I am not a huge fan of installing all kind of gadgets on my machines. The leaner the better. Sometimes I am seduced and I install a new piece of gadget software. Lately I installed the following:
1. joplin for making and archiving notes;
2. weylus for making drawings and graphs on my tablet and displaying this on a large screen.
Joplin
Making notes is chaos. I use a simple text editor or a word processor. This leaves me with all kind of text files under different names stored in a folder notes, and I have folders like this on different devices such as a phone or my tablet. What I need is a piece of software that stores my notes and synchronize it my other devices. Joplin is a find: doing exactly what I need, easy to use and to install. It is available for all OS, from Windows to Linux and Android. Here is a screen dump of the program.
In the column left you see the various notebooks; the second column shows the notes in that notebook and the third, the main screen shows the content of a note. The two buttons on the left toggle between two different editors. The buttons on top of the second column is toggling various way of sorting, creating a new 'to do' or a new note.
Making a note could be simple typing text, but also a URL or a web page. Then you should install the
joplin web clipper by chrome apps. Here are the various options of the clipper:
BTW Joplin can also handle different media formats like pdf or video and pics.
For synchronizing the notes and notes books is strait forward: install Joplin of other machines or on a phone or tablet using the app. Next choose the tool for synchronization: Nextcloud, Dropbox or OneDrive. I am happy with dropbox.
For coders and other command line riders there is also a
terminal version, using VI as editor. Ah you want your own server to synchronize your note books; no problem try this
Docker Image .
Weylus
No doubt you will recognize the following situation. You have to sign a pdf document. Writing on your large screen with e-pencil is no fun. You could do it on your tablet, but the you should be able to load or display the document on for example you tablet. What is needed is a cooperation between the main screen and and the tablet.
Or take the following. During a data journalism training I have to draw a graph by hand. On a tablet is easy, byt the tablet is not showing on my main screen. In these cases Weylus is a nice tool. I run Linux Mint on my desktop main screen and a tablet with android. Install
Weylus on your main device and
Xournal (is a hand note-taking software).
Start Weylus:
Open a browser and connect to the local address or scan the QR code. The tablet and the main screen are now synchronized. Start Xournal on your main screen, which will be available on your tablet as well. and draw your graph.
