ybhwang / notable

The markdown-based note-taking app that doesn't suck.

Notable (DOWNLOAD)

The markdown-based note-taking app that doesn't suck.

I couldn't find a note-taking app that ticked all the boxes I'm interested in: notes are written and rendered in GitHub-flavored Markdown, no WYSIWYG, no proprietary formats, I can run a search & replace across all notes, notes support attachments, the app isn't bloated, the app has a pretty interface, tags are indefinitely nestable and can import Evernote notes (because that's what I was using before).

So I built my own.

Features

/path/to/your/data_directory
├─┬ attachments
│ ├── foo.ext
│ ├── bar.ext
│ └── …
└─┬ notes
  ├── foo.md
  ├── bar.md
  └── …

• No proprietary formats: Notable is just a pretty front-end for a folder structured as shown above. Notes are plain Markdown files, their metadata is stored as Markdown front matter. Attachments are also plain files, if you attach a picture.jpg to a note everything about it will be preserved, and it will remain accessible like any other file.

• Proper editor: Notable doesn't use any WYSIWYG editor, you just write some Markdown and it gets rendered as GitHub-flavored Markdown. The built-in editor is CodeMirror, this means you get things like multi-cursor by default. If you need more advanced editing features with a single shortcut you can open the current note in your default Markdown editor.

• Indefinitely nestable tags: Pretty much all the other note-taking apps differentiate between notebooks, tags and templates. IMHO this unnecessarily complicates things. In Notable you can have root tags (foo), indefinitely nestable tags (foo/bar, foo/.../qux) and it still supports notebooks and templates, they are just special tags with a different icon (Notebooks/foo, Templates/foo/bar).

Upon first instantiation some tutorial notes will be added to the app, check out those for more in-depth details.

Comparison

+=============================+=================================+==============================================+======================================+=======================================+==================================================+========================================+=========================================+
|                             | Notable                         | Evernote                                     | Notion.so                            | Boostnote                             | Quiver                                           | Bear                                   | Simplenote                              |
+=============================+=================================+==============================================+======================================+=======================================+==================================================+========================================+=========================================+
| Free                        | ✔                               | △, with paid plans                           | △, with paid plans                   | ✔                                     | ✘, only during trial                             | △, with paid plans                     | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Open source                 | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✔                                     | ✘                                                | ✘                                      | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Cross platform              | ✔                               | ✔                                            | ✔                                    | ✔                                     | ✘                                                | ✘                                      | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| No account required         | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✔                                     | ✔                                                | ✔                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| No proprietary formats      | ✔                               | △, can only export to HTML                   | ✘                                    | ✔, but notes are stored in .cson      | △, no inside Text cells                          | △, can export to Markdown              | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| No WYSIWYG                  | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✔                                     | △, no inside Text cells                          | ✘, but it's a surprisingly decent one  | △, only if you set "Markdown formatted" |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| No bloat                    | ✔                               | ✘, work chat, webclipper, annotations etc... | ✘, spreadsheets, kanban board etc... | △, publish to blog, snippets          | △, presentation mode                             | ✔                                      | △, publish to website                   |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Pretty UI                   | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘, too much bloat                    | ✘                                     | ✘                                                | ✔                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| GitHub-flavored Markdown    | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✔                                     | ✔, only within Markdown cells                    | ✘                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Code syntax highlighting    | ✔                               | ✘, only generic code blocks                  | ✔                                    | ✔                                     | ✔                                                | ✔                                      | ✘, only generic code blocks             |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Attachments                 | ✔                               | ✔, but base64 encoded in HTML when exported  | ✔, but 5MB limit on free plan        | ✘                                     | ✔                                                | ✔                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Fuzzy search                | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✘                                     | ✘                                                | ✘                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Indefinitely nestable tags  | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✘                                     | ✘                                                | ✔                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Multi-note simple editing   | ✔                               | ✔                                            | ✘                                    | △, very limited                       | ✔                                                | ✔                                      | △, very limited                         |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Multi-note search & replace | ✔                               | ✘                                            | ✘                                    | ✔                                     | △, with some effort, notes are stored as .qvnote | ✘                                      | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Keyboard friendly           | ✔                               | ✔                                            | ✔                                    | △, can't toggle edit and preview mode | ✘, I couldn't edit a note without the mouse      | ✔, but some shortcuts are undocumented | ✘                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Mobile app                  | ✘, but notes are Markdown files | ✔                                            | ✔                                    | ✔                                     | ✘                                                | △, only iOS                            | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Synchronization             | △, via Dropbox/etc.             | ✔                                            | ✔                                    | △, via Dropbox/etc.                   | △, via Dropbox/etc.                              | ✔                                      | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Version control             | △, via Git                      | ✘                                            | ✔, but paid                          | △, via Git                            | △, via Git, but cumbersome .qvnote format        | ✘                                      | ✔                                       |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+

Part of this comparison is personal opinion: you may disagree on the UI front, things I consider bloat can be consider features by somebody else etc. but hopefully this comparison did a good job at illustrating the main differences.

Demo

Editor

Multi-Note Editor

Contributing

If you have an idea, or found an problem, please open an issue about it.

If you want to make a pull request, or fork the app, you should:

git clone https://github.com/fabiospampinato/notable.git
npm install
npm run svelto:dev
npm run iconfont
npm run tutorial
npm run dev

Related

• enex-dump: Dump the content of Evernote's .enex files, preserving attachements, some metadata and optionally converting notes to Markdown.
• Noty: Autosaving sticky note with support for multiple notes without needing multiple windows.
• Markdown Todo: Manage todo lists inside markdown files with ease. Have the same todo-related shortcuts that Notable provides, but in Visual Studio Code.
• Todo+: Manage todo lists with ease. Powerful, easy to use and customizable.

License

MIT © Fabio Spampinato