[louis-paul]

There is something about Notion that makes it feel very well-made and coherent. It’s one of the few apps I use with this inherent feeling of quality (off the top of my head Sublime Text/Merge, Beyond Compare, Things fall into this category of intangible greatness). Every interaction is delightful, and the app scales really well from basic note-taking to decently complex databases with grouping, filters, relations, templates and permissions. It comes with really good real-time collaboration.

On the flip side the software a bit slow to start and uses a lot of resources—it’s based on Electron, but I encourage everyone to try it (the demo on their website is cool!).

This is as close to “painting the back of the fence” as it gets.

[ivanzhao]

Notion's founder here. Thank you for the kind words - we are honored :-)

To be honest, nothing we are doing is that new. Most of the ideas came from the 70s-80s (Alan Kay, Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson...) We are just applying a fresh coat of paint.

Of course, there's still a lot more to be done to fully realize these pioneers' dreams of computing as a medium for everyone – not just programmers like us. If you are interested to learn more or work with us, feel free to message me directly at ivan at makenotion.com, or link below. We are happy to host you for lunch: https://www.notion.so/notion/Join-Us-e7aeb157238a4603a2964b2...

Have a good one! Ivan

[thirdsun]

I see a lot of potential for Notion and really enjoy the service, but currently it still feels a little rough. Some thoughts:

- while the browser-based webapp is mostly fine, the mobile apps feel really subpar and somewhat out of place on iPad and iPhone alike: Sluggish, slow animations, inconsistent keyboard behavior, unnecessarily large fullscreen modals on iPad - it's very noticeable that it isn't a native app. It feels like a second class citizen. I'd like to make Notion a central part of my daily, essential tools - similarly to an app like Things. Unfortunately the difference in user experience is night and day. Please consider developing native apps.

- this is a very minor issue, but since I often use Notion as a note taking tool the rigid separation of paragraphs into multiple isolated content blocks is rather annoying. It leads to side effects like "Select all" on iOS actually not select all, but just the current block/paragraph. I think text, regardless of the number of paragraphs or format, should be one single block until it's actually interrupted by inline data structures like tables or galleries.

Other than that I love the idea of your service, which can turn a blank canvas into a simple text document or a fully featured Airtable-like application, or anything inbetween.

[rkangel]

I also have similar issues with the text processing.

I like the model they use that everything is a block - you get predictable behaviour, but I do think the normal shortcut for select all should select a page, and that I should be able to select text from multiple paragraphs using keyboard commands (if you do ctrl+shift+arrow you get stuck at the edge of a block).

[ivanzhao]

Agreed. Mobile and text editing two of our weakest areas. A lot more work ahead of us but we'll get there!

Ivan

[sorenbs]

We love notion and pay you all a lot of money. Please please fix the search

[rkangel]

What do you find wrong with the search? It's pretty good for me, except one day where the indexing must have screwed up and it was ignoring the thing I knew was there.

[ekianjo]

Since it's Electron-based are you open to the idea of supporting Linux instead of just Windows/Mac?

[flowerlad]

>Alan Kay, Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson

It is impressive that your work is directly on top of the work done by the guy who invented the mouse, the guy who invented smalltalk and so on. Are you sure there were no inventions in between?

[givelinuxlove]

Give linux love. I was interested in trying it after reading comments, but as it is I can't touch it until there is a linux build.

[manigandham]

Notion is a webapp. You can use it fine with a browser. I think everyone is missing the fact that the desktop apps are not necessary.

[elandrum]

I downloaded the app months ago for my Mac but honestly forgot I even had it installed until I read this thread. I use the website every day just fine. There’s no need for the app.

[rkangel]

I use Linux, am a heavy Notion user through the web app and I'm very happy. I'm not sure why people would want the desktop apps (I do use the android app for a bit of on he go reading and adding images).

[newman314]

Hi. Can you share how you think Notion is better than say Quip? I use Quip extensively but am open to trying something new.

[killjoywashere]

Can you handle PHI? Because I can imagine letting small providers (like my wife) transmogrify this into their own personal EHR. If it can handle PHI.

[abalone]

Say what you will about Electron apps that use excessive resources and lack native touches, but they are definitely not “as close to painting the back of the fence as it gets.”

That Jobs-ism was specifically about caring about the internals of a product that nobody looks at, but you know are there.

[abalone]

This has been downvoted so let me expand on this. I am not judging Electron so please relax.

The Steve Jobs quip about painting the back of the fence sought to explain why the Apple II and Mac teams cared so much about the inside of the box and even signed it. It's why they invested so much in the OS X internals and stuck with a native focus that helped iOS be so fast and nimble out of the gate on extremely resource-constrained mobile devices. That's "painting the back of the fence."

It is a very distinct concept from focusing on user-visible details, which I think is what you're referencing here. That's still the front of the fence. Back of the fence is the fine touches on the unseen internals, but reflect a general care and pride in your craft that will probably pay off in the long run.

"And while sacrifices were often made of money, time and frustration, users of Apple products often reaped the rewards."[1] This is definitely not the Electron approach. It's about taking the extra time and care to do it native. You can chose that path or not, but understand what this very important element of Apple's philosophy means because it affects so much of the past couple decades of our industry.

[1] https://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-obsession...

[greenhatman]

They use Electron, but don't have a build for Linux. Why.

[qudat]

Having built an electron app with linux support: it takes time and effort to get it right, you have to come up with a different updating strategy than windows/mac, and they might not have many users on linux at the moment (low priority).

It's not as simple as "add a flag to build linux." There's a little bit more to it.

[eslaught]

You can access it via web with any modern web browser, so does it matter?

[brightball]

Then why bother with the desktop client at all?

[dewey]

Some people like to have things in separate apps (even if they are not native) just so you can open and close it quicker than finding it in your tabs or getting distracted by all the other content open in your browser.

That's why there are apps packaging websites in apps too: https://meetfranz.com

[brightball]

I agree. I'm just wondering why that's a good enough reason not to have a Linux client when it's already using Electron?

[givelinuxlove]

Yes it matters. I could write a WebKit2 wrapper for the webapp in 10 minutes just so I can treat it a like a standalone app and not just another tab. If it's electron, give me linux.

[Walkman]

yes

[jakelazaroff]

I honestly never use their Electron app, even though I have it installed. One thing about Electron apps is that they also usually work great in the browser :)

[outworlder]

Notion is all about manipulating 'content', which is what browsers excel at.a

Were it not in Electron, it would most likely still have a big web widget occupying most of its frame.

[ukyrgf]

I really like Notion and have this same feeling. The app being Electron is a really big bummer for me, though. Performance is terrible on my Android phone. I really want to ditch Evernote but nothing seems to compare still.

[lilmartin]

Lillie from Notion here! We're improving our speed and performance across the board. We're also still working on features that Evernote has to make the transition easier, stay tuned ;)

[halr9000]

It made me sad that the Evernote migration wasn't full fidelity. Been a few months, but I recall it didn't bring over pictures.

[fredguth]

I am a paying customer and it has always stand out for me in terms of UX. The only problem I see is that sometimes when I am editing a page I need to use the mouse because the keyboard just does not work in the way I am used to. This is a huge UX pain and I don't understand how didn't they fix it yet.

[droopyEyelids]

Can you link to the Merge software you mention? It's a difficult name to google.

[ktross]

He means Sublime Merge. https://www.sublimemerge.com

[bluntcoder]

https://www.scootersoftware.com/index.php - (I'm not the OP but I favour Araxis Merge https://www.araxis.com/merge/index.en over Beyond Compare)

[indigodaddy]

I prefer FileMerge. Built in to osx/xcode I believe.

[MordodeMaru]

Give Semantic Merge a try https://www.semanticmerge.com

[aerovistae]

The "quality" feeling of sublime app for me is majorly undermined by the constant nagging popups to pay for it. so many other services I happily pay for and somehow sublime has made me not want to pay for their services.

[fastball]

If you'd happily pay for it without the popups, why didn't you pay for it the first time the popup appeared? Would've saved you a lot of annoyance, no?

[roywiggins]

It's honestly the most polite nagware I've ever used.

[rstupek]

So pay for it? Seems like you probably have gotten your worth out of it

[tomc1985]

That popup that appears like once in a while?

You know it goes away if you buy it, right? I own Sublime and honestly the nag is so NOT-annoying that I have more than one instance of sublime where I simply haven't bothered to enter the code