My main requirement is that I am using Syncthing to sync my notes from my Android phone, which uses Quillpad. Quillpad is amazing and looks super nice, and functional too, but all the notes are in one big folder rather than being subdivided by notebook. So I require a markdown editor that can create “notebooks” but don’t change the folder structure of the notes (I tested putting notes in subfolders, and quillpad thought the notes were deleted. Silly Quillpad!)

So the notebooks/similar organisation of notes needs to be specific to the app and should not change the folder structure. I would prefer if the app is open-source too, and something that fits with my desktop (KDE Plasma) would be cool too :D

This rules out Obsidian (which puts notes in a folder structure. Obsidian is great, but won’t sync well with Quillpad), Joplin won’t work either. Ghostwriter is pretty much a markdown notepad (quite good, but can’t see all my notes in one place)

I am using EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma

edit: To clarify, I want a markdown editor that is able to separate notes into different groups without using folders as Quillpad doesn’t like folders. I also need to have a way to view all the notes at once in each group

Using a code editor VSCodium wouldn’t really work as there isn’t really a way to organise notes, aside from putting them in folders (which I don’t want), and I am not yet ready to jump into the Vim rabbit hole of plugins and configuration

edit 2: Markdown editor to note organiser to satisfy the pedant

edit 3: Looks like Obsidian has tags, so I could use those to organise notes without folders. I will try that and see if it works!

edit 4: Obsidian does have tags, but it seems like you sort by tags by typing tag:#NAME, and you can’t use spaces for tags. So not Obsidian then unfortunately. Are there any other options that have a larger focus on tags or similar?

    • MadhuGururajan@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      11 hours ago

      any quick way to learn emacs syntax for a long time vim user? I understand if you suggest evil mode but lets assume i actually want to learn the emacs motions.

      I can go through the emacs manual but that is more of a longer term engagement.

      • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        55 minutes ago

        For the basics the tutorial that comes with stock emacs is GOAT. You navigate the tutorial in the program you’re learning the navigation in, that’s how I learned it. It covers the basics, moving, killing/yanking (cutting/pasting), moving the view without moving the point (the cursor), handling buffers (open files), windows (subframes in the emacs window) and frames (multiple emacs windows). There is a bit of a translation required as emacs is old and some terms come from a time before the concepts were in common english but it’s nothing really. I’m rather new to emacs as well, and this is how I learnt it.

        After that what I found most useful was the following packages

        (require 'use-package)
(require 'diminish)
(require 'bind-key)

(use-package eldoc)

(use-package which-key
  :bind ("M-H" . which-key-show-top-level)
  :init (which-key-mode t)
  :config (which-key-setup-side-window-right-bottom))

(use-package marginalia :init (marginalia-mode))

(use-package embark :bind ("C-<return>" . embark-act)
  :custom (prefix-help-command #'embark-prefix-help-command))

(use-package embark-consult
  :hook (embark-collect-mode consult-preview-at-point-mode))

        This binds Alt+H to show all the keys available (use Ctrl+h n to scroll) as well as automatically pops up a buffer when you entered a command that isn’t complete, e.g. Ctrl+x. And it binds Ctrl+Return to a kind of right-click menu that tries to guess at all the actions you could do with the thing you have at under the point.

        But most useful, is Ctrl+h f to describe what a function does and Ctrl+h v to describe what a variable does as well as the customize menu Alt+x customize.

        For a theme I would suggest one of ef-themes but that’s up to you ofcourse.

        Emacs is a bit daunting to set up but I’m really loving it. See also https://github.com/SystemCrafters/crafted-emacs/tree/master for some ideas for how to set up some other stuff, although I went with the stock completions.

        There are also non-emacs ways of interacting with org files https://orgmode.org/tools.html but I don’t know anything about them.

        • MadhuGururajan@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          27 minutes ago

          yeah thanks for the resources. I decided to just go through the manual.

          And yeah, the older terms… I understand them as I am a crusty millenial and kind of like the charm of it.

          my goal is to shift to emacs for work as I am drawn to the efficient notetaking + planner + dev environment with org mode.