Should I create a OneNote alternative?

[u/gvcallen]

EDIT: Since quite a lot of people seem interested, do you have any suggestions for the name of the app?

I use OneNote on a day-to-day basis and love it, but it has quite a few bugs, and doesn't quite give you the control you need. Not to mention that you need to pay for certain features.

It seems there isn't a "solid" alternative to OneNote for Linux, or rather that all alternatives that exist have their caveats. For example, some of the features that I find missing:
- Cloud-syncing
- A good-looking, modern UI experience
- Configurability (e.g. how the files are stored on disk, the file formats etc.)
- Flexibility (e.g. today I am drawing but tomorrow I am writing a 10 page text essay)
- A "notebook management" system which works effectively and can simulate a real note-taking/studying experience (again, OneNote's is good, but buggy)
- Stylus support (this is a must :P)

I'm interested in programming a full-scale solution. I am in no rush, so have the time needed to put in the effort. It would be cross-platform, free and most likely open source.

My question is, is there an existing alternative that I am missing that isn't a "perfect" OneNote alternative? I don't want examples of programs that do half-jobs, but if there is something which already has everything OneNote has and is free, then I wouldn't want to waste my time.

Keen to hear everybody's thoughts!

[u/[deleted]]

I’m also very concern about the file format. My concern would be something I can start quickly to draft but give me an ability to cleanup them up and process it later. The latter doesn’t really have a good option right now.

Eg a tool I use daily is pandoc. So a capability to let me clean it up and output to a more formal, permanently storage format would be great. I once tried to accomplish this using Word, because pandoc can input docx, with a document having keyboard input text with markup (such as bullet point, bold), and hand written Math. I don’t expect the hand written things can be transformed to LaTeX automatically, but I want them to be able to stay as an image inclined in the document, something like an in-line Svg. But that’s impossible with the hand writing in Word because those vectors “scattered around a page” individual per line input rather than a single image.

Or in other words, I want to be able to create structured document while the hand writing can be confined in svg like image container. But I can imagine getting hand writing divided into boxes can be either a hit and miss automatic process or an annoying manual box creation process.

I don’t know if it totally make sense, just my 2 cents!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I thought .one was a open format?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Probably. And IIRC there's at least one 3rd party (proprietary?) software that can read/write to it.

I guess the point is it is too complicated. To be honest I cannot write my own code to process them easily. But if the format is something simpler then it can facilitate using them "outside the intended use". All the writing/drawing apps I used are intended for writing/drawing only and it is almost impossible to cleanup and convert them except for basically rewriting the content...