@matthew919, we first discussed note taking apps back in August. I tried blinko for a while but in the end it degenerated into a malformed mess so I went back to Evernote.
However, once again I am looking for a self hosted solution. I quite like that there are browser plugins for chromium and firefox to bookmark the current page. These work well in Evernote and the equivalent in Obsidian seems functional if not as sophisticated.
I note that Obsidian can be docker based like your Joplin but it looks like Obsidian remains file based. That is acceptable for my use case.
I also note that Joplin solved all your access issues. You could edit in any browser and ?add links from the phone.
@jdownie synchronises his files using syncthing but for me a docker solution which allows remote access would be better. It would fold into my existing backup solution.
Are you still using Joplin or do you have newer recommendations?
Addit: I note the obsidian plugin allows you to add an interpreter (e.g “summarise this page”) and you can choose your provider and model (e.g. Anthropic | Claude 4.5 Opus)
Do other plugins provide that? I think Evernote does but I am trying to get away from them.
I should explain that my Obsidian sync solution is overly complicated because i started with git first and then build a solution to preserve that.
If git doesn’t interest you, maybe Syncthing would be adequate. You can get syncthing on your phone and Obsidian would just edit those files.
My only hesitation is conflicts. I stick with git because it is more controlled about resolving conflicts than just renaming files.
I have pretty much abandoned using any note taking software since the last discussion. Joplin was being used for quite a while which is great, I think the only thing stopping me was getting better with the shortcuts. One of the big things I wanted was that I don’t have to be connected to the server to see files and make changes, and these changes can sync back up to the server when reconnecting. It did all that well. Cant fully remember what was stopping me from using it entirely.
For work I am half heartedly using obsidian, which is good, but i find i need to train myself to use it more often.
But from a UI and structure perspective, I LOVED this one called BookStack, its only web based though.
I think I got burnt out looking at different ones, but I know me well, will be back into this at some point in the future.
Having written all this out, I realised I have replaced note taking apps with Grist. I can store my todo lists, lists of things to buy/download, gift lists etc in a online simple spreadsheet style where you can create relations easily.
Funny you should bring this up @matthew919. I’m torturing myself with reviews on various Boox colour e-ink devices that support a stylus. I would like to read comic books, but i don’t want to use a brightly lit tablet, and that device that you showed me the other week has resurrected the subject. This is probably at least 70% gadget lust, but i’d like to think that i’d read more and get off my laptop a big with the right device. That SCP Foundation that you told me about sounded fun. Did you see that you can download those stories in e-pub format?
I wanted to scribble out a diagram the other day in the office, and the bag i took into the office didn’t happen to have a notebook or pen in it, and neither of those items are very common offices these day either. I’m wondering if i could get any scribbled diagrams to sync into my obsidian vault.
But, circling back to the subject you were really talking about (that was a pretty flimsy overlap), obsidian is pretty hard to go past in my experience. I’ve been trying to lift my game with mermaid diagrams. I’m putting together an ER diagram for some database schemas we’re working with, and it’s also handy for some simple mind mapping.
