Just playing with a very promising, simple but elegant notes app (for macOS/iOS, I'm afraid - sorry!) called UpNote.

It's got a number of unusual features. These include:

- bookmarks that appear in a separate list
- the ability to pin notes to the top of the list (not particularly unusual, granted)
- the ability to remove notebooks from the sidebar without deleting them
- a "stay-on-top" function (why more apps don't have this beats me; it's exceptionally useful for note-taking)
- a very clean editor with simple formatting, but also checkboxes if you want them
- the ability to "pop out" notes in separate windows (especially useful in combination with the "stay-on-top" function)

Plus the developer is amiable and responsive!

It's still early days for the app; it could do with a more complete search function (it's very nicely designed, and works especially well on short notes, but isn't ideal for longer ones). It could also do with some way of rearranging notebooks in particular, but also more ways to sort the notes themselves. I've made a few suggestions; we'll see how they evolve!

It doesn't do tagging as such, but you can assign a note to multiple notebooks, so essentially, notebooks = tags.

Cheers!
Bill

Links are always good. Are you talking about this app?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/upnote-write-sync/id1398373917

If so I tried it last month. It seemed like just another in the cresting wave of 3-pane synced notes apps, a la Notebooks, Bear, CocoaNotes, Keep It, etc (not to mention the tsunami of Mac only variants).

I like the “stay-on-top” feature.

But, it uses an internal database ...no thanks.


I wish Keep It has that “stay-on-top” feature for each of the windows.

Just what we need, another Mac app in a niche market saturated with Mac apps...

Does it have a dark theme? Anybody know?

No, not yet.

Interesting that despite the relatively large number of developers who have recently entered or are already in this market niche, yet still they come - even when some apparently well-resourced examples such as NoteSuite have come and gone.

Dellu wrote:

I wish Keep It has that “stay-on-top” feature for each of
the windows.

I agree - pinning is a great idea. (What do you mean 'each of the windows' though?)

FYI while catching up with a backlog I see that TheSweetSetup's Josh Ginter noted in the 16th that he is now evaluating Keep It, and so far he likes it so much he thinks it could replace Bear in his workflow

https://thesweetsetup.com/three-apps-trying-week-july-16-2018/

A quick update on UpNote - the very responsive developer has fixed a couple of weak points: the notebooks in the navigation sidebar can now be manually reordered (excellent), and a notes count now appears alongside each notebook (telling you how many notes are in it).

Oh, and he's also releasing a Windows version in the near future. Very encouraging!

The website, for those interested, is at: https://getupnote.com it hasn't yet been updated to include references to the Windows version.

And UpNote continues to evolve - the latest version has been substantially improved.

Searches now highlight terms in notes (very fast and efficiently). Notebooks can be shown in the left-hand navigation bar or hidden, as preferred. And the developer has created a menu bar icon, so you can create notes or search all notes from the menu bar. Very convenient!

Because UpNote also has that all-too-rare feature, the ability to "stay on top", and because you can open notes in separate windows (and then instruct single windows to "stay on top"), it's rapidly becoming my go-to notetaker! Currently available for macOS X and iOS...

... still no mention of the Windows version on the website, but it was in development a couple of months ago (the website screenshots shows an older version of the search function, mind you, so probably hasn't been updated very recently).

Cheers,
Bill

UpNote continues to improve: now includes support for Markdown, which it turns into instant rich text. This includes checkboxes (created using a simple [], rather than the more conventional - [ ]).

It's a slightly peculiar hybrid, in that it recognises Markdown as you're inputting text, but doesn't automatically recognise it if you edit existing text (although ti does recognise rich-text shortcuts such as CMD+B etc.)

But it produces very elegant results, and tasks are dimmed when you tick a checkbox. Neat!

MadaboutDana wrote:

UpNote continues to improve: now includes support for Markdown, which it
turns into instant rich text. This includes checkboxes (created using a
simple [], rather than the more conventional - [ ]).

It's a slightly peculiar hybrid, in that it recognises Markdown as
you're inputting text, but doesn't automatically recognise it if you
edit existing text (although ti does recognise rich-text shortcuts such
as CMD+B etc.)

Thanks for the update, Bill.

Despite my somewhat jaundiced view of it succeeding in a crowded market, I have tried it as a result of your suggestion and I think it is as you say an elegant entry that is clearly being improved at a hectic pace at the moment. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

But it produces very elegant results, and tasks are dimmed when you tick
a checkbox. Neat!