A new local-first, privacy-focused and open-source home for your markdown notes - chroxify/haptic
This seems like a solid choice for those of use looking for a obsidian-like replacement. Personally tried all editors out there, but nothing is able to defeat my love for obsidian. However, i look forwards to trying out Haptic when it comes to Linux. Currently it only supports Web and Mac. But state Linux and Windows support is on-the-way.
My dream is something that can take a stack of markdown files with relative links and generate a static site from them. This is embarrassingly difficult. Right now I think that the GitHub Pages Ruby Gem is the best way but it has too many assumptions about being in a GitHub repository to work. Vanilla Jekyll is nice but I don’t want to deal with a bunch of configs to get the experience I want.
I do this with https://www.sphinx-doc.org/ + a basic Makefile and config file to make it a bit nicer.
I will publish my template a bit later and report back.
I think I looked into this before and it lacked a feature, but I don’t remember what it was. I might be getting it mixed up with another tool. There were a lot of tools that almost worked but were focused on making books with ordered pages rather than a tree. I think gitbook was one.
For folks interested in following in my footsteps, eleventy didn’t fit because it couldn’t convert relative links to markdown files to relative HTML links to the HTML files (out of the box, probably possible with plugins).
This just feels like such an obvious thing there would be a tool for but I can’t find one. Even most editors that render Markdown as a preview can do this out of the box.
Looks like you can self-host a web version of it, which is handy. Plus it’s always nice having open-source alternatives to closed-source, commercially-led apps.
How do you like the newer versions? I liked it in the beginning, but then there were breaking changes and new concepts and it started to feel a bit too complicated. So I am taking a break until things cool down
What issues did you have? I have updated recently and didnt notice any problems so far.
Also do you have any suggestion for alternatives? For me personally silverbullet is great for desktop usage, not so much on mobile though.
I don’t really have any issue for what the software is supposed to do. I can access my instance, read and edit, templates and queries work fine.
But overall the user experience is not so good on mobile.
On desktop it is really easy to navigate my notes, specially so because of the great support for keyboard shortcuts.
Now for mobile it doesnt feel too good. Navigation works but the interface is too small - making tapping a bit clunky.
I also find it uncomfortable to use for to do lists - things like groceries lists that I need on the go. Sometimes toggling works fine if touch but sometimes it switches to view mode.
I really dont think any of that is an issue with the software itself. Its just the format I guess? I still use silverbullet and Ive never tried anything as good for organizing work stuff. But I still wish something more “native” for android.
The query system was updated, around version 0.6 if i remember correctly. I don’t think the updates were bad, but some things broke and I am too old for “bleeding edge”. The template system was also updated at some point
I don’t have a great solution. I use syncthing to keep notes local on all devices and MarkText on desktop and Zettel Notes on android.
what i really liked about silverbullet was that it had offline support. but there were made some changes there as well along the way, and for me it became less stable after it became optional. But I haven’t actively used it for some time. I still got an instance running tho
I like it, it seems pretty stable to me. I didn’t use it much before the query/template stuff was changed. I think both are fine right now, but don’t really know what it looked like before.
There’s also “space-script” now which is basically like mini javascript plugins you can write inside your notes. It’s what drew me away from trilium in the end.
I don’t blame you for taking a break if you ran into breaking changes though. That’s one benefit to keeping your notes in regular markdown files too.
yes, regular markdown notes has been a good decision 😅
In the beginning, the query results were stored in the markdown files, which could be useful if reading them in another app. But now I just get the query code. I think there were reasons
I’m glad to hear things have cooled down. Does it take much effort to understand and use the templating stuff? I just remember templates got pushed to a different view, and I needed some header tags to get it working
So you like spaces or not? I never got that far with silverbullet. And I haven’t used Trillium. I loved evernote when it came out. But it made me aware of the value of maintaining my own data.
Now I try to have data in a directory structure and not in databases
I tried every single proprietary and open source , even self host , markdown notes apps. Obsidian is … just, i always go back to it. I have it with the plugin “Remotely Save”, synced encrypted with OneDrive. It just works, every fucking where with its own app. solid as a petrified dump
Obsidian is just sooooo good. I hate that you (technically 😉) have to pay for multi device sync, but the UI and UX are excellent, especially if you’re already proficient in markdown
I don’t like that obsidian not fully open source but the plugins can’t be beat if you use them. Check out some youtube videos for top 20 plugins etc. Takes the app to a whole new level.
Logseq and Obsidian are only similar on the first look, but very different usage wise.
Both are very open with a plugin system, and you can modify them to turn them into one eachother.
So, if you want only FOSS, then Logseq is the only choices you have.
But Obsidian is, even though it’s proprietary, very sane. Open plug-in system, active community, great devs who don’t have much against FOSS, and more.
Obsidian
More similar to a classic note taking app, like OneNote, but with a lot of features. Hierarchical structure, and more of an “essay” style, where you store a lot of text in one page.
Page linking is only done when you think it makes sense
Has been a bit longer around than Logseq, feels more polished
Great sync and mobile app, which support plugins from what I’ve heard
Logseq
Non-linear outliner. Every page is on the same level, but within a text passage, the indentation matters (parent-child-relationship)
You create a LOT of more pages. Most of my pages are empty. They are mainly there for linking topics. I rarely create pages manually.
The journal is where you write most stuff. You then link each block to a page.
Logseq a bit “special”. May not be for everyone.
I for example am a bit of a disorganised thinker, who mentally links a lot of knowledge and throws concepts around all the time. Logseq is my second nature, because it’s more flexible.
My GF on the other hand is more structured, and prefers something like Apple Notes, or, if she would care about note taking, something like Obsidian.
The mobile app isn’t great. It’s fine when I’m not at home, but the desktop version is the “proper” one, and mobile/ iPad a second class citizen.
Sync is only experimental for now. It will soon be officially supported (hopefully) and self hostable, but it worked fine for me.
This is really helpful, thank you. I’ve made a start with Logseq but I think I’ll try Obsidian and migrate my notes across. I’m definitely a structured guy.
You need to list out your requirements. What do you want to do? Where do you need your data? Do you care about open source? Self-hosting? Do you have an idea how your content will be organized? Will you ever need to tap into it as data? Etc
I have notes fairly sporadically all over the place. Some for work for compartmentalised projects that I won’t need to see again once the project is done. Then for personal creative projects. Then for personal research projects. I like tracking data for sure. I’d prefer to have one central place for everything. I like things organised and get very into organisation but I’d love some kind of AI organisation element. Not sure either of these do that though. I do have my own server and like self hosting. I do care about foss but will sometimes choose a more appropriate tool over a foss one. I need the data on my phone and accessible either on a cloud or syncable or something. I’m currently dipping my toe into Obsidian with syncthing/Dropbox. I won’t pay for any monthly fees but don’t mind paying one off payments.
it has the hierarchical notes structure that you are familiar with in obsidian
it has better ways of keeping things organized (attributes can be values or references, can be shared and inherited, which provides a flexible framework for having notes “types” as templates that can be extended, e.g. people vs. colleagues, businesses vs. companies, etc)
it has the concept of note hoisting (which lets you focus on a note and its sub-notes, so other projects/spaces don’t come in the way of autocomplete and placing references), and workspaces that builds further on top of that
it can be used standalone (local client/offline-only, like obsidian) but coupling it with a remote-server opens more interesting use-cases (synching, sharing notes with others by public URLs, one-user/multi-client editing) which gives the best of both worlds (local-first/online-first) and lets you access your personal notes on devices you don’t necessarily own (which obsidian doesn’t). The mobile app story isn’t great (it’s a PWA with limited offline capabilities at the moment), but isn’t worse than the alternatives either (I can’t really work and think long form on a handheld, no matter the editor experience, but perhaps that’s just me).
I don’t see any problems with that.
Even I (and probably most others here), who are FOSS advocates, think Obsidian’s model is fine.
The devs surely get why FOSS is important, and try their best to match the pros of open source. They even stated that if the company goes bankrupt or they stop developing the app, they’ll open source it.
One major thing they do absolutely right is how the notes get stored. On other note taking apps, it’s a proprietary database, often “in the cloud”, where your notes get hold hostage. Here, they’re just Markdown files, and the whole thing is pretty open, encouraging a strong community.
It’s similar to Valve/ Steam. Proprietary, but liked by most Linux people.
On mobile, sync works well, even with 2FA. But my access model is simple:
1/ create and edit notes on Desktop app
2/ read notes on Desktop and Mobile apps.
I didn’t like obsidian’s lacking in attributes structuring/typing and the fact that it cannot serve over a web UI (for wherever you cannot install the heavy client or just to share notes via URL), and found trilium notes to be doing that perfectly, and much much more. Highly recommend.
If you’d like to learn more about Haptic, why it’s being built, what its goals are and how it differs from all the other markdown editors out there, you can read more about it here.
As others have noted, the app doesn’t work on mobile yet. Anybody willing to share the content here for mobile users?
We built Haptic to make markdown writing simpler and more accessible. We believe that many existing editors are too complex for simple use cases and day-to-day note writing, so we decided to fix that.
What Makes Haptic Special
Ready to Use: Open Haptic and start writing. No setup needed.
Simple Design: Clean interface so you can focus on your writing.
Write Anywhere: Use Haptic on any computer with internet. Great for public or work computers where you can’t download software.
Made for Everyone: If other editors feel overwhelming, you’ll like Haptic.
Open Source: Self-host your own instance, giving you full control over your setup.
Haptic is all about making writing easier. We’ve left out extra features to keep things simple and help you get your ideas down without fuss.
Note: If you’re looking for a markdown editor with plugin systems, complex setups, or feature-packed interfaces, Haptic might not be for you. But if you want something straightforward that just works, give Haptic a try!
The real power of obsidian is similar to why Raspberry Pi is so popular, it has such a large community that plugins are amazing and hard to duplicate.
That being said, I use this to live sync between all my devices. It works with almost the same latency as google docs but its not meant for multiple people editing the same file at the same time
Yeah, I need something to collaborate with my partner in realtime. We’ve got a hacky setup in Obsidian using dataview to join separate notes to a read-only one, so we don’t have collisions, but I would love something better.
The comment two above this links to a tool that literally does live syncing on a line by line level. Unless you’re editing the same lines at the same time you’re not going to get sync conflicts.
I use it as well and it works wonderfully in real time.
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My dream is something that can take a stack of markdown files with relative links and generate a static site from them. This is embarrassingly difficult. Right now I think that the GitHub Pages Ruby Gem is the best way but it has too many assumptions about being in a GitHub repository to work. Vanilla Jekyll is nice but I don’t want to deal with a bunch of configs to get the experience I want.
I do this with https://www.sphinx-doc.org/ + a basic Makefile and config file to make it a bit nicer. I will publish my template a bit later and report back.
It would be extremely barebones, but you can do something like this with Pandoc.
I think I looked into this before and it lacked a feature, but I don’t remember what it was. I might be getting it mixed up with another tool. There were a lot of tools that almost worked but were focused on making books with ordered pages rather than a tree. I think gitbook was one.
For folks interested in following in my footsteps, eleventy didn’t fit because it couldn’t convert relative links to markdown files to relative HTML links to the HTML files (out of the box, probably possible with plugins).
This just feels like such an obvious thing there would be a tool for but I can’t find one. Even most editors that render Markdown as a preview can do this out of the box.
What advantages would this have over Obsidian, which is already all local unless you explicitly make it not so?
Looks like you can self-host a web version of it, which is handy. Plus it’s always nice having open-source alternatives to closed-source, commercially-led apps.
I’m confused, which is it?
It’s a web app wrapped in Tauri. So basically a desktop app, but the web app can be hosted too.
Gotcha! Thanks for the ELI5 🙂
https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/
You host it locally and use a web browser to access it.
Any comparisons to SilverBullet.md? It’s my favorite so far
How do you like the newer versions? I liked it in the beginning, but then there were breaking changes and new concepts and it started to feel a bit too complicated. So I am taking a break until things cool down
What issues did you have? I have updated recently and didnt notice any problems so far. Also do you have any suggestion for alternatives? For me personally silverbullet is great for desktop usage, not so much on mobile though.
What mobile issues do you have? I use it both on desktop and mobile with sync mode turned on in the PWA.
I don’t really have any issue for what the software is supposed to do. I can access my instance, read and edit, templates and queries work fine.
But overall the user experience is not so good on mobile. On desktop it is really easy to navigate my notes, specially so because of the great support for keyboard shortcuts. Now for mobile it doesnt feel too good. Navigation works but the interface is too small - making tapping a bit clunky. I also find it uncomfortable to use for to do lists - things like groceries lists that I need on the go. Sometimes toggling works fine if touch but sometimes it switches to view mode.
I really dont think any of that is an issue with the software itself. Its just the format I guess? I still use silverbullet and Ive never tried anything as good for organizing work stuff. But I still wish something more “native” for android.
I am not thinking of the most recent versions.
The query system was updated, around version 0.6 if i remember correctly. I don’t think the updates were bad, but some things broke and I am too old for “bleeding edge”. The template system was also updated at some point
I don’t have a great solution. I use syncthing to keep notes local on all devices and MarkText on desktop and Zettel Notes on android.
what i really liked about silverbullet was that it had offline support. but there were made some changes there as well along the way, and for me it became less stable after it became optional. But I haven’t actively used it for some time. I still got an instance running tho
I like it, it seems pretty stable to me. I didn’t use it much before the query/template stuff was changed. I think both are fine right now, but don’t really know what it looked like before.
There’s also “space-script” now which is basically like mini javascript plugins you can write inside your notes. It’s what drew me away from trilium in the end.
I don’t blame you for taking a break if you ran into breaking changes though. That’s one benefit to keeping your notes in regular markdown files too.
yes, regular markdown notes has been a good decision 😅
In the beginning, the query results were stored in the markdown files, which could be useful if reading them in another app. But now I just get the query code. I think there were reasons
I’m glad to hear things have cooled down. Does it take much effort to understand and use the templating stuff? I just remember templates got pushed to a different view, and I needed some header tags to get it working
So you like spaces or not? I never got that far with silverbullet. And I haven’t used Trillium. I loved evernote when it came out. But it made me aware of the value of maintaining my own data.
Now I try to have data in a directory structure and not in databases
I tried every single proprietary and open source , even self host , markdown notes apps. Obsidian is … just, i always go back to it. I have it with the plugin “Remotely Save”, synced encrypted with OneDrive. It just works, every fucking where with its own app. solid as a petrified dump
I feel ya on this one… its magically good.
I’m early onto my journey with this and tossing between logseq and obsidian. Thoughts?
Obsidian is just sooooo good. I hate that you (technically 😉) have to pay for multi device sync, but the UI and UX are excellent, especially if you’re already proficient in markdown
Haven’t tried logseq before, so I can’t compare
I have my workspace in Google drive synced folder and it’s worked fine.
See me comment above
https://lemmy.ca/comment/11490137
I don’t like that obsidian not fully open source but the plugins can’t be beat if you use them. Check out some youtube videos for top 20 plugins etc. Takes the app to a whole new level.
Logseq and Obsidian are only similar on the first look, but very different usage wise. Both are very open with a plugin system, and you can modify them to turn them into one eachother.
So, if you want only FOSS, then Logseq is the only choices you have.
But Obsidian is, even though it’s proprietary, very sane. Open plug-in system, active community, great devs who don’t have much against FOSS, and more.
Obsidian
Logseq
This is really helpful, thank you. I’ve made a start with Logseq but I think I’ll try Obsidian and migrate my notes across. I’m definitely a structured guy.
You need to list out your requirements. What do you want to do? Where do you need your data? Do you care about open source? Self-hosting? Do you have an idea how your content will be organized? Will you ever need to tap into it as data? Etc
I have notes fairly sporadically all over the place. Some for work for compartmentalised projects that I won’t need to see again once the project is done. Then for personal creative projects. Then for personal research projects. I like tracking data for sure. I’d prefer to have one central place for everything. I like things organised and get very into organisation but I’d love some kind of AI organisation element. Not sure either of these do that though. I do have my own server and like self hosting. I do care about foss but will sometimes choose a more appropriate tool over a foss one. I need the data on my phone and accessible either on a cloud or syncable or something. I’m currently dipping my toe into Obsidian with syncthing/Dropbox. I won’t pay for any monthly fees but don’t mind paying one off payments.
I think you should give Trilium(Next) Notes a try:
it has the hierarchical notes structure that you are familiar with in obsidian
it has better ways of keeping things organized (attributes can be values or references, can be shared and inherited, which provides a flexible framework for having notes “types” as templates that can be extended, e.g. people vs. colleagues, businesses vs. companies, etc)
it has the concept of note hoisting (which lets you focus on a note and its sub-notes, so other projects/spaces don’t come in the way of autocomplete and placing references), and workspaces that builds further on top of that
it can be used standalone (local client/offline-only, like obsidian) but coupling it with a remote-server opens more interesting use-cases (synching, sharing notes with others by public URLs, one-user/multi-client editing) which gives the best of both worlds (local-first/online-first) and lets you access your personal notes on devices you don’t necessarily own (which obsidian doesn’t). The mobile app story isn’t great (it’s a PWA with limited offline capabilities at the moment), but isn’t worse than the alternatives either (I can’t really work and think long form on a handheld, no matter the editor experience, but perhaps that’s just me).
Iiiinteresting, I’ll give it a spin, thank you for the recco!
I don’t see any problems with that. Even I (and probably most others here), who are FOSS advocates, think Obsidian’s model is fine.
The devs surely get why FOSS is important, and try their best to match the pros of open source. They even stated that if the company goes bankrupt or they stop developing the app, they’ll open source it.
One major thing they do absolutely right is how the notes get stored. On other note taking apps, it’s a proprietary database, often “in the cloud”, where your notes get hold hostage. Here, they’re just Markdown files, and the whole thing is pretty open, encouraging a strong community.
It’s similar to Valve/ Steam. Proprietary, but liked by most Linux people.
Have you tried trilium notes? Not as hyped and polished, but does extraordinarily well IME.
How does it compare to logseq? It’s been my obsidian replacement
This looks cool, but can’t beat Joplin. Accessing securely my notes on multiple devices I synced on my Nextcloud is priceless.
Is that unique to Joplin?
AFAIK, only Joplin offers sync with NextCloud.
On mobile, sync works well, even with 2FA. But my access model is simple: 1/ create and edit notes on Desktop app 2/ read notes on Desktop and Mobile apps.
I could never get NextCloud on android to sync files back to the servers
Also tried that but ended up using syncthing. Works fine.
I didn’t like obsidian’s lacking in attributes structuring/typing and the fact that it cannot serve over a web UI (for wherever you cannot install the heavy client or just to share notes via URL), and found trilium notes to be doing that perfectly, and much much more. Highly recommend.
As others have noted, the app doesn’t work on mobile yet. Anybody willing to share the content here for mobile users?
Why Haptic
We built Haptic to make markdown writing simpler and more accessible. We believe that many existing editors are too complex for simple use cases and day-to-day note writing, so we decided to fix that.
What Makes Haptic Special
Ready to Use: Open Haptic and start writing. No setup needed.
Simple Design: Clean interface so you can focus on your writing.
Write Anywhere: Use Haptic on any computer with internet. Great for public or work computers where you can’t download software.
Made for Everyone: If other editors feel overwhelming, you’ll like Haptic.
Open Source: Self-host your own instance, giving you full control over your setup.
Haptic is all about making writing easier. We’ve left out extra features to keep things simple and help you get your ideas down without fuss.
Note: If you’re looking for a markdown editor with plugin systems, complex setups, or feature-packed interfaces, Haptic might not be for you. But if you want something straightforward that just works, give Haptic a try!
Lol can’t even open the “web-app” wiki https://app.haptic.md/notes on my phone
Ew. They don’t even try to load lol.
As soon as one of these Obsidian alternatives has real-time collaboration and a mobile interface, I’m ready to switch.
The real power of obsidian is similar to why Raspberry Pi is so popular, it has such a large community that plugins are amazing and hard to duplicate.
That being said, I use this to live sync between all my devices. It works with almost the same latency as google docs but its not meant for multiple people editing the same file at the same time
https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync
Yeah, I need something to collaborate with my partner in realtime. We’ve got a hacky setup in Obsidian using dataview to join separate notes to a read-only one, so we don’t have collisions, but I would love something better.
Could syncthing work?
Syncthing works on a file level basis. If files are changed on both devices at the same time, it will have sync conflicts.
The comment two above this links to a tool that literally does live syncing on a line by line level. Unless you’re editing the same lines at the same time you’re not going to get sync conflicts.
I use it as well and it works wonderfully in real time.
I wouldn’t know. All I am saying is that Syncthing would not work for this purpose.
Can confirm, seen it live. As soon as LogSeq was open on both devices it threw an error.
Super interesting, I have my fingers crossed for this one.
Probably gonna give it a go in two-three weeks ;-)