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Gedit Makes a Great Minimal Note Taker
20th January 2010
I’ve used lots of note-taking apps over the years. Online apps, offline apps, gui apps, command-line apps, mobile apps, personal wikis–pretty much everything. But I keep coming back to plain text files for my notes when I take them on my computer. I do a lot of stuff (journaling, meeting notes, etc) the lo-fi way (pen and paper) these days, but when I do take and record notes via keyboard, plain text just works. It’s small, portable, easily converted to rich-text, and no-hassle. Seems almost too simple given the plethora of outstanding note-taking applications out there, but it does continue to work for me.
On Ubuntu, the default text-editor Gedit works great, and has a few extra features that make taking plain-text notes a bit more convenient, like a side-bar file browser so you can easily open multiple files, and automatic time/date insertion if you’re keeping a journal.
Am I the only one that keeps coming back to plain-text for my digital notes?
I use Gedit a lot myself Nathan for most of my note-taking, short code and other similar duties. Know there are others out there that are just as capable but it works just fine for me. The Ubuntu/Linux Mint version of Notepad I guess. ;) (Yes, I use Linux Mint :))
I hear lots of great things about Mint…I’d like to really check it out sometime soon.
LM-8 ‘Helena’ is out now and is the offshoot of Ubuntu’s 9.10 KK. I like it because it includes a lot more right ‘out of the box’ than vanilla Ubuntu does. The general layout and menus are nice too. Overall functionality is the same so the general experience outside of some of the added extras should be similar.
I will definitely have to check it out in more detail. Once the next LTS comes out, I’m waiting 2-4 weeks (for essential bugfixes to roll in) and I’m standardizing all my computers (desktop + 2 Eee PCs) on one OS. Right I now am looking at stock Ubuntu, SuperOS (Ubuntu + restricted extras by default), or possibly Mint (love their art and some of the extra Mint-specific apps I’ve seen).
Sounds like a plan Nathan! That’s pretty much what I’ve done with mine. Makes things much simpler in the long run. I’m going to give the SuperOS a look-see. Been hearing some interesting things about it.
I like plain text for note-taking, but I also like the ability to form nested lists of topics. Unfortunately, a text editor can’t really do this. But I’ve found a nice solution to the problem with gjots2; it has a panel on the left with my topics and subtopics arranged in tree view, and a panel on the right to display the contents of each subtopic.
But the killer feature, for me, is that I don’t have to use gjots2’s built-in text editor; rather, it lets me open the right panel in the text editor of my choice. This matters to me because I use a *lot* of keyboard shortcuts, so I need a text editor that allows them. Scite, Komodo, and jEdit all allow extensive keyboard customization (e.g. Alt-j, Alt-k, Alt-l, Alt-; for cursor left, right, up, and down, respectively).
So, gjots2 and (highly customized) Scite make one great organizer.
I’ve done notes in plain text for a while now. In VIM, so I can get around the document fast.
Occasionally, I’ll want nested/heirarchical lists like cherax is saying (I think you recommended Notecase to me for that a while ago), but I’ve found just using indents and extra line breaks tends to as much of that as I need.
Honestly, if I REALLY need heirarchy, most of the time, I turn to OO or Word and just turn on numbering. It’s not perfect, and is probably overkill, but it gets the job done.
Yeah this is pretty much what I do too these days. If I have to have perfectly outlined doc, I go with Google Docs or OO or something. I used to be really into apps like HNB and Notecase (and I still think they’re great apps) but it turns out that’s just not how I end up keeping or taking notes.
Actually, I was referring to nesting in the file list, not within a particular document. If I have a project that contains a bunch of text files, then several text editors (jEdit, e.g.) have the ability to display that file list, but it’s flat – i.e. no sub-topics. That’s not really any different than having a tab for each document. In contrast, an organizer like Notecase (or Tuxcards, or gjots2) allows sub-topics and sub-sub-topics, all of which can be nested into a tree-like structure. Clicking on any one of the tree entries then opens that entry in the editing field. The problem is that you have to use the text-editing function of the organizer program. Gjots2 organizes topics into a tree structure, but still lets me use my preferred text editor; best of both worlds.
I see what you mean cherax…makes sense. Right now I’m handling via subfolders in my “Notes” folder full of txt files. But I only have one subfolder, “Archive.” I think my notetaking needs (now that I’m pretty much done with school) are pretty minimal.
Still, I’m gonna check out Gjots2. Thanks!