Intro And Musings
I’ve used One Note, Google Keep, Evernote, Notepad++, etc over the years for note taking/storage. Recently I got the itch to bring this in-house. I always thought Evernote was too expensive for what it was, and the other solutions were too locked into an ecosystem to ever truly be “yours”. I recently POC’ed a couple of strong contenders with a solid winner.
Me and Dockey MCGee
Joplin was the first one I tried out. The docker compose had multiple dependencies and was a bit too complex I thought, for what it was going to do. The app, a frontend, a separate database container, and optional transcription service container.
So I got it up and running and went to the front end and set up my user. I didn’t set up email, but they require a email confirmation all the same. So I went through the log and found the email with token and completed it.
So then I logged into the app…only to find there’s no app. It turns out Joplin Server is just a sync point. The app is a thick install only. Grumble Grumble. I installed the app, synced it up, and it was okayyy. Sure you could encrypt the database and some other bells and whistles but it didn’t “wow” me and the requirement of a thick app closed the door on this one.
Trilium Notes, Now With More Flower Power!
(apparently Trillium is a flower. TIL)
Initially I passed over Trillium, I confused it with an old IM I used to use, Trillian. On second look however, I found it has a very interesting story.
TL;DR, developer puts app into maintenance mode, community responds, damn near rewrites the whole thing, and developer hands off the entire product.
A few details had advantages over Joplin right away. The docker was simple. One container, no fluff. As always, there is an example on my Github. It’s also a web app OR you can sync with the server using a thick app. Best of both worlds.
NOTE: there is no support for multiple users right now. It’s covered in the FAQ. Not a big deal IMHO, and the reasons are sound. Need another user? Spin up another instance. I did that for this guide, easy.
SETUP
Setup is simple. On launch of the web app we get:
Pick the first option, then set a password. It doesn’t get much simpler.
The on login, you get this. Me being…me I just deleted all the examples because I wanted to go my own way. I then had to find stuff myself, I recommend you take this tour first, then delete it.
OK where to start. There’s so many options it’s kind of overwhelming at first. Let’s start with a right-click.
Let’s start with note types. There’s a lot here but I’m going to focus on the three I’m using.
Text: Completely boring, delightfully usable. LOTS of options here.
Canvas: This was an unexpected delight.
THIS.IS. EXACLIDRAW! I love excalidraw, and host an instance locally. My only issue with it was storing drawings. It saves them in the browser session until you save to file. This was always clumsy to me, and I’ve lost/accidentally overwritten things before. This completely fixes that. I can store each drawing as a separate note. I’m seriously considering shutting down that instance.
Note: EVERYTHING in this app is a “note”. They call it a “hierarchical note” app. Settings? Note. Calendar? Note. AI Chatbot? Note.
And I first discovered this by accident with canvas, though it’s applicable for all notes. Revisions! By default it takes a snapshot of the note every 600 seconds. In the upper right, you get this charming little fellow.
Mermaid
Before this, mermaids for me were all dinglehoppers and thingamabobs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before but it’s SUPER interesting and another way to make a network diagram. (one of it’s many, many, uses.) Here’s an example. Be warned, this is a deep well. There’s a tons of formatting and style nuance.
Here’s a guide: https://docs.mermaidchart.com/mermaid-oss/intro/getting-started.html
But let’s start reaaaaal simple. Check out below. You simply make logical connections via text.
Now you could just do switch===pc without all of the prefix ids but then you cant assign any values to them like shapes or colors.
Note: “IDx” is not a requirement it can be anything as long as it’s unique.
As you can see, the sky’s the limit. You can even take this into Excalidraw!
Note: You’ll have to use the standalone version, Excalidraw proper uses an older version of mermaid, where Trillium uses a newer module.
Calendar
For me, I’m terrible at taking notes and organizing my date. I think this is going to fix that, easy. I mean…it’s a calendar, not much else to see.
Secret Agent Man
A tree, a subtree, an individual note. They can be “Protected". This will encrypt the information and require a password to be re-entered if you leave the protected session or after 10 minutes idle.
There’s also another neat feature, “hoist”.
This will hide all other notes until you “un hoist. Which has its use cases especially if you’re screen sharing.
X, Never, Ever , Marks The Spot.
We’ll close this out on search. Maybe you have notes on notes. Technical references, obscure CLI commands, etc.
You can do a quick search:
Or a ridiculous search:
Or maybe you want to see a logical representation of where your notes are at? Enter the “Note Map”.
So that’s kind of it. I scratched the surface here, and I hope you find this as useful as I did.
Until next time.