Note-Taking Apps Still Can't Link and Order Notes Well
Users are frustrated with the limitations of their note-taking systems. They desire more flexible organization, better linking capabilities, and ways to manage the balance between concise notes and comprehensive information. The current tools lack intuitive features for ordering, linking, and filtering notes effectively.
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“I actually might've found the solution to my problem a few hours ago. It is just for webpages (I wanna automate exporting to a unified pdf eventually) but it's gonna make it so much easier”
“With code snippets you can also control how the pages looked. I asked an AI for a code snippet to create a page view. So looks like a page layout view.”
“That's why Hand notes ate far superior. You make all visual choice, placement decisions, etc. Hands remember when you write through muscle memory.”
“As you can see, the settings are identical, but in the first one (these are grouped into notebooks), it’s showing all of the text in the top part of the note, but in the second one, it’s only showing the first heading and nothing else, even though in the actual note, there is text directly below the heading submitted by /u/DesparateBoredom [link] [comments]”
“I’d like to request two features that are already available in the Web UI: 1. Mark duplicate entries as read: When finishing a chapter that has duplicate entries, mark both the chapter that was read and all of its duplicate entries as read. 2. Skip duplicate chapters in the reader: When finishing a chapter, automatically skip any duplicate entries and go to the actual next chapter instead.”
“Good point! It's easy to miss those filters sometimes. I would definitely double-check them to see if anything's set up that's excluding the note.”
“It essentially works as a vertically placed bookmarks tab but it scratches a specific itch that I have aesthetically. that said, make.md itself really lags for me so I'd love to know if there was a way to use this specific element without the rest of the bells and whistles that come with make.md. I have fairly little experience with coding, I have also tinkered with claude to see if there could be something similar I could code that's more light on my system. However, that did not work o”
“That's a neat tip! Custom locations really help streamline the note-taking process and keep everything organized.”
“I'm a solo developer. This started because my notes are equation-heavy and I kept ending up with pages that were half converted text and half handwritten math. Nothing was searchable and it just didn’t look good – for every lecture, every semester. So the thing I actually built it for: handwriting turns into typed text as you write. No lasso, no convert button. Math does the same, comes out properly formatted, and it can solve the equation and shows the steps. I also took note of what people”
“Once you are in Quick Capture mode, tap on "Current Vault" button in the toolbar top right. You can then click "+" to create custom Locations, that point to a new note, daily note, and more.”
“I use for the top which is like misc notes related to my worldbuilding that doesn't fit in other folders and Z for the bottom which is unrelated and management notes, and the rest is just in the middle which is my worldbuilding notes. I don't really care to have them in a super specific way, so I just group them in those three areas.”
“u/kampi85 's Codeblock Customiser plugin is so great at making my cs notes look clean. It fits all my needs almost perfectly and I would 100% recommend. The only problem i have with it is that when exporting notes to pdf, the title/file name renders in a vertical line and i'm not entirely sure how to fix it 😅 Help with this would be much appreciated, thank you! submitted by /u/MrBannedBlocks [link] [comments]”
“Curious as to how others use in text back links effectively. I’m a fairly new users and at first I thought the back links would be super useful and started out adding them to lots of key words / nouns etc. However I very rarely actually created the page they were linked to. I have been using backlinks effectively as property parameters- very useful! It’s in the in text back links I’m struggling to find a use for Just curious what sort of words others are back linking? For reference, I mainly use”
“Well needed plug-in that’s been fun to play with. Thanks! That said I’ve encountered a few glitches on iPad for consideration. 1.) had to turn off the scribble setting for the Apple Pencil (in iPad settings) as pen strokes in obsidian were being translated to text (and very poorly). 2.) with a picture or PDF inserted, I’ve found palm rejection to still be a bit unstable. Palm tends to grab the image and then writing becomes difficult. 3.) when scrolling or zooming to view writing on the side of”
“I agree, and thank you! Do you - or anyone - have any advice on how to make it single spaced on my phone and also what to do on text I've already typed, other than bksp and then shift enter for every line? Shift Enter IS great for when I am typing though on my PC, so thank you for this!”
“It depends on the vault, some have numbered folders, some use ! or _ for the beginning and z for the end, and a few don't need any special sorting.”
“I only have 4 folders so I don’t really care much for their order. You can always add numbers before the folder name, 1.Inbox / 2. Notes / 3.Images, etc”
“I use "Manual Sorting" plugin to just drag and drop my files/folders to wherever I want them.”
“numbering just the top-level folders and leaving everything else unsorted seems like a good middle ground tbh”
I don’t sort beyond folders, I use tags everywhere and MOCs mostly.
“Try to hold only a few notes in each folder, at the cost of more folders. Try tags and properties, if you want to avoid more folders, at the cost of systematically define and maintain them.”
“wait you use omega to put things at the ? that's twisted in the best way, i've been using z like a chump this whole time”
“I use Ω to put things at the end of my sort. And _ for the beginning. Sometimes use ƒ or ∆ or ∂ or ¬ to prefix some folders to group them by type of thing. And I tend to name my bases starting with ß even though that's not a B character.”
“I use numeric prefixes (00, 01, 02...) instead of ! or z for the same reason but with more room to work with. Same idea, forcing a manual sort order, but you can slot something in between 01 and 02 later without renaming a pile of files, which you can't really do with a single bang character. That said, once you're navigating by Quick Switcher/search instead of browsing the folder tree by eye, sort order mostly stops mattering. I still number my top-level folders since I sometimes open t”
“In a checklist, currently the list of completed items is always expanded when a note is opened, regardless if it was collapsed or expanded upon exit. Most of the time, I don't want to see the completed items, and I would rather expand the list myself when needed. So I'd want the list to remember whether competed items are collapsed or expanded. Ideally the state is user specific so expanded/collapsed state could vary from user to user. That would significantly improve the girlfriend acceptance f”
This is probably the cleanest approach without needing a plugin tbh.
Export *only* linked mentions of a given note?
Trilium next is self hosted and will do everything you will ever need
Notepad ++. And 20 files with the name scheme "My Notes (X)"
“Outline works great. self-hosted and very similar to Notion: https://github.com/outline/”
“I've had the same challenge with lectures. So far, the system I've found to work is: A single note for the lecture itself. This has annotated slides and dot points on anything extra the lecturer mentioned, or questions raised during the class. As I'm creating this, I'll create placeholders for any important concepts by just typing [[]] around the word as it comes up. I find that keeping the lecture to a single long note lets me focus on recording notes live, rather than getting d”
“It's a little bit of a learning curve but I like Anytype a lot, because of the flexibility of types of data you can put in it and the way you can organize it all (and also because it syncs between devices including mobile, hardly unique of course but important, plus for me native Linux support). It just seems well thought out all around. Before, I used to use Evernote which I generally liked until they went nuts on the pricing and then migrated to OneNote which is.. ok-ish, but I never entir”
“I'm looking at Joplin for the sync side. To replace CherryTree for home use. But in office its onenote. Trying to get a new peace of software through checks is long and painfully.”
“I disagree with the advice of putting them into folders (though I don't know what these notebooks are). Thats because I suggest that you don't organize them just yet, and instead let them grow and start to form them into structures and folders based on what the content ends up showing and what needs arise. I could be wrong thou. P.s to the person who asked for plugins, I would emphasize the point the guy above made where he said to start with core plugins (only) at the start. If you try”
“It might still have the clunkiness but you could also try combining both options with embedded notes. You create and edit each individually but display them together.”
“I have a system that works fairly well for me when I take notes. I capture a transcript of a meeting/lecture/etc. I use AI to summarize the transcript, providing a concise breakdown of the key topics and takeaways I create my own set of Cornell Notes in my own words to help burn the topic into my memory My Cornell notes are the primary resource I reference, but I still preserve copies of both the original transcript and the AI summary. I don't always return back to them, but there have been”
“Right now I use Google docs, however I am writing a series of short stories so organising is getting a little difficult. I am will to pay if it means better organisation and cataloging. My only requirements are it needs a good spell check algorithm and I need to be able to share it somehow with my publisher/editors/layout Thank you! submitted by /u/alexx_with_love [link] [comments]”
“I think block anchors would better match how people expect a combined text + inking page to operate. I'm excited to see how you might implement it!”
“Hi everyone, Hope everyone is doing well. Currently all my notes and learning new tools/skills is linked to my work onenote. I want to use alternatively note taking tool beside onedrive that linked to work account for anything im learning for my own need. It has to similar features like one note where i can take screenshots and save them for reference. If you use or selfhost any tool let me know. I dont want something where am paying monthly subscription. Let me know submitted by /u/”
Ah I get you. Notebook Navigator would be one, I also have one called Chronology, I'll keep it in mind and make sure anything wth an index is worth it. Thank you.
You're not the only one, and I think the two things get conflated a lot. The version of backlinks people evangelize, sitting there wondering which of your notes are secretly related, never…
“In case it's helpful, here's a template I have for a "Full Citation". It's something I use to also get a link to the file that I can use: - {{bibliography | trim}}{% set f = attachments | filterby("path", "endswith", ".pdf") | first %}{% if f %}, [Local PDF](<file://{{f.path | replace(" ", "%20")}}>){% endif %}{% if DOI and DOI not in bibliography %}, [Link]( https://doi.org/{{DOI}}){% elif url and url not in bibliogra”
“As I try to build out the structure for my book, a thought occurs. Would it be possible to, optionally, use folder names as Chapters/Sections? I think it would be good if we could develop a folder, document structure like: Section 1 <folder> |_ Chapter 1 <folder> |_ Some topic <note> |_ Another topic <note> |_ Chapter 2 <folder> |_ Yet another topic <note> |_ Something Else <note> Section 2 <folder> |_ Chapter 3 <folder> |_ Blah <note>”
“Summary A Note can now move between Categories on the service and WebSocket surfaces ( 43, ADR 0003), but the bundled note panel offers no way to do it. The capability exists and the UI does not reach it. Current behavior ha note record panel.js sends woow ha records/note/update note for edits to title, content and pinned state. The command accepts an optional category id as of 43; the panel never sends it, and its edit form has no Category control. A user who wants to move a Note has to call th”
Hi ericerkz, Version 1.63 and latest Android App. I imported my google keep notes but none of the imported checklists came with indentations. If I make a note on my PC or…
“Before Submitting [x] I searched open and closed issues and discussions for an existing request. [x] I checked whether this already exists on the dev branch or latest source. [x] I understand that maintainers want a well written issue or discussion before any code pull request. [x] This request is not a security vulnerability. Problem Notes in Open WebUI are currently displayed as a flat, one dimensional list. As the number of notes grows, this becomes difficult to navigate and manage, with no w”
“I think I have found another way, but I need to go back and see if I can remember how! Right, I clicked on "Customize layout" and then clicked in the Property group. In the window that appears, I made the property visible by clicking on the eye icon and then clicked on the left of the property where the dots appear when you hover. Here it allows you to click on "Add to layout". It then appears on the page. You then need to click on "Apply to all pages" at top right.”
“I would say it depends more on the plugins then the notes. I use a lot of plugins and my laptop sometimes has a little trouble when under load. It is a bad laptop tho. So I wouldn't worry to much If I were you”
“I wouldn't let an LLM rewrite or link all 200 notes automatically. A safer approach would be to build a local semantic index, use similarity to surface possible connections, and then review the suggested pairs manually. That way the AI is helping with discovery rather than making permanent changes to the vault. If privacy is the main concern, local embeddings through Ollama would also avoid sending the notes to a cloud provider.”
“Pre flight checks [x] I searched existing issues and this isn't already requested. [x] I checked the documentation — this isn't already possible. Area UI Problem / use case Currently via settings (Property section actions) both "Insert missing fields" when the note is missing some and Show "Add a class" next to "Add property" are enable or disabled with one switch. Proposed solution Request: Make two separate switches. One for Show "Add a class", the other for Show "Insert missing fields" when t”