Forum Posts Feed
Minimalist champions
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 5, 2013 at 04:51 PM
While I like minimalist interfaces, I miss rich text in many of the most popular note-taking apps. Not least because as a translator, I need to view two documents simultaneously - something that’s simply not possible in the vast majority of mobile apps, and increasingly difficult in many desktop apps.
I have a couple of favorite solutions. One is the vastly improved Microsoft OneNote, which now allows me to view OneNote pages properly on an iPad. This means I can put shorter texts side by side very easily - the iPad app’s new “full-page” view is ideal for viewing them easily on the smaller iPad screen. The other is Apple’s own Numbers, which I previously used as a OneNote equivalent. The import process was a bit trickier - where OneNote syncs smoothly with the desktop via SkyDrive, to get text into Numbers (without a Mac), I had to resort to opening documents in Pages and copying the text, then pasting it into a text box in Numbers. A rather cumbersome process!
I’ve also experimented with Circus Notebooks and Tapose (both capable of dual-pane display). Both are, alas, slightly less than perfectly stable, which can result in some infuriating moments. But I keep going back to Tapose in particular, because it’s such a promising idea…
Alfons Schmid has promised to look into a two-pane version of Notebooks (where you could view two notes side by side; Notebooks is already a two-pane outliner), but he’s got plenty of other things to focus on at the moment (beta releases of Mac and PC versions, for example).
There are, of course, a number of browser-based apps that also have note-taking functions, so are more or less two-pane in layout. But that’s not really the same thing at all.
If anybody knows of other two-pane rich-text editors (or even just text editors; especially cross-platform editors), I’d be interested. Maybe that should be a separate thread. And suggestions for what to call two-pane editors would be appreciated, too. Maybe three-pane outliners (assuming they have some kind of navigation view as well)?
Posted by Hugh
Aug 5, 2013 at 05:26 PM
I like Notebooks - an illustration of the effectiveness of popovers and Markdown (which could be regarded as minimalist tools).
Posted by Cassius
Aug 5, 2013 at 08:41 PM
Two-pane PIM for Windows.
Jot Plus.
Trivially simple to learn/use. Uses rtf and supports Web links, but not tables or images (but has links to images)..
Regrettably, development is moribund.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 5, 2013 at 09:17 PM
Sorry, I’ve been using confusing terminology. I’m not talking about two-pane outliners (I’ve used and long discarded Jot+). I’m talking about two-pane EDITORS, i.e. editors that are capable of displaying two pieces of text side by side. That might equate to three-pane (or multi-pane) outliners (examples in Windows include InfoRecall, Smereka TreeProjects, MyInfo etc.). But the trouble is, all these powerful Windows applications don’t have any cross-platform clients.
How about it, Yaroslav? What about TreeProjects for iPad? Or Android… ;-)
I’d be an instant customer (but you’d probably need a few more!).
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 5, 2013 at 09:28 PM
jimspoon wrote:
>I was thinking about getting this app for its Dropbox syncing feature,
>since Epistle no longer works for that.
Check out Denote. I turned to it because Epistle had trouble with non-English characters. It syncs with Dropbox and has a minimalist interface.
My basic set up for note taking is indeed minimalist, and includes a suite of programs working with plain text files syncing via Dropbox (of course); I would prefer an encrypted solution like Wuala, but that will have to wait.
- Denote on Android
- Tea, TextRoom / pyRoom, FocusWriter, Gedit / Leafpad on Linux
- Tea, WriteMonkey / TextRoom, FocusWriter, Emeditor on Windows
In addition, the following programs are part of my cross platform toolbox. I tend to favour a tool if it can run on my tiny Eee PC 901 on Lubuntu. No bloatware allowed.
- Rednotebook journal
- Notecase Pro
- Outwiker
- currently trying out Zim Desktop wiki and VYM mind mapper