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Ask HN: Notes, mind-maps, browser tabs all in one solution?

59 points by goe1zorbey ↗ HN
Are there any all-in-one software available for organising - notes which include searchable screenshots and hand drawings - mind-maps - browser tabs?

I work on multiple cases at the same time and I easily get lost.

26 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 57.7 ms ] thread
hprotagonist
emacs ;)

- org-mode

- org-roam

- eww / eaf-browser

- pdf-tools

- org-download

goe1zorbey
Pretty neat! I wish, could have started without the learning curve and set up. I will try to get on it.
hprotagonist
when the fundamental design goal of a tool is “if you don’t like it, change it, we won’t stop you and we’ll even show you all the knobs and dials”, and the tool has had that ethos for 45 years, there’s a lot to learn.

C-h t RET is a good place to start, and then eintr and the rest of the manuals help too.

Some people find that starter kits are good; i find that they add more confusion.

mraza007
I love emacs but there’s a learning curve when getting started with emacs.

Do you have any resources to get started with emacs

hprotagonist
You're going to hate this but it's still as far as i can tell the best way:

  emacs -q
  C-h t RET
  ;; do that stuff
  M-: (info "(emacs")) RET
  ;; read stuff that looks interesting, then:
  q
Then start using emacs:

  emacs <whatever-file>
  ;; don't know what a key does?
  C-h k <that key sequence> RET
  ;; want to add a package? 
  M-x package-install <the package> RET
  ;; don't know what a function is? 
  C-h f <the name> RET
  ;; don't know what a variable is? 
  C-h v <the name> RET
Then, for what OP wants:

  touch ~/notes/notes.org
  cd ~/notes
  git init . && git commit -am "i'm taking notes!"
  emacs notes.org
  ;; type lots of notes here, you'll figure out your own best practices as you go, don't worry about it much, just take notes.
cyberge99
Sounds like a tall order. Heck, just an app that could accurately let you search screenshots would be killer. I use X-Mind 8 for a lot of this, but it’s seriously dated and slow. It’s primarily mind mapping software, but it lets you include hyperlinks and notes on objects.

I’d be happy with a fresher, more up to date version of that.

As for screenshots, I know it’s not a full-screenshot search, but there’s a neat macos app called TRex that will do image to text to clipboard conversion. It’s handy if you’re on a Mac without Monterey (which has this feature built in).

Good luck - I hope this post produces the unicorn you seek or results somewhat close.

goe1zorbey
OneNote and Evernote are doing a great job in searching screenshots. mindmap support is not there.

I use freemind for mindmaps, but notetaking experience is not usable.

And all of these items noted have a series of browser tabs open. So storing links is not an option.

algebra-pretext
You’re definitely looking for DEVONThink[1] if you haven’t seen it yet. Based on the description it gathers all your research for you, including saving web pages offline, and scans images/paper document to be included in search.

Personally I have stuck to pasting everything on a certain topic into an Obsidian[2] note, but you won’t get image search. I’ve been looking for something that can integrate Google Photos search into the rest of my notes.

(edit) tangential but if you don’t mind Google or Apple, the recent capability to accurately search your photo library for text/objects/faces has been incredible. For some documents I need on-hand I just take a picture and it comes up if I search for a word or two from it.

[1] https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonthink [2] https://obsidian.md/

skinnymuch
I love DEVONthink. Need to check how to set up using the same folder and files for Obsidian and Devonthink. Then Noteplan and/or Keep It as well. Keep It is also a bucket sort of app.

However yeah for photos especially, Apple or Google Pgotos is best. However neither have been very good with OCR of text. I’ve tried both with text in photos I knew for sure were around. They weren’t found.

There’s a $12 iPhone and Mac app that does good text search in images.

v33ra
I am the developer of https://mindsaha.com/ that aims at combining mind maps, notes, bookmark saving and a simple task management as well. I currently do not support screenshots, drawings though.

If this is something you are curious about, do let me know, I'll be happy to provide you an early access to try it out.

zactato
Oooh this sounds right up my alley. I’ve started developing some tools like this but didn’t quite get as far as I wanted
ifree
Checkout https://kinopio.club a flexible graph based browser tool which supports mindmap, bookmark, image, link, notes etc. Personally I like it a lot.
knlam
I also like kinopio and use it daily. However, I don’t think it is suitable to take note (even short one)
ifree
I agree with you although it has basic markdown support which can be used for short notes and TODOs, but note taking is not its essential feature.
riskneutral
I've had similar thoughts many times. Browser history and bookmark seem broken to me, and having 100 tabs open (each one with a back/forward button) can't be the best way to do this.
EFruit
Frankly, I'd be thrilled to have a Firefox fork that is designed to show exactly one page, specified by the command's sole argument, and do nothing else. All the "tab" stuff and bookmarks could be offloaded to shell scripts.

Taken even further, you could modify the browser to expose git-ish hooks (for example, calling .browser/hooks/request-file when fetching a resource could allow you to implement request blocking).

AnonC
> Frankly, I'd be thrilled to have a Firefox fork that is designed to show exactly one page, specified by the command's sole argument, and do nothing else. All the "tab" stuff and bookmarks could be offloaded to shell scripts.

Are you looking for a single tab browser? If yes, then Firefox Focus (on mobile) is one. It comes with a content blocker for Safari too (iOS).

slightwinder
Can't you basically do that by hidding UI-Elements? Firefox already has a good cli-interface.
quirino
suckless.org's surf [1] is based around this ultra-minimalist single-tab, no features concept.

I personally prefer qutebrowser [2]. I use it with the "all tabs are windows" mode, leaving tab management to i3wm. It is by far the most customizable browser I've used and, unlike surf, I haven't found many pages it can't render correctly.

[1] https://surf.suckless.org/ [2] https://qutebrowser.org/

twobitshifter
I’ve bookmarked this project which looks amazing to me, but I’ve yet to use the app.

https://raindrop.io/

It’s marketed as a bookmark manager with

* collections and tagging * full text search * automatic backup of web content * collaboration * search of other media types including pdfs and images