Notes are to migrant workers what guns are to soldiers—I said so.
As a migrant worker for scientific research, most of my brick-moving content is code words, and these words are first recorded in the note-taking software. After trying out different software, I chose to use Joplin , a free, open-source note management software, for a long time.
I thought Jopin was my last piece of software. After all, the cost of migrating a large number of notes is uncomfortable to think about. But I like to try new software (this is why I often go to Minority), so after switching to MacBook Pro, I started to try other note-taking software. After all, there are many excellent exclusive software on the Apple platform. At this time, I happened to see Craft’s Back to School plan, so I thought about applying for a try, maybe I could get a prostitute for nothing. A few days later, I received a confirmation email from Craft, including a license for the student plan. With the mentality of not using it for nothing, I registered an account and migrated the notes from Joplin to Craft.
As one of the Mac OS Apps of the Year, Craft works pretty well on the MacBook Pro. But back to the Windows platform, there are still some acclimatization. In contrast, Joplin provides the most comprehensive cross-platform support (even provides command-line applications), and the performance is consistent on each platform. So after using Craft for a month, I ended up going back to Joplin.
What is a good note-taking software?
To put it simply, many current software have put a lot of effort into note management, and have also proposed many interesting functions (such as Notion’s database function). But aside from note management, in an increasingly complex work environment, how to better combine note software with work is also very important. In this regard, Joplin is currently the most suitable note-taking software for me.
My daily work mainly revolves around different scientific research projects, one of which can be divided into three stages: pre-research, production and display:
- Pre-research : When starting research, the research topic is usually known, but the specific issues within the topic need to be determined by pre-research. In the pre-research stage, I need to find out which problems in the field have been solved, which are hot issues, and which are difficult problems.
- Production : Once the research question is defined, a solution needs to be proposed and validated during the production phase. In computer science majors, the forms of solutions include but are not limited to: algorithms, system design, etc.; the forms of verification include: analysis of algorithm performance, and experimental verification results.
- Presentation : The presentation of a scientific research project is often more important than the scientific research project itself. After completing a scientific research project, we need to share our work with our peers and prove that the work done is valuable. Presentation forms include: papers, PPT and blogs, etc.
The above three stages have different requirements for note-taking software due to different work content and goals.
In the pre-research stage, I need a lot of input and collate information from various sources. At this stage, I often need to temporarily record some meeting content. so i want it
- Open in seconds , ready to call at any time.
In the production stage, I will continue to try and make mistakes , sum up experience, and finally find a suitable and effective solution. At this stage, the notes application is the core of my work, and I hope it
- Occupies low resources and stays in the background.
- Supports double-chain notes , which is convenient for expressing my thinking line.
- It supports multiple openings of notes , which is convenient for thinking jumps.
During the presentation phase, I need to look back all the time . For different display objects, think about the degree of understanding of my scientific research projects, and finally output the corresponding content and form. so i want it
- Support cross-platform client & multi-terminal synchronization , which allows me to review the content of notes anytime, anywhere.
- Supports Markdown format , which can maintain the content level of notes, and facilitate the selection of corresponding content according to different presentation forms.
In response to the above requirements, I compared several common note-taking applications, and organized the test results into a table for readers’ reference. I have used OneNote and Notion deeply, but because OneNote data is difficult to export, and Notion’s startup speed is too slow, I have abandoned them. Some other applications have only scratched the surface due to the lack of key functions (such as multi-terminal synchronization).
These apps are undoubtedly excellent, but because I can’t use many of the core functions, the functions I use are not what I want, and I have to give up using them in tears.
- The test environment is Windows 11 Pro, Intel Core i5-10400 2.9GHz, 16GB RAM.
- Multi-opening of notes refers to the ability to open different notes as tabs, only considering the native support of the software.
- Apple refers to the Apple family of devices, without distinguishing between Mac OS, IPad OS and IOS.
- Since all software supports Markdown syntax (OneNote can be implemented through plug-ins), the comparison is omitted in the table.
No one can fight except Joplin
Joplin is not perfect, but it is the only software that meets all my needs at this stage. In fact, I prefer to use Craft on Apple platforms. But the absence of the Android client and the feature castration and unstable performance on the Windows side prevent me from using it intensively in my daily work.
The following content only compares the experience of using Joplin and Craft.
Exterior
There is no doubt that Craft is better than Joplin whether it is interface, special effects or animation. Craft provides WYSIWYG documents, and you can see the final style of the document during the process of writing Markdown. And Craft also provides some special effects, such as text blocks, gradient emphasis, Chinese and English automatically add spaces, etc., which greatly enhances the playability and aesthetics of the document. However, for a note-taking application, do I really need these features?
WYSIWYG provides the final style of the note, suitable for final review or presentation to others. But in the editing process, what you see is what you get easily interferes with my concentration, and I spend a lot of time beautifying my notes. After switching to Craft, I cared too much about the “gold and jade”, and it was difficult to focus on the content of the notes for a long time.
Joplin offers a high degree of freedom in this regard. It offers both a WYSIWYG editor and a two-column layout (editor on the left, final style on the right). In addition, Joplin supports editing notes with external editors. I use the two-column layout the most, followed by editing notes with an external editor such as VSCode. At the same time, Joplin allows users to customize the software style, so I can modify the software interface according to my own preferences, or use themes shared by the community .
startup speed
Craft can be used out of the box on the Mac OS platform, but its performance on the Windows platform is a bit hard to describe. Clicking on the Craft icon on the Windows platform will start up very quickly, but it will take a while for Craft to load the notes after startup, and there is a high probability that the notes will fail to be loaded, and you can only restart in the end.
When the notes cannot be loaded, I can only record the real-time discussion content in the WeChat chat box in a panic. Sometimes some content is lost in the process.
What’s even more annoying is that Craft on Windows often encounters interruptions in writing notes , either prompting that the notes cannot be synchronized in an offline state, or the entire interface is directly unavailable. Imagine that when you are in a state of flow and writing hard, Craft suddenly crashes and you don’t know whether the contents of the notes have been saved. At this time, I’m afraid I’m in the mood to smash the computer!
It takes a few seconds for the Joplin to start cold, which is acceptable. After the cold start is complete, Joplin can stay in the background permanently, so after closing the window and restarting, it can be opened in seconds, and the content of the note can be edited immediately. In the months I’ve been using it, the Joplin has never lost the chain at a critical moment.
memory usage
Although the computer configuration is improving year by year, it is always right to keep the memory resource usage as small as possible. The memory usage of Craft on both Mac OS and Windows platforms is only about 100MB, which is relatively low among note-taking software, and I like it very much. But if the price of low resource usage is that the software will crash from time to time, I’d rather it take up more memory. After all, it’s better to squeeze the computer than to torture yourself.
The cost of Joplin staying in the background is that it consumes a lot of memory. On the Windows platform, closing the Joplin window and only keeping the background service will occupy about 100MB of memory, which is equivalent to that of Craft. The memory usage of the Joplin interface can reach more than 300MB. I think that as a note-taking software, this kind of memory is too high, which I can’t accept, but there is nothing I can do about it, after all, other software is not so easy to use.
Dual chain function
Craft supports double-chained notes at the granularity of note blocks. This fine-grained linking allows me to easily establish relationships between notes and helps me easily find context when reviewing notes.
Joplin does not natively support the dual-chain function. Thanks to community support, dual-chain notes can be realized through the Note Link System . Although the plug-in cannot be directly linked to the note block, it can be linked to the title, which can already meet my needs. And if I really want some content to be linked, I can manually set an id for this content, and other content can be linked to this id. This method is more flexible than Craft, and it gives the user the right to choose, which is also a supplement to the two-way link.
For citation formats, Craft uses [[note title]] to link directly to the corresponding note. And Joplin uses the syntax of Markdown to insert links, that is, [content] (linked note content) . The advantage of this format is that it unifies internal links and external links . When importing Joplin’s notes into Craft, Craft correctly parses the double chain. But when importing notes from Craft to Joplin, Joplin can’t resolve these double chains and can only display them as [[note title]].
open more notes
The note tab function is a function that is accessible on Craft. Before that, I felt that it was meaningless to take more notes, and it would make me unable to focus. Only after using it did I realize that this function smells so good!
In daily life, there are many times when I need to jump between multiple notes at the same time. For example, I will create a new diary every day to record content at any time. But I will also create a note for each project to summarize relevant information. At the end of each day, I take some time to organize the entries in my journal into corresponding projects. If there is no multi-opening function for notes, I need to click to switch notes in the note list. When there are many notes in the list, I cannot quickly locate the relevant notes, which reduces the fluency of work. In Craft, I can open two tabs at the same time, and it is very convenient to switch between notes. In addition, Craft can remember the tabs opened at the same time, and can be opened directly after restarting. This function also helps me to quickly return to the previous interrupted work state. It’s a pity that Craft on the Windows side lacks the note tab function , which is one of the reasons why I gave up using Craft.
Joplin does not natively support the tab page function, but thanks to the almighty community, this function can be realized by installing the note-opening plug-in . The disadvantage of this plugin may be that it cannot synchronize multiple notes on multiple devices, but this function can be achieved by adding the same tag to the note, so Joplin can also be used.
Cross-platform support and multi-terminal synchronization
Cross-platform support and multi-terminal synchronization are important features to achieve office anytime, anywhere. The former is for the client, and the latter is for the content of notes, both of which are indispensable.
For most applications, such as Craft, these two features can be regarded as a complete function. As long as you log in to your Craft account, you can sync notes on all supported platforms. The downside of this binding is that I can’t view and edit these notes for a platform that Craft doesn’t support (Android platform). Fortunately, Craft has developed a web page, which can be used to make ends meet? Unfortunately, the Craft web site does not support mobile devices such as phones or tablets . This makes me very confused. Isn’t the original intention of developing the web page to achieve full-platform access with the help of a browser at a lower cost? As a result, non-Apple mobile phones and tablets cannot view notes on the web page, and do not provide the corresponding client. Isn’t the ability of the web page wasted?
On the other hand, Joplin realizes the decoupling of client and note content synchronization. First of all, Joplin provides complete client support (even supports Windows 3.1 ), including command-line applications, satisfying users who use the terminal as their main work scenario. Although I think there are very few scenarios for editing software in the terminal, but after thinking about it, maybe this is for users who like to use the Vim editor? Quite reasonable.
Joplin also provides a variety of data synchronization solutions, I can use the paid Joplin Cloud plan, I can also use the Microsoft account to synchronize, and I can also use the WebDAV protocol to synchronize with other cloud disk services. These synchronization schemes give me enough flexibility to freely decide where to put the note data. If you feel that the data on the cloud disk is not safe, it may be censored . Joplin provides end-to-end encryption of notes to ensure the security of notes. However, the content of my work is not that sensitive at present, it is a paper on water, so I have not used this function before, so I will not introduce it additionally.
Markdown support
By default, the copied content in Craft only contains plain text, that is to say, the first-level title and second-level title will all become ordinary text after pasting, and the hierarchical content of the note will be lost. If you want to keep the note level information, you need to select Copy Markdown in the sidebar.
This is clearly not elegant.
Perhaps the developers of Craft also felt that this method was not elegant, and directly castrated this function on the Windows side. Of course, it’s not just this function that has been castrated. As you can see from the figure below, the actions on the Windows side of Craft are significantly reduced compared to Mac OS, which also greatly increases the elegance of the software.
Joplin uses a two-column layout of editing on the left and viewing on the right, so if I want to copy Markdown text, I can just select the corresponding content in the editor and copy it. If you want to copy only the text, select the text in the viewer and press Ctrl+C, it’s that simple. In addition, it may be an occupational disease of the computer department. For a system, I want to know its internal implementation logic, and I am more used to looking at the code. So in the note-taking software, I pay more attention to the Markdown text rather than the final viewing effect. Because the note display effect is different in each note software, but the Markdown text is consistent. At the same time, there are also some plug-ins in the Joplin community that extend the native Markdown parsing syntax and editor functions to enhance the software experience:
- Enhancement : Provides functions such as parsing Latex algorithm pseudocode, rendering code blocks, advanced image insertion, and advanced table editing.
- Enhanced Editing : Enhance the experience of Joplin’s own editor.
- Rich Markdown : Enhance the viewer experience, such as adding website or note icons before links.
Summary: Why Joplin is easy to use
Open-Closed Principle: Closed for Modification, Open for Extension – Design Patterns
I think Joplin can be seamlessly integrated into the work, the most important thing is to make the least modification to the original content of the notes, but it provides a lot of plug-ins outside the notes to enhance my experience.
In this regard, Obsidian has done a good job, providing a highly playable plug-in system. Although Joplin does not have as many plugins as Obsidian, how many plugins can one person use? Compared with Craft, Joplin provides a certain degree of freedom, allowing us to add software functions as needed. Compared with Obsidian, Joplin avoids being too free, so that the software learning curve is too steep.
Joplin controls the degree of freedom within an appropriate range, so that I don’t always think about playing with the software itself during use, and I don’t feel at a loss when encountering pain points. This may be the reason why I like using it.
This article is transferred from: https://sspai.com/post/77020
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