• irishPotato@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    3 months ago

    I’ve never used a proper note taking app, but recently started using Tana (Startup, free-to-use with some limitations after giving a credit card and cancelling during a two week trial).

    It’s not open source and it only supports full HTML bulleted list or a heavily proprietary JSON format (which is kinda useless outside Tana) exports. Also most of the paid features are AI BS which I don’t mind missing out on, but there are file-size limits on the free version.

    However, I’m finding the UX and features so far amazing! It’s got easy relationships and a tagging hierarchy systems to which you can add fields and it supports a whole bunch of view options and query stuff. You can scroll through this 46 min YT video to get a feel for it!

    Edit: forgot to mention at time pf writing (felt it was implied I guess), it’s cloud only, no local, one of the reasons I feel it’s not ideal

      • irishPotato@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        3 months ago

        Wow, chill, I stated how it’s not in line with the community. Just thought it was worth the mention as I quite like it, it’s got plenty of UX and features I would love to see in a FOS offering but just haven’t!

        I’m part of the community even though I’m not a zealot, in this specific instance I’m very consciously sacrificing a bit of privacy for what I consider a better UX.

        My thinking was that best case someone more in the know would point out an app that’s just as good or better and offers the lacking privacy…

    • hikaru755@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      Same boat here, recently discovered tana and its whole model is amazing. It’s fixing most of the things that bothered me a lot in Obsidian and Notion, respectively. I don’t want to go back to a service where I don’t have file-based control over my own data though, so now I’m seriously considering building something on my own that takes the mental model of tana, but implements it local-first based on regular files like Obsidian

        • hikaru755@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          9 days ago

          So, after finishing my previous project, I have now actually started working on this, working title “Catana”. It’s not usable at all yet but I feel pretty good about where it’s going right now, so I thought I’d put something here to get some public accountability to help keep motivation up, lol.

          Here’s a quick demo of what I have so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyTTfCJxrRQ

          I’ve got the core data model and editing actions down, the two next big steps are adding an equivalent to supertags, and actually being able to save things. Right now it’s in-memory only and resets on every restart, which makes it a lot easier to iterate on the data model quickly. The way it’s looking right now, I’m probably not going for full markdown-compatibility for the storage layer. That would bring with it some immense complexity that I don’t feel like tackling this early on. Instead, I’m planning to save data in a custom (but still open) format, and then in the future add markdown import/export separately, as well as general integration with the file system (representing arbitrary folders and files on your device as Nodes so you can link and manage them directly without leaving the app).

          I already have a rudimentary Tana import working though! Since Tana is the main inspiration for the data model, their export shape is pretty easy to map to Catana’s internal model. It still needs a lot of refinement to be actually useful beyond testing the app quickly with a large, existing dataset, but it’s a very good start.

          So, uh, yeah, if you’re still interested, I’ll keep you posted!

          • irishPotato@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 days ago

            Ooh shit dude/tte, that’s awesome! Get it going as open source and post it somewhere for people to make PRs to (I’m not in a place to do so myself, but there’s bound to be others thinking the same as us)!

            • hikaru755@lemmy.world
              2·
              4 days ago

              I’ll do that for sure! Just gotta build it out a little more first, it’s too early right now to start inviting contributions. The core structures of the app are still changing too much for that to not just end up in chaos