Best Note Taking Platforms

Discussion & Help
1

Any recommendations for note taking platforms to use with Hook? I have been testing Logseq and Obsidian. I use DEVONthink for content management.

I am looking for a platform to take meeting and class notes.

Thanks.

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2

We maintain a list of Linkable Mac Apps here, but the list is not complete.

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3

I can recommend Craft, it’s the most polished notes app I’ve ever used. Works great with Hook. It’s a subscription, unfortunately.

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Big thumbs-up for OmniOutliner. Rock-solid, customizable, very reliable. Syncs well across all my Mac and iOS devices.

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Related, I’ve posted this topic: Join me this week-end at Eastgate’s weekly Tinderbox meetup - Announcements - Hook Productivity Forum.

Also, my Cognitive Productivity books present note-taking techniques: particularly in their delve chapters. They also discuss note-taking software. There’s are also lots of content about note-taking / software on Hook’s Blog . Recently we’ve discussed BBEdit, OmniOutliner and Craft. There are also videos.

cf: Using Hook with DEVONthink by DEVONtechnologies – Hook.

There’s also this page: Better Note-taking – Hook.

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Currently only Obsidian supports deep linking, but Logseq has plans for it in the near future.
I use both Logseq and Obsidian, Obsidian for Longer notes related to my thesis and Logseq for daily notes and journaling about my life and what I learned from the internet (the outliner functionality and crosslinking between a part of the page is much better in Logseq, Logseq also has build-in spaced repetition functionality, which could be integrated easily with Anki)

If you don’t use advanced features you can use both together with the same files
How to use Logseq in sync with Obsidian - A step by step setup - YouTube

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7

Thank you, this is helpful.

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8

Thanks for the feedback. I have been meaning to test it out.

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Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. This looks like a great way to combine the strengths of the platform. I am going to try to set it up.

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10

I like, WORKFLOWY.

It has a terrible name (IMO) but it’s a great application. I’ve used it every day for about 5 years.

Note: I am not affiliated or connected to Workflowy in any way. This is just my personal experience after using it for several years and after experimenting with several other “personal knowledge management” apps. e.g. Notion, Obsidian, etc.

There’s a free and a Pro version. The free version is very good. I went Pro just to support the developer.

Basically, Workflowy is an outliner. There’s a web version and desktop versions for MAC, Windows, and Linux. Also IOS. Not sure about Android versions.

What I like:

  • Extremely simple to get started and to use. This might be its best feature. I’ve tried many “personal knowledge management” apps but they all require me to understand their data model. Workflowy is basically an outliner which I understood immediately the first time I opened it. This is also very helpful when sharing portions of an outline with another person. Most people understand how outlines work.

  • Intuitive and powerful navigation. It’s extremely easy to move around – even in very long outlines. Individual nodes can be starred to appear in a sub-panel.

  • Fast and reliable.

  • The outline can be viewed as an outline or as cards (like Trello). This applies to all of the outline or just selected portions of the outline.

  • Focus: Any node can be isolated to show only the top level and its children.

  • Tags: Supports tags (2 types)

  • Backlinks Supports Backlinks

  • Support “mirroring” of nodes. Mirrored nodes can be pasted into other parts of the outline. Changes to the original or mirror are reflected in both. This turns out to be quite handy.

  • Nodes can contain images, audio files, video.

  • Offline viewing if you have the desktop version.

  • Sharing: Can share all or just portions of the outline with others who do not have to own Workflowy. This is extremely useful.

  • Search: Powerful search capabilities

  • Export: Can export all or some of the outline in multiple formats including plain text.

  • Works with Hook. The web version works fine with Hook.

  • Dropbox integration.

  • Longevity: It’s been around for several years.

  • Regular updates and new features.

Workflowy is really a terrific application.

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11

For people who will read this and will be interested, Dynalist is similar (same developers as obsidian)
How is Dynalist different from WorkFlowy? - Dynalist Help Center Pnly sharing isn’t supported I think
Also Logseq as an outliner has many advantages of workflowy mixed with Obsidian local note approach.

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we can get the URL of the current Workflowy item, but not its name.

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Welcome to the Hook Productivity Forum , @SCCSaluda. and htanks for asking about that.

I got a response back from help@workflowy.com saying that their API isn’t supported yet, and that it is not currently designed for linking. They add:

The moment we do come out with an official API, we will make an announcement. It isn’t currently on our radar…

presumably if they get enough request they will finalize the API and be sure to include a method to get the name of the current item. Compare eContacting Developers of Other Apps and Information for Developers – Hook.

Having said that, we are about to release updated support for one of their competitors, and many devs have signed the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking…

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I can recommend Cognitive Productivity with macOS.

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15

Hi @LucB, the list mentions Noteplan2. I take it, Hook also works with the current Version, Noteplan3?

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Welcome to the Hook Productivity Forum , @lostintime . thanks for pointing that out. Yes it does.

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I use Witful. It’s an a web based app that links/organizes all my notes. It links to my Google calendar, making it easier to find all my meeting with “John Smith” or all my meeting titled “management” or i can simply use the search bar if i can’t remember where i put it. Super easy to use!

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Welcome to the Hook Productivity Forum, @Mtreat. Thanks for sharing that information.

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I’m using Hook with Noteplan 3 without problems.

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20

Thanks for sharing. The platform looks promising.

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