Vision

Notes's vision for the future

(I'll soon turn these into separate issues and link them here so it'll be easier to discuss them)

Big Projects - High Complexity - Need long-term investment

• Revamp editor Link to issue

  • Custom to-do list. With the ability to collapse todos. When collapsed, show an overview of progress
  • Images support
  • Hide Markdown automatically a la Panda
  • OneNote style editor where you can type anywhere, and all components are contained in a resizable, moveable box.
  • Dynamic block: A feature to create a block around some text and be able to load that block in other notes. Say I have a TODO list of many projects and I want to create an overview note of all the next things I need to do. I can create a dynamic block at the start of each separate notes list and load them all into the overview note. All changes are dynamically seen.

• An optional traditional folder view similiar to the old OneNote's style - notebooks (the highest in the hierarchy) to the left, folders shown as tabs, and notes inside folders to the editor's right. I believe this approach is more natural for our minds to grasp. It is important that transitioning from the old view to this one will not require the user any input; thus, we need to consider how to convert hierarchical folders from the old view to this view. Link to issue Mockup:

• Cards-view editor a la Scrivner or Google Keep where you can select a folder and change its view so rather than seeing the notes-list and editor you get a card view of all the notes in that folder. Link to issue
• Tabs for the editor - edit/view multiple notes/folders simultaneously. (old) Mockup: Link to issue

• Snapshot/history a la Simplenote, where you can drag an input slider and see how your note changed over time. Link to issue
• Incorporate language tool like Grammarly into Notes: This one is open source but not fully featured as Grammarly or its premium version. Need to consider if this needs to be part of the revamp of the editor (for highlighting words/sentences, hovering/clicking on them. Link to issue
• Style Check a la iAWriter, striking through redundancies, clichés and filler words. Also Highlight parts of speech to spot superfluous adjectives, weak verbs, and unwanted repetitions. Link to issue

Medium complexity

• Support swipe gesture: Link to issue
  • open/close notes list
  • Pin/Delete a note
• Optimize performance. Memory consumption (why 50mb for an empty app?) Link to issue
• Collapsable sections for long notes to get an outline-like overview. Collapse sections under headers. With a button to toggle the outline of a note. Link to issue
• Second editor (side-by-side, not on a different tab) like Ulysses. Link to issue

Small complexity

• Export/Import notes to/from txt
• Focus mode - focus on paragraph/text -> greys out the rest
• Typewriter mode, text is always in the middle
• Simple onboarding that says "Press #N or click here to create a new note" when database is empty.
• Click on the notification area icon to bring Notes to the foreground. As it is now, I have to right-click and then click “Show Notes.”
• If Microsoft OneNote is installed, the Windows-N shortcut still opens OneNote instead of Notes. Notes doesn't offer a way to override this or change the shortcut.
• Highlight search in notes list area as well.
• Merge selected notes or all notes into one note.
• It would be nice to have a quick in-app help reference for the application shortcuts.
• Support footnotes
• Option for first big letter a la ancient texts.