[freetonik]

I love tiny note taking solutions. My favorite app of all time is (was?) nvALT [1].

The simplest in-browser solution actually requires zero pages or apps, see this bookmarklet [2]. It opens a full-page text area. No saving, but immediate and does not need a network connection.

Alternatively, not as easy as a publicly available web page, but if you want to have a very fast and minimalist self-hosted note taking app (with fast search and the ability to attach files and download websites), check out my small project called Textpod [3].

[1]. https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2]. https://bookmarklet.one/bm/quick-note/ [3]. https://github.com/freetonik/textpod

[shelled]

I was able to use nv (nvALT was a fork) before the development stopped and people slowly figured out it stopped. The website is still up https://notational.net and the last binary is still up for download. It worked for a crazy long time as it was. I am not sure but iirc there were some "stability" patches, in the original nv, or not. Then nvALT also stopped and then Brett started on something else and that kinda took a lot of time, really a long time (might have been released now but not sure). That is when I lost track of that lineage of note apps - the nvX - - the ones I started on. That was the reason my next was Simplenote and I stuck with it for really long.

After leaving Simplenote I could never really find a successor. Kept jumping from one app to another - UpNote (very electron), FS Notes (very unstable; come across a bug every other day that it's tiring), then Bear (might move to it, maybe), Joplin (no sadly) etc and what not. Now I just try to use something that lets me keep notes in a folder and use it but then iOS becomes a mess unless I use iCloud. I could never find another simple note taking app. I wish Automattic took privacy seriously and kept the development of Simplenote afresh and maybe charged for it.

Maybe I am not supposed to find that one note taking app for me. Maybe it doesn't exist. That makes sense. I think it's about notes and not the note apps? Keep the notes and apps are a-changin'.

[freetonik]

I just downloaded nvALT on Sonoma (14.3), and it runs, but looks a bit funky. The styling of some elements is slightly broken, but does not seem to affect the functionality. I haven't tested all the features though.

>Now I just try to use something that lets me keep notes in a folder and use it but then iOS becomes a mess unless I use iCloud

I didn't quite understand: do you want an app that syncs to iOS but not via iCloud?

[shelled]

I would rather prefer an app which gives me an option to sync via a service of my choice (at least some well established ones) e.g. Dropbox, Netxcloud, maybe for someone it could be even Google Drive, or their own sync if they have e2ee. etc.

> syncs to iOS

It just an OS so I would put it as "is available on OS"

> but not via iCloud

But the sync options are not limited to iCloud.