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Show HN: Favorite writing / journaling tool? Half-finished projects welcome

14 points| DiggyJohnson | 5 years ago | reply

I’m specifically looking for a tool a user shared on here that facilitated writing for content by scrolling up and disappearing text as new text was inputted. I believe it was a HTML/JSS only solution - a small personal project. I’ve done a lot of focused searches, but haven’t been able to find this comment.

That said, I love these sorts of projects. I know they’re a self-indulgence and often a distraction. I’m celebrating that for a moment, personally.

Please share your favorites writing tools, the smaller and more personal the better.

16 comments

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[+] cl42|5 years ago|reply
I've been meaning to build a simple writing/research tool that is basically GitHub Markdown combined with two additional features:

1. A "tagging" component at the sentence level, so I can tag individual sentences. For example, the previous sentence could be tagged with {{feature-idea}}.

2. {{feature-idea}} A semantic search capability where I can see which other sentences in all of my documents are similar to the one I'm on or the one I'm interested in.

Why, you ask? I like to keep a daily journal of ideas based on the news, blog posts, etc. I read... Similar to Caesar's commentaries[1] because ideas and observations come daily and you don't want to forget them, especially if they are tied to global/current events.

Yes, this is basically a knowledge graph... And all the tools I see that do this really overcomplicated the entire process by actually building weird graph interfaces or mind maps (which I'm not a fan of).

If anyone knows of one like this, let me know!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Commentaries

[+] escherize|5 years ago|reply
I've been using logseq.com and it is great.

It has bidirectional references like you discussed, and sentence level referencing, and embedding.

[+] altilunium|5 years ago|reply
Back then i used basic text editor to create personal notes. But over times, i got cluttered folder with a lot of .txt files.

Then i made this as a replacement, a web-based notetaking app. With WYSIWYG editor, support linking to other notes (wikilink), image paste support, basic formatting, autosaves.

https://github.com/altilunium/rtnF

[+] benibela|5 years ago|reply
I made TeXstudio because I wanted to write a novel using LaTeX

Then I integrated LanguageTool as grammar checker

Then I tried to modify LanguageTool as part-of-speech classifier. Because I found writing advice like, strike through every adjective and adverb, and check if the sentence sounds better without them. But I do not want to strike them manually, so I need a part-of-speech classifier to do it. However, this part has never worked properly.

[+] DiggyJohnson|5 years ago|reply
To get the ball rolling: Hemingway Mode on anything.
[+] h-1|5 years ago|reply
Paper of various types and sizes, a good writing surface, an assortment of quality writing utensils, a three-hole punch, three ring binder, reusable sticky tabs, ruler, razor blade, more tea and things to chew on than can run out.
[+] paperwasp42|5 years ago|reply
A fun little writing app is called "Write or Die". It forces you to keep writing, or else your work is erased. Fantastic way to get a first draft written down on paper. The online version is free.
[+] cac1|5 years ago|reply
I wrote Epiphany WorkFlow (Mac App Store) for my own use to help with the problem I have organizing and sustaining a well directed writing project. With ADHS, this is a big problem with me.
[+] michaeleng|5 years ago|reply
I guarantee you will be more productive at writing using the method of a single pen and a legal-sized yellowpad than you will at basically any other tool on the computer, even though that seems counterintuitive. Very few people have the discipline to not flip tabs.

Try it as an experiment.

Attempt to write one document on your computer and one document in another room without any electronics in that room. I guarantee that the latter will go faster. If you need a computer to look things up, maybe use a specific Chrome book or something that bans social media sites. Or, alternatively, use a text-based browser like Lynx.

Happy writing, and I hope some people try this experiment out.

[+] DiggyJohnson|5 years ago|reply
OP here, and funnily enough: I completely agree with you. I write everything of substance on legal pad first, which I later “keyboard” (transcription of writing in pad + some editing ) onto a digital system.

For long stuff, I organize my legal pads into binders (pre-3-hole-punched).

Thattttt said, I love digital writing tools as a toy, and in this case I’m looking for a specific tool already. I think I literally referred to it as an indulgence in my text post.

Great points though, I appreciate the perspective. Happy writing to you as well.

[+] issamehh|5 years ago|reply
Absolutely not. First of all I've only got the one room to work in so there is no way to get a room without electronics. The real issue for me is going to be the speed at which I can put down the words. Of course there will be times when I need to think, but if I'm writing it manually I will be sigificatly slower and prone to losing my thoughts
[+] simplecto|5 years ago|reply
I use Ghost [1] for my blog (self hosted), and the drafts folder is perfect for me to jot notes and collect thoughts over time.

My work-flow is like this:

  1. It usually starts with a thought on a post-it or notebook
  2. Bring that immediately into a draft on ghost blog
  3. Start brian-dumping fragments, thoughts, sentences 
  4. Group fragments together under headings, which get a clever title
  5. that forms the bones of the thought. Some thoughts get evicted or pushed into its own separate draft.
  6. Back-fill each section with research and supporting materials (links, pictures, code snippets, etc)
  7. write a tldr;/summary on top. Conclusion on bottom.
  8. share draft with colleagues and mom
  9. publish
[1] - https://ghost.org