<story><title>Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves</title><url>https://strflow.app</url><text>This project began when I realized that despite trying many fantastic note-taking apps, I often defaulted to dumping notes into chat apps like Slack or iMessage. I wanted to bring that effortless “text yourself” note-taking experience to a dedicated note-taking app.&lt;p&gt;Originally developed as a macOS app, Strflow is now also available for iOS. Strflow is designed to make note-taking as quick and intuitive as possible, centered around a chronological timeline UI.&lt;p&gt;Here are some of its features:&lt;p&gt;* Tag system&lt;p&gt;* Rich editor with text formatting, images, and note linking&lt;p&gt;* Global shortcuts for quick access&lt;p&gt;* Share extension&lt;p&gt;* Encrypted iCloud backup &amp;amp; synchronization (becomes end-to-end encryption if you enable iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection)&lt;p&gt;Hope you find Strflow interesting. I’m happy to answer any questions.&lt;p&gt;## Some implementation details some of you might be interested in:&lt;p&gt;* The app is implemented natively using Swift.&lt;p&gt;* On macOS, it’s based on AppKit, and on iOS, it uses UIKit, with SwiftUI used partially.&lt;p&gt;* The editor intensively utilizes TextKit.&lt;p&gt;* The sync engine is custom-built using CloudKit.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>entropyie</author><text>My number one problem with notes apps is that they &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; take too long to open a new note, and try to sync themselves when opened, often slowing everything down. Especially if you have a slow &amp;#x2F; choppy connection (fully offline is usually ok, but barely online is the worst).&lt;p&gt;I have a literal supercomputer in my pocket, yet not one app let&amp;#x27;s me open and start writing a critical note in less than 500ms.&lt;p&gt;To this day I still use plaintext editors on my desktop to dump short strings or notes into, because they load faster than any other app. And don&amp;#x27;t try to be clever with smart quotes, fonts and butchering my code snippets.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vladxyz</author><text>Just as a counter-example, my workflow works very quickly for me:&lt;p&gt;On mobile, my launcher has four pinned favorites on the homepage - one of which is a shortcut to go straight to the new note activity in my notes app. From typing up this comment I can swipe up to home and touch that button in (probably?) under 500ms and type in a new note.&lt;p&gt;(launcher = KISS Launcher, notes app = Joplin. though I&amp;#x27;m sure similar things work with other launchers and note apps.)&lt;p&gt;It is unfortunately an electron app on desktop, but I&amp;#x27;m invested enough that I never close it, and can start a new note just as quickly (super + 1 to launch it from my task bar, ctrl+n to start a new nearly plaintext note). This is the same on my windows and Linux computers. MacOS (as it is with most things) is somewhat more annoying: I keep a Space dedicated to Joplin and never collapse to the icon, which allows me to similarly go two chords - ctrl+9, cmd+n - to a new note.&lt;p&gt;Joplin doesn&amp;#x27;t need sync to complete before opening a new note.</text></comment>
<story><title>Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves</title><url>https://strflow.app</url><text>This project began when I realized that despite trying many fantastic note-taking apps, I often defaulted to dumping notes into chat apps like Slack or iMessage. I wanted to bring that effortless “text yourself” note-taking experience to a dedicated note-taking app.&lt;p&gt;Originally developed as a macOS app, Strflow is now also available for iOS. Strflow is designed to make note-taking as quick and intuitive as possible, centered around a chronological timeline UI.&lt;p&gt;Here are some of its features:&lt;p&gt;* Tag system&lt;p&gt;* Rich editor with text formatting, images, and note linking&lt;p&gt;* Global shortcuts for quick access&lt;p&gt;* Share extension&lt;p&gt;* Encrypted iCloud backup &amp;amp; synchronization (becomes end-to-end encryption if you enable iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection)&lt;p&gt;Hope you find Strflow interesting. I’m happy to answer any questions.&lt;p&gt;## Some implementation details some of you might be interested in:&lt;p&gt;* The app is implemented natively using Swift.&lt;p&gt;* On macOS, it’s based on AppKit, and on iOS, it uses UIKit, with SwiftUI used partially.&lt;p&gt;* The editor intensively utilizes TextKit.&lt;p&gt;* The sync engine is custom-built using CloudKit.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>entropyie</author><text>My number one problem with notes apps is that they &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; take too long to open a new note, and try to sync themselves when opened, often slowing everything down. Especially if you have a slow &amp;#x2F; choppy connection (fully offline is usually ok, but barely online is the worst).&lt;p&gt;I have a literal supercomputer in my pocket, yet not one app let&amp;#x27;s me open and start writing a critical note in less than 500ms.&lt;p&gt;To this day I still use plaintext editors on my desktop to dump short strings or notes into, because they load faster than any other app. And don&amp;#x27;t try to be clever with smart quotes, fonts and butchering my code snippets.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsanek</author><text>try Google keep. there&amp;#x27;s a shortcut you can make that with a single tap from the homescreen creates a new note and brings up your keyboard for typing. after you&amp;#x27;re done you don&amp;#x27;t have to even click save to persist it. it also auto syncs in the background.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been using it on iOS for years</text></comment>