Notes

Ever since the original Microsoft OneNote was discontinued I’ve been on the lookout for my ideal note-taking app. Having settled on Markdown as the perfect file format I’ve tried numerous apps and occasionally blogged about the experience. In my quest to find the app that combines a great UX with elegant esthetics, speed and full keyboard control I’ve recently settled on a combination of Typora and Obsidian - none of which are perfect, but both are satisfying tools to use and they even complement each other. This article explains how to get started with Obsidian.

In the last few years, I have tried many note-taking applications. They all shared a common UX flaw: lack of keyboard accessibility. Finally, I had the idea to give Visual Studio Code a go and found note-taking heaven.

Note-taking is one of those topics that appear to have been solved long ago, yet offer plenty of opportunity for new contestants. There are multiple reasons for that, but for me the number one is encryption. The major players, Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, and Google Keep, store your thoughts and ideas in plain text on any synchronized device as well as their cloud servers. In the age of hacks, leaks, and exploits it does not take much to conjure up scenarios where those thoughts become public knowledge all of a sudden.