Describes how I take, store, and edit various notes.
https://unsplash.com/photos/5bYxXawHOQg
Requirements
Data should be easily updatable (this is the input) & easily accessible (this is the output). Currently, my notes are stored on a GitHub repo. That means:
Easily Accessible
This can be broken into 2 scenarios, depending on sensitivity of data.
Insensible notes should be searchable online
To have them easily accessible, I want them to be full-text-indexed and searchable.
I want the insensitive data to be searchable online, so that I can have access to my notes without access to my computers.
Existing solutions: Are there any? What are they? How good are they?
auto-exporting data from all sources to plain text and save locally.
pros
cons
Easily Updatable
The best option for now I've found is GitBook. It's got a decent webUI editor (although it has a list of quirks -- see below -- and is slow on an old computer), syncs to your GitHub, and its syntax is interoperable with Markdown.
List of quirks of GitBook:
aggressive undoing
when you copy something from a list and paste it somewhere else, the whole list indention builds up again. e.g., if you copied some text from a 3rd-level nested list and past it on a 2nd, you will get a 5th-level result.
TODO: This section needs expansion.
Solutions
Stick with GitBook for adding & updating public notes. TODO:
Find a way to auto-update local copy of GitBook notes.
Validate that I can conveniently search locally all my notes (that means private notes as local md files + public notes from GitBook) with ripgrep.
Add a custom search engine to my Chrome that searches the GitHub repo directly.
(Deprecated) How Notes & Writings Can Be Categorized
Classifications of my writings & notes, and where to put them.
Type
Updatable?
How Refined?
Can Made Public?
How valuable to others?
Diary
Never
-2
N
0
Personal Journal
Daily
-3
N
0
Credentials / Passwords
At times
N/A
N
3
Academic papers
Never
3
Y
3
Various Essays
Never
2
Y
2
Quick Notes
Seldom
-1
N
1
Reviews / Summaries
Maybe
1
Y
2
Web Clippings
Never
N/A
N/A
1
Translations / Transcripts
Never
3
Y
2
N/A means "not my own work, thus does not apply."
Numbers are on a 7-point scale.
How I Allocate Apps to Different Note-taking Purposes
Crossed-outs are what I used to use but moved away from (due to death of product, etc.).
Note-taking and Storage
Course notes / meeting notes that better be hand-drawn: Notability (iPad)
Diary, personal journal: Day OneOneNote
Course reviews and summaries: EvernoteNotability, course-specific folders, and -- in cases that the notes may be shared -- my academic website.
Scribbles, jots, etc.: A folder full of plain text/markdown files.
Synced with Simplenote Dropbox.
Read with Notational Velocity, nvALTfsNotes.
Editors and Word Processors
Coding/writing temporarily - Sublime Text
Quickly generating PDFs from Markdown - MouTypora
Academic writing (essay, things with a formula/equation, etc.) - LyX
For language-checking - Hemingway Editor + SlickWrite