Owl is a note-taking app currently under development for Apple platforms. An early version is available for Mac.

Quickly capture your thoughts and find them later.

• Always ready to capture

• Message-like interface

• Instant-search, grep-like results view

• Syncs .md files to your iCloud

• Markdown syntax highlighting

• Sweet retro look ’n feel, color themes

• (inspiration: SCRL component/style)

• View your notes on a map

Interesting app, which also uses the chat-based UI we seen with Strflow and Gibberish. I really like the design of this one, feels retro.

Also, it saves notes as simple Markdown files, which can be moved around, so there is no proprietary database.

Previously:

• Texting yourself for capturing ideas
• Trying out Strflow for project-related status updates

A privacy-first, lightweight note-taking solution that allows you to effortlessly capture and share your ideas.

Open-source, self-hosted note-taking platform that allows users to create and store notes in an SQLite database. There is threading too.

Previously:

• Using Mastodon’s threads for thinking out loud
• Setting Up Mona for Private Thinking – Decoding
• I just love the Gibberish UI for drafting ideas – Decoding

Since I started to thinker with private Mastodon threading, I’ve been experimenting with using Mona as a private note-taking app.

Hiding the Home tab from Mona makes the app feel more private. I only left the following tabs available because I want to optimize it only for my posts.

I read other people’s posts in Reeder; I use Mona for threading and journaling about ideas privately (and keeping up with my notifications and mentions).

Another thing I did is to replace the ⌘N keyboard shortcut with a custom Keyboard Maestro macro which creates private posts by default. This way, I can work on my threads in a private manner, but still see my notifications if I post something public.

These changes make Mona a note-taking app with built-in discussion features. I don’t know if we have any other app like this.

This is one of the things I love about the Fediverse. In essence, it is just a public place where we post things, but we can make weird mashups on top of it, like a note-taking app.

A few days ago I wrote about getting back to Mastodon, and it’s becoming an unexpected part of my workflow. While I initially set up my instance just to syndicate my blog posts, I found myself using it in ways I didn’t anticipate.

Remember how I loved Gibberish’s chat-like UI for drafting ideas? Well, Mastodon’s thread format accidentally became my new space for thinking out loud. I create private threads where I can ramble about stuff, just like I used to do in Gibberish, but with some nice advantages:

• Mastodon is completely open, so I can:
  • Run my own instance
  • Control my data
  • Build whatever I want on top of it
• The clients are surprisingly good
  • Mona
    • Highly customizable
    • The sliding panes UI reminds me of the old Tweetie for iPad
    • Perfect for browsing through connected thoughts
  • Ivory
    • Clean, focused interface, but I prefer Mona’s sliding pane UI

What I find fascinating is how this turned into a lightweight note-taking system. I write posts for myself, bookmark them, and can easily go back to review my thoughts. It’s like a poor man’s Zettelkasten, but the thread format adds this natural, conversational flow to my thinking process.

The best part? Mona’s sliding pane UI feels like it was accidentally designed for this kind of short-form note-taking. The way you can slide between connected thoughts makes it natural to build on ideas. I treat my posts as append-only – while I could edit them, I choose not to. Instead, I add new posts to clarify or expand on my thoughts. This self-imposed constraint helps in capturing the evolution of ideas.

I’m finding myself using Mastodon more and more for drafting ideas, alongside Gibberish. Not what I expected when I set up my instance, but it’s becoming a nice addition to my workflow.

Forever ✱ Notes is a simple framework and scalable digital note-taking method for Apple Notes that’s free and created to last—forever.