Hey y’all. I’ve been testing a bunch of Note taking solutions and nothing seems to check off what I want and need.

I want a simple interface (both for list view and note editor/view), preferably similar to Google Keep, but a regular list is fine as well.

Key features:

A. being able to drag and drop re-order checkbox lists.

e.g.

  • [ ] item 1
  • [ ] item 2
  • [x] item 4
  • [x] item 3

I’d like to be able to just drag and drop the above to sort things correctly.

B. E2EE at rest.

C. CTRL+F inside the note view/edit!!

Honestly, the only functionality I truly want is A. But most of the solutions I found are either proprietary or can’t do it.

Self hosted options I’ve tried:

  • Joplin (can’t do A; UX is not great)
  • Standard notes (A + C is gated by their self hosted premium subscription; I don’t mind paying for my apps, but the prices are ridiculous)
  • Silverbullet.md (can’t do A)
  • Quillpad (very similar to Google Keep and can do A, but has terrible file syncing, not E2EE)

Notesnook looks almost as insane as Standard Notes to self host (mimicing AWS stack locally is nuts). Has anyone tried Notesnook yet? I don’t want to spend another afternoon setting something heavy up only to find that the feature I want is gated by a heavy $.

Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Woops! I am looking to use the notes app on both Android and Web/Desktop Linux. Preferably an open source solution.

  • BackYardIncendiary@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 hour ago

    Not for everyone, but I use a self-hosted single user email server for this. All the formatting your client permits, clients for every platform, attachments, organization into folders, synced automatically everywhere, etc. No spam filtering, MARC, DKIM, and the like because you only ever email yourself and you don’t permit external senders. I love it.

  • daytonah@lemmy.ml
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    9 hours ago

    Obsidian and good ol’ paper and pen. (or epaper). The paper I use is on bullet jpurnal style.

  • nycki@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    code editors might have the features you want, and its easy to repurpose a code editor into a notes app.

    sync a folder between your devices (syncthing is great for this) and put markdown text files in it. I like to call this folder “Memo” since its like writing letters to myself.

    edit the markdown using VS Code (desktop) or Carbon (android). I haven’t tested whether Carbon can do this, but I know in VS Code, you can reorder a list with keyboard shortcuts.

    click anywhere on a line of text, then hold Alt and press Up arrow, and the text will swap places with the line above it.

    edit: Syncthing and Carbon are open source. VS Code has some proprietary code added by Microsoft, but none of it is relevant to your use case, so you may prefer the fork called Codium.

  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    16 hours ago

    Hi quaff!

    The app I use for this purpose is called Notally, on android. It supports reordering the checkboxes, but it doesn’t do find in page or sync to web (although it can do backup /restore – I sync the folder with nextcloud and I can access the text files)

    That said if you try it, you might love how simple it is and use it for something!

    https://f-droid.org/packages/com.omgodse.notally

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    19 hours ago

    I self-host Notesnook and found it easy to set up. Been using it as my main note-taking app for years now and I’m really happy with it.

    • quaff@lemmy.caOP
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      18 hours ago

      Are you able to drag & drop to reorder checkbox list items in notes? 🙏

      • communism@lemmy.ml
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        17 hours ago

        Yes, if you use the “task list” block. You can also have checkbox bullet points but I don’t use them, not really sure what the use-case for those are when you can just use the task list.

    • quaff@lemmy.caOP
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      18 hours ago

      Whoa. This actually works pretty close. Although, I am not seeing the ability to drag and drop re-order list items. Which is the big feature I want and need.

      I am seeing in their github issues that CKEditor doesn’t support it. Thanks for the suggestion though!

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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    1 day ago

    Others have mentioned Syncthing as a sync solution. I’d like to add a couple points:

    Syncthing can work fine even for solutions that are intended to use their own sync, provided it’s a single-user setup. You’re not likely to make simultaneous changes on 2 devices, so collisions are unlikely.

    Also for using Syncthing, I recommend Syncthing-Fork for Android - it moves sync conditions into the folder/job rather than global. Very useful when you have jobs you want always syncing, and jobs you want to only sync on wifi and power.

    If using iOS there’s an ST client called Möbius Sync ($5), developed by a company the financially supports Syncthing.

    For Windows, get SyncTrayzor - it makes running and managing ST easier.

  • orosus@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I use Logseq with ToDoList plugin to handle task list. Logseq is similar to obsidian but open-source. And to syncronize notes among devices, I use syncthing. No need to selfhost.

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.uk
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      9 hours ago

      +1 on all of this.

      Logseq basically saved my mind when I took on a new job where I needed to take a lot of notes quickly, easily and keep track of all the ToDos.

      Syncthing keeps my laptop and phone in sync (with my NAS) so I can start notes on my laptop and then finish on my phone.

      You can definitely reorder checkboxes, but on Android it’s still not quite a smooth experience, but it’s ok.

    • tom@jlai.lu
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      1 day ago

      I also recommand Task.org app to sync tasks with CalDAV and I use raw Markdown files with WebDAV, both using the DAVx5 app for synchronization. For editing Markdown, I prefer minimalist apps that suit my needs. Right now, I find SimpleMarkdown (with disabled telemetry) to be the best choice.

      • quaff@lemmy.caOP
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        21 hours ago

        SimpleMarkdown doesn’t allow for re-ordering checkbox list items.

    • quaff@lemmy.caOP
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      21 hours ago

      I already use Tasks.org :) But that’s for specific things.

      I like writing list of things. Like groceries, and as I write them, I tend to re-organize them. Having the ability to re-order the items easily helps me tremendously.

      Tasks.org can’t fill that note aspect. Let alone re-ordering a task.

      • conrad82@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        I see 🙂

        I used emacs org-mode before. Can do a lot of stuff on PC, but mobile experience was lacking. And learning curve is crazy

        I am currently testing out logseq + syncthing. I don’t reorder things much anymore though

        Good luck!

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I spent several years looking for the perfect selfhosted solution to this, but ultimately I realized an offline solution was just going to be better. So I started using Obsidian which is as simple or complex as you want with no paywall.

    Some of the self hosted solutions I’ve tried were: