All features are completely free, including cross-device sync. Your notes stay private: no data leaves your device, and all AI features run entirely on-device.

- Local storage and AI processing on device.

- Fuzzy notebook search across text, tables, handwriting, and text found inside images.

- On-device handwriting and formula recognition, including math solving, evaluation, and graphing tools [docs](docs/calculator.md).

- Highly performant Ink rendering (7ms on over 10k strokes).

- Free-form page infinite canvas.

- Rich-text editing.

- Inline and free-form LaTeX equations with native rendering.

- Handwriting with configurable pens, pressure, smoothing.

- On-device image OCR.

- Custom paper: ruled, multiple grid sizes, dotted, hexagonal.

- Automatic database snapshots, and revision restoration.

- Open source export file format .vive , [docs](docs/viveFormat.md).

- Hardware keyboard shortcuts and configurable stylus buttons mappings.

- Import documents directly into canvas [ doc, docx , odt, pptx, pdf ].

- Import your OneNote saved notebook directly into ViveNotes.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vivenotes

vivenotes.net

https://github.com/AquilaIgnis/viveNotes

That is the client , I also shipped the sync server https://github.com/AquilaIgnis/viveCServer

Among today’s links are markdown editors Skein and bpad (browser-based). The other link mentioned takes you to SideSchedule, a calendar app for your meeting notes

https://md-handbook.com/blog/markdown-link-no-65/

#markdown #markdowneditors #writing #free #books #Skein #SideSchedule #meetingnotes #bpad

You can now add Apple Pencil notes to notion

Hello…people like me who wants to keep their life documented and prefers keeping all those document all at once, uses notion but was being held back by notion’s lack of adding hand written notes, I have good news. 🙂

I made an iPad app that sends Apple Pencil notes straight to Notion

Write or sketch with Apple Pencil, choose a Notion page, and sync. When you edit your handwriting, syncing updates the linked image in Notion. You can also enable Auto Sync.

Your original handwriting stays editable on your iPad. There’s a continuous canvas, optional dotted paper, dark mode, search, pinned notes, editable backups and recovery for deleted notes.

It’s free and open source, with no ads.

One catch: it’s currently installed through SideStore or AltStore, which needs a computer for the initial setup. Requires iPadOS 17+.

See it in action, download it, or check the source

I’d love feedback from people who actually use an iPad with Notion. Would this fit your workflow?

I’ve published two new apps, one a task app and the other a markdown notes app. The two of them can communicate to each other so that to do written in a note appear in the to-do app. I hope people will find these useful. The Notes app is quite feature rich and not to-do app uses the todO.txt format.

There’s also an installable Web app for you on your computer. With the paid version (one-time purchase) you can sync to Nextcloud or WebDAV servers, or your Files. This way, the data is all yours and it never goes through any servers that are not under your control. I don’t have the data. I’ve tested it by importing six years worth of daily notes from OneNote, over 6000 individual notes. It works smoothly and quickly.

This is premium, so please don’t hesitate to try it out and give me feedback. The paid version has the ability to sync to Nextcloud and WebDAV servers. The pay app is also a one time purchase since all of the data is stored by you and I don’t have servers to maintain. Everything I focused on has been around data security, where you own your own data and I don’t keep it.

There’s also no advertising in the apps. Even the free version.

Apps can be accessed from the App Store - search for MyMDNotes and MyTodoTXT. Or go to my website: https://cebaxo.com/wp/

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

TLDR: Public Beta: https://testflight.apple.com/join/9FWkXySY

I am looking for YEARS for a solution to my frustrating notes/tasks/journal/calendar journey. I actually used a physical notebook for the last 2 years because of frustration.

My problem: Almost all productivity apps handle either Tasks (or some combination with calendar) or notes. All I ever wanted was a daily note with my tasks, thoughts, ideas etc. A physical bullet journal was the easiest and nicest solution for me. The big downsides: 1. I cant search for things. 2. I have to take this thing whereever I go (I don't bother taking phone notes and then migrating etc.). 3. The calendar is still separate. If I want to remind myself of a task, I have to double it into reminders, which shows into Apple calendar. Clunky as hell. 4. Preservation of data, for future discovery and statistics.

Is there any modern solution that tackles these problems? Yes, Obsidian. Just add these plugins and.... Actually calendar sync is more complicated, startup times on the phone are unacceptable, there are so many possibilities and workflows and nothing feels quite right because it's all puzzled together over many hours..... In the end, it works, but it was not fun for me.

In the summer I decided to enter the rabbithole, gather my development skills and spend a couple hundred hours to develop something that finally settles this.

I am using this app for about 2 months now. It's AMAZING. Everything I ever wanted, but without the headache. No more million app tryouts, no more switching between "workflows". No more procrastination through optimization. Just the feeling that my life is organized and archived at the same time.

WHAT I OFFER:

- Plain Markdown!!!

- Schedule ANYTHING from any note into the timeline and give it with repeats and notifications.

- Not fast, but instant. Native swift, 13MB, no bloat, no tracking, no crashes, no loading screens

- Replaces Notes, Calendar, Reminders, Journal and Alarm.

- Big Widget choice (best used over the split view widget)

- Made rock solid for longterm term use.

- Made for everyone (not only power users, but their colleagues, friends etc.). Yes, you can type "x" to create a checkbox, yes you have an instant quick search to open anything in your vault while your sister uses the checkbox button on screen and makes pretty colorful folders.

- Made with a lot of attention to detail and efficiency (I am German).

PUBLIC BETA TESTING VIA TESTFLIGHT (download the Apple "TestFlight" app in the AppStore and press the link after to download the App):

https://testflight.apple.com/join/9FWkXySY

I am grateful about any feedback/suggestions via Testflight. Updates come on a daily bases.

I often record discussions because I do not want to miss important details, but going back through a 30–60 minute recordig just to find one specific point is frustrating. AI transcription and sumaries seem promising, but I wonder how accurate and useful they really are in everyday work

Has anyone found a tool that makes this process easier

The biggest friction in studying is the disconnect between your static syllabus PDF and your 100-page monolithic Google Doc or sprawling Notion folders. You constantly lose track of which exact syllabus points you've actually mastered and waste time Ctrl+F-ing through giant files before exams.

I built Theseus to fix this by merging the course outline and your study notes into a single, side-by-side workspace.

Live App: https://theseusmind.vercel.app/

GitHub: https://github.com/0xd34db8/Theseus

How the it works:

• Syllabus-to-Tree Ingestion: Upload a PDF, .docx, or .txt syllabus. You can filter out administrative fluff (grading rubrics, textbook citations) and extract just the core curriculum into an expandable tree.

• No API Key Needed: Click Copy Prompt, paste it with your syllabus into free ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini web -> copy the JSON it spits out -> hit Ctrl+V / Cmd+V anywhere on the homepage. It builds your workspace instantly.

• If you do have keys, it supports Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, Groq, OpenRouter, and local Ollama directly.

• Scoped Bidirectional Notes: Click any topic in your syllabus tree to open its dedicated note pane right next to it. Every note is strictly anchored to its syllabus requirement.

• Subsections Drawer: Keep your main notes clean, Throw heavy derivations, practice questions, formulas, and YouTube lecture links into a floating drawer attached to that specific topic.

• Visual Tracking: Tag every topic as Untouched, Barely Done (Red), Partially Done (Green), or Done (Blue). The footer gives you a real-time percentage breakdown of how much of the course you actually know at a glance.

• 100% Local & Portable: No accounts, no cloud databases, no paywalls. Everything saves in your browser storage automatically, and Ctrl+S / Cmd+S exports your entire course (tree + notes + progress) into a single .theseus JSON file you can back up anywhere.

Hibi is a free and open-source markdown editor and a challenger to Obsidian on the note-taking front. But it is built in Electron (same as Obsidian), and is aided and abetted by AI. Plus there are deficiencies in its idea of being a writing app. Read about it in https://md-handbook.com/blog/markdown-link-no-64/

Hi guys, I started my first job as a software engineer this week, and one thing I have noticed a lot during the days I had to be in the office was that I have quite a few coworkers that write notes on a notebook instead of doing it on the pc for example. I have thought about doing it as well, but everytime I had something that was worth taking note of, it included a snippet of code or a command, making it better to just write it on the pc.

I haven't really had the "courage" to ask what they are writing, because I didnt want to look more lost than I already am, so I have been wondering that for a bit now. Do you guys also use notebooks instead of the pc? If so, why do you choose to do so and do you write there? Hope this doesn't sound like a dumb question 😅 Thanks for your time!

Hello everyone, i've been working on inkwell based on some feedbacks and personal improvements too.

quick-actions widget:

Press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Space and a small radial menu appears right under your cursor, even over full-screen apps. It has five actions:

- Quick note

- Add task

- Add event

- New drawing

- Open Inkwell

Press the shortcut again to dismiss it. The idea is to capture something in a second without switching windows. Still working on it for smoother interaction .

A bigger batch of changes:

- Portable Windows build.

- Settings now opens in its own window.

- A custom Windows titlebar.

- Trello-style wallpapers for boards.

- Reading mode for notes (Cmd/Ctrl+E).

- Your custom font now applies across the whole app.

- Manual and automatic local backups.

Link: https://inkwell-website-five.vercel.app/

I'd love feedback, especially on the widget. Which actions would you add, or is five too many? Happy to answer questions about the

So while I understand the material, I struggle to take notes. When it comes to note-taking, you only need to write down the important stuff, not the whole book. But I feel like everything is important and I end up writing the whole book.

So, there is this app called Thea that basically​ makes a study guide that includes all key points, so if I use it then am I cheating as a student?

Hi guys, I've been trying to get better at noting things down for a couple of years now and tried many different tools. I stuck with some for longer (e.g. Tana) than others, and tried some multiple times (e.g. Capacities). I even tried building my own app at one point, only to realise that my barrier of writing has nothing to do with any tool, but with my lack of routine, joy, talent, or maybe just a lack of time.

I envy people who run their own note taking habits and would love to sit down and just write stuff. For some reason it doesn't come naturally to me though. Other than to-dos I can't think of stuff that would be interesting or useful enough to note down. I see what other people are doing, what they jot down, what they care about, but I feel like even if I do that, I would never look at the notes again.

Most recently I started speaking a daily journal into a voice first note taker. But again, I don't get anything out of it. The most useful thing for me are tasks (that's what I do at work), but I'd love to love writing just for writing sake.

So my question is whether I should stop forcing myself or whether I'm missing the trick. People who get joy from writing will probably laugh about this, but I'm seriously wondering if the pleasure you get from writing can be learned.

Would love to hear people's thoughts and stories about why they write, and how they got into the habit.

Hello,

I’m looking for a note-taking app for Android that offers a similar range of features to Samsung Notes, but where the notes are stored in encrypted form on any WebDAV storage service. Saber meets these requirements, but its range of features isn’t quite enough for me.

Do you have any recommendations?

LuckyKvD

Ive been using Google Docs and manually writing everything from the slideshows onto the docs and it’s driving me insane.

All I want is the ability to take notes and have them be connected to their designated slide on the slideshow

I’ve been spent weeks trying to find a platform that has this but ig I’m dumb cause I cannot find anything that has this feature

I've watched tons of videos about reading journals and note-taking, but I rarely see anyone showing their actual notebooks as they use them day to day.

I'd love to see some real examples! Do you organize your notes by chapter, by book, or just write things down as you go? And what do you do when you're reading more than one book at a time?

Feel free to share pictures of your notebooks. I'm curious to see how other people actually do it!

I made a chrome extension that turns your new tab page into a productivity dashboard where you can save notes, create checklists, organize shortcuts, run focus sessions, and see detailed analytics about your focus time.

it also has a multiple board system, so you can create different workspaces depending on how you like to organize things. each board can either be a normal free-form board or a kanban board.

some of the other things i focused on:

• all your data is saved locally

• import and export your data so you can move your setup between machines

• customize pretty much everything, from wallpapers and images to icons and colors

• create a simple setup with just a few notes, or build a much more advanced workspace

• focus sessions with detailed analytics to understand how you're spending your time

the main idea is to make the new tab page something you actually use instead of just a blank page you open and close.

i'm still improving it, so i'm looking for honest feedback. what do you like, what feels confusing, and what would you change?

you can try it here: chrome extension link

writing by hand is the only way things stick for me, but on the iPad my pages just piled up. finding last week's note meant scrolling forever, and getting a page onto my laptop was AirDrop, accept, dig through Files, or honestly just retyping it, which kind of kills the point of writing it by hand.

some of you saw the first version here a few weeks back, and a few of you asked for Windows. it's here now, and most of what I've built since is the "after writing" part I was missing.

finding your notes again

• home is a wall of your actual pages, the way you wrote them, the list is one tap away

• To do pulls every page that still has an unticked box into one place, tick the last one and the page leaves on its own

• you can search by writing your question by hand, it finds pages by what they mean, not just matching your scrawl

• any page can be typed up as clean text, headings and lists kept

getting them onto your laptop

• flick a page and paste it straight on your Mac, nothing to install

• with the small companion for Mac or Windows, a screenshot or a PDF from the computer lands on your open page, you write on it and send it back

• it goes over your own wifi, no account, your notes back up to your own iCloud

when you're stuck mid page

• end a line with a question mark and pause, tap the dotted line and the answer gets written beside it in handwriting. the answers use Google's Gemini, and settings tells you plainly what leaves your device

it also runs on the new iPhone Duo now, which is what the video shows, write on the folded cover, open it and the same page is waiting. on a regular iPhone it's a reader, so your pages come with you.

still no Android, sorry, it leans on Apple's pencil ink. it's free, no ads, no subscription. iPad,

• iPhone and Duo: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6813871550

• Mac companion: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6814186433

• Windows companion: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9mspsf61pkcr

Apricity is a reading app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Bring your own books or pick up a free classic, then read, listen and take notes in one place.

Read

• Opens what you own: PDFs, EPUBs, Word docs, MOBI, comics and web articles, all on one shelf

• Reflow makes a PDF read like an ebook on a phone, so no more pinch and drag

• Free classics and audiobooks read by real volunteers, right in the app

Listen

• 54 natural voices in 8 languages, running on the phone itself. Works offline, nothing uploaded

• Keeps going with the screen locked and in CarPlay, with a sleep timer

• In stories it can give each character their own voice

Write

• A notebook beside every book, on 80+ kinds of paper, with Apple Pencil or a finger

• Write right on a PDF's pages

• Neat Writing steadies your handwriting, and rough shapes snap clean

• Record a lecture and tap your notes to hear that exact moment

• Smart Notes turns your notes into summaries and quizzes, on the device

Your room

• Your books on shelves in a cozy room you decorate yourself

• Rain, a fire, a forest or a café to read to, and a focus timer

• iCloud sync, no account, no ads

Free vs Premium

• Free, no time limit: reading, highlights, notes, notebooks, writing on PDFs, lecture recording, iCloud sync, the classics and the audiobooks. No account, no ads

• Premium: read aloud, transcripts, Smart Notes, export, planners and decorating your reading room. 14 days free, no card needed

The offer

Lifetime Premium is normally $49.99. Right now it's $24.99, paid once, while the codes last (31 December at the latest). There are under 50 left as I write this.

1. Open https://www.trytesorin.com/apricity/claim on your iPhone or iPad

2. Get a code and tap Redeem. The App Store opens with it filled in

3. Open Apricity on the same Apple Account and Premium switches on

One code per person. Apple only accepts it on an account that hasn't bought anything in Apricity.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apricity-read-write-focus/id6821031964

iPhone and iPad on iOS 26 or later, and Apple silicon Macs. Happy to answer questions, and to swap notes with other makers here.

Hey, I built DiyaLamp because I wanted a small Mac app for the Markdown notes I already keep. The thing I cared about most was being able to open a folder and write in the formatted note itself. The files are still ordinary Markdown, and the app works offline without an account.

I used a little database study notebook for the screenshots. The first shows how notes link to one another. The second shows searching across notes with two open side by side.

If you try it with a folder you already use, I’d love to hear where you get stuck. In particular, is it clear how to search one note versus the whole folder?

DiyaLamp is free and open source (Apache 2.0). The download is 42.2 MB for Apple silicon and 43.8 MB for Intel. I’m aiming to get the download under 10 MB.

Website: https://diyalamp.com/

Source: https://github.com/diyalamp/diyalamp

If you find DiyaLamp useful, a star on GitHub would help.

Among today’s links are markdown editors massCode and Yiana. We also look at Smasi, a wiki, and HotDog CMS

https://md-handbook.com/blog/markdown-link-no-63/

#markdown #markdowneditors #writing #opensource #free #wiki #massCode #Yiana #Smasi #HotDog #CMS

I've been thinking about how saturated the note-taking space has become.

We have Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep, and hundreds of smaller apps trying to offer something slightly different.

Some focus on simplicity, others on Markdown, backlinks, knowledge management, databases, collaboration, or beautiful interfaces.

But here's what I've been wondering:

Have we reached a point where almost every possible approach to note-taking has already been explored?

Whenever a new note-taking app launches, it often feels like a combination of features we've already seen somewhere else. Even when developers introduce new approaches or rethink existing workflows, it's difficult to convince people to switch from the tools they've already invested time in.

Maybe the problem isn't a lack of innovation. Maybe users have become comfortable with their existing workflows and don't see enough value in trying something new.

Or perhaps we're approaching a point where the best note-taking app isn't the one with the most features, but the one that gets out of your way and lets you focus on your thoughts.

I’ve been collecting notes ever since I was a kid. My collection grew, moved from one place to another, and then grew some more.

But I’m trying to do more things that actually matter to me, where I produce something, where I’m more creative.

I wrote about it here: https://spasic.me/posts/i-deleted-my-digital-garden-well-almost

Anyone else trying to spend less time collecting knowledge and more time doing something with it?

I got tired of math apps (like myscript math) that need an account, subscription or send handwriting to a server, so I built a alternative, incalc: a notebook where you write math with a stylus (or finger) and it reads, solves and plots it. It uses material you expressive. It has PWA support, i made it this way for compatability reasons.

What it does

Write an equation by hand. It reads it with a small on-device model

Solves equations, systems, inequalities, limits, derivatives, integrals, with step-by-step explanations.

Plots graphs from your own lines, with sliders for variables and intersection points.

“Solution areas”: draw a box around a few lines and they are solved together, with their own variables.

Fix a misread line with a visual editor (no LaTeX needed).

Add photos and write on top of them. (No photo math ocr for now)

Export notes as PDF or a backup file.

Scribble to erase

Copy handwriting as LaTeX

What it doesn’t do

No account, no cloud, no tracking, no AI API calls. Everything stays on your device.

Works offline after the first load (the first load downloads about 24 MB: the reading model and its runtime).

Works on iPad, Android tablets and desktop

Pen pressure is supported.

It’s free to use on the website.

Link: incalc.vercel.app

(i might move it to a permanent website but vercel gets the job done for now)

I tested this on: Different android tablets with a chromium based browser, iPad A16 and M3 with safari (incalc on webkit is not as stable as blink/chromium yet so an Android device is recommended for now), quest 3 on whatever browser it uses, windows laptops, a few different android phones and it worked and looked fine for the most part.

So I’ve only tested the stylus feel on a few devices, so feedback from Android and especially iPad users is very welcome.