Notarista mockup

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m a big fan of Yojimbo for note-taking, collecting web receipts, storing encrypted passwords, etc.

The biggest two failings of Yojimbo for me are:

  • Mac-only — no Linux or Windows client
  • No native web client; WebJimbo is more or less functional but very awkward
  • Sync is tied to MobileMe, and gets increasingly fragile as your library grows

I finally reached the point where I couldn’t sync between my iMac at work and my laptop for home & travel, so out went the iMac. :(

I’ve become quite enamored of my Linux netbook for travel, but limited access to my notes and password store makes it limited for me. I’ve just gotta replace Yojimbo…

There are some other apps in the note space which I haven’t been too happy with:

  • Tomboy — Mono/GNOME-ey note taker. Decent for quick notes, but sync is hard to set up, the Mac/Windows ports are immature, and no support for images or encrypted passwords.
  • BasKet Notes — a KDE app. I find its interface confusing, and it’s insanely slow on my netbook. Doesn’t satisfy my syncing, web, or transfer requirements.
  • Evernote — this comes close… online syncing, nice web and Windows clients as well as Mac. No Linux client, no encrypted notes/password store, and transfer from Yojimbo loses metadata like dates and tags.

It’s beginning to look like I’ve just got to write my own. :)

I spent a couple hours tonight whipping up a UI mockup of Notarista using jQuery and CKEditor:

Notarista mockup screenshot

Initially it looks pretty much just like Yojimbo without the sidebar. ;) I’ll play with some alternate layouts that work better on a small netbook-size screen though; I think the note list can probably be hidden when not actively searching, for instance.

Update: I’m loooooooving jQuery! :D My UI mockup is now pulling sample data out of wikitech.wikimedia.org — search works and it’ll pull up actual page text you can pull into the editor. Of course it doesn’t save back… ;)

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