__  __            _       _                        ____ _   _ ___     
|  \/  | __ _ _ __| | ____| | _____      ___ __    / ___| | | |_ _|___ 
| |\/| |/ _` | '__| |/ / _` |/ _ \ \ /\ / / '_ \  | |  _| | | || |/ __|
| |  | | (_| | |  |   < (_| | (_) \ V  V /| | | | | |_| | |_| || |\__ \
|_|  |_|\__,_|_|  |_|\_\__,_|\___/ \_/\_/ |_| |_|  \____|\___/|___|___/
                                                                       

‘Organizers’, ‘wikis’, ‘note-taking apps’, et c. - these apps are mostly Markdown with an attached GUI. Today, I’m trying each of them out for twenty minutes apiece.

AnyType

• Site: anytype.io[i]
• Size: 383 MB
• AnyType comes encrypted, meaning you can’t easily grab the raw markdown notes and stick them in a Git, or do much else with them.
• It comes with its own synchronizing feature, so you’re discouraged from using your own.
• It recognizes various ‘types’ of things very well, with

• bookmarks for youtube links (with an icon), along with the ability to leave notes in the bookmark,
• task lists

• It may be encrypted, but it starts up and just starts synchronizing with…the broader internet. That’s still a little spooky for me.
• Onboarding goes quickly, as the task-list is pre-populated with notes on how to learn the app, and the knowledge-base is populated with knowledge about the app.
• Pressing Alt+F does not open the ‘File’ manager, which I take as a personal insult.

Zettlr

• Site: zettlr.com[ii]
• Size: 383 MB
• LaTeX support works by integrating with other LaTeX programs, which warms my heart, but also confuses me. Who uses LaTeX but computer science nerds?
• Very FOSS-friendly,

• with a link to a Mastodon feed for the project.

• The split-view lets you view many notes at once, and reminds me of vim.
• It seems to use pandoc, and the integration looks sensible.
• Under the hood, there is no markdown, so once again, no easy way to integrate git.

• But apparently you can make or open Markdown anywhere, so that all works fine.
• I should have tested that function with AnyType as well to make the tests equal. cba

• Once again, Alt+f fails to open File at the top bar.

Qownnotes

• It has AI integration.
• Why do people need to do this to everything?
• “Yes, I need a stupid-pen that’s stupid, please, do you still have any without AI? Actually gimme that ink, I’ll go find a crow” - that’ll be me in a few years.

LogSeq

• Site: logseq.com[iii]
• Size: 531 MB
• The name LogSeq sounds too nerdy.
• It opens in light mode, unlike the others.

• Selecting a theme gave me the options:

• Light mode

• This made me think it was a bar of options to click on.
• It kept burning my retinas.
• I really hate this.
• When I found a more general theme option, it merged with my local system theme, and now looks amazing. All is forgiven.

• It’s so minimalist it looks like nothing but a wrapper for Markdown, with no options or abilities. Top score.
• It has an option for when to ‘re-index’, which tells users who don’t know what that means that this app is not for them.
• When renaming a whiteboard, a popup asks ‘Are you sure?’ I think I hate it again.
• Whiteboards feel like a CLI-user’s idea of what GUI users want, but then again I make maps in vim so what do I know?
• The onboarding assaults you with random animations. I don’t like it.
• All settings are in plain text, which is obviously a much-needed feature, but comments are made with ;;, which is weird.
• The standard notes display as simple markdown, and on startup LogSeq asks where it should save information. This isn’t an ‘app’, it’s a program.
• The automatic graph of pages shows how each links together.
• Everything confuses me.

• Why is everything a bullet point? Where is the normal text?
• I realize I’m typing this from an all-bulleted post, but that’s beside the point.
• The bottom of the page says ‘0 Unliked References’: what does this mean?
• I can make links because I know markdown, but it has no buttons to do this as far as I can see.
• With no File bar across the top, I can’t see how to access menus and discover the abilities. I just have to click buttons with random unicode symbols.

• It’s been 40 minutes and I don’t know what I’m doing. Time to stop.

Zim

• Site: zim-wiki.org[iv]
• Size: 11 MB
• The interface is just a bunch of buttons to do what markdown does.
• Typing raw markdown into the interface doesn’t seem to work - you need to actually click that header button, you can’t just type # Heading.
• I can’t seem to get it to take an existing wiki and import it.
• This is not a markdown editor - it uses its own markup language.
• The git integration means standard users can use git.

• Unfortunately you can only commit by clicking ‘save version’, and people won’t know what that means.

• Zim cannot work with other markdown software. It’s so close, but ultimately pointless.

Ghostwriter

• Site: ghostwriter.kde.org[v]
• Size: 2.69 MB
• Beautiful.
• What the hell is ‘Hemingway mode’?

• I can’t delete text any more!
• Outstanding!

• Why can I not add metadata, like a title?

• Found it: go to Settings –> Preview Options –> Pandoc.

• It only handles one file at a time.

• No directory overview.
• No jumping between files as links.
• No creating files, except ‘File -> New’.
• ‘Importing’ works: you just open any file in any type of markdown.

[i]

[ii]

[iii]

[iv]

[v]