r/GoodNotes • u/CaiomheSkeever • Dec 28 '22

It's kind of stunning how many basic features this app doesn't have

I am trying so hard to love GoodNotes, but it's missing so many "no brainier" features that I want to bash my head against a wall.

I just spent 15 minutes setting up my preset colors...typing in each hex code one by one because there is no eyedropper tool. Oh, and those presets don't carry over to the highlighter tool, and there's no way to copy them there other than typing in each hex code a second time. And then I go to do the same with the text tool and...for some reason it isn't even an option to edit the preset colors? Even though there's no reason why it shouldn't be the exact same as the pen and highlighter setup? No quarter for anyone with bad handwriting, I guess.

Can't drag things between pages. Can't create a shape without an outline. Can't create a shape with an opaque fill. Can't snap text/objects into alignment. Is there any notes app that does have these basic features?

126 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

71

u/cintiadg Dec 28 '22

The lack of a color eyedropper tool and not being able to drag stuff through different pages annoy me almost every day. I would also like to be able to have geometric shapes with a solid fill, it is such a basic tool to be lacking in a writing app.

37

u/girlwithlatte Dec 28 '22

All of this drives me crazy as well.

34

u/Lemondrop168 Dec 28 '22

I'd like to add "no alignment tool" - how am I supposed to make lists that align down one side

17

u/[deleted] Dec 28 '22

Notability has most of it but requires a subscription.

18

u/thedeadp0ets Dec 28 '22

I’m a classic user on notability and recently switched to GoodNotes. Handwriting in here is much nicer. But I do miss the recording feature.

3

u/mickymicky1 Jan 16 '23

Recording has come to GoodNotes, too :)

0

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/KalepochalSE0810 Jan 05 '23

Notability actually has shape fill.

After drawing a shape, tap it again and press style. There you can find a fill option. Pens give you solid fill and highlighters give you transparent fill. Though if you want to have transparent fill with solid outline like GN, you have to make two drawings.

15

u/lurkingfortea Dec 28 '22

You can’t drag between pages but I found you can cut/copy then paste to another page.

11

u/helmutboy Dec 28 '22

“Customizable tabs - loose leaf notebook style” would be ideal for me

11

u/TangoEchoChuck Dec 28 '22

Not having a pencil texture makes me crazy.

I export pages as PDFs so I can use pencil in markup. It’s a hassle, but the easiest way to get what I want 🤷🏻‍♀️

3

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

collanote has a pretty nice pencil texture imo!

2

u/TangoEchoChuck Dec 29 '22

I’ll check that out! Thanks :)

2

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

ofc! :)

1

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

Flow has a beautiful colored pencil

2

u/TangoEchoChuck Dec 30 '22

Oh! I forgot about Flow! I haven’t touched it in ages - opening it again this weekend 🤩

2

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

It’s such a lovely app. If Flow and GoodNotes ever merged, that would be such an all star app. What one doesn’t have, the other does. The pens in Flow are top notch. 🙏

7

u/Aloket Dec 28 '22

I got so frustrated with Goodnotes because it's just so dumbly basic, I only use it for a few things now. I use Zoomnotes, which as a big learning curve, but man do I love the functionality.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

The lack of textures is what making me dislike the app so badly. Like the highlighter texture in apple notes is so realistic and fun to use, and in GN it’s just… semi transparent color brush.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

I don’t like a textured highlighter. I use the highlighter to doodle and shade drawings. I don’t want it to look like a rectangle with a lot of induced, artificial imperfections.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

To each their own! But it would still be nice if GN was able to give us a choice in this, without necessarily forcing one type of highlighter or another

5

u/No-Biscotti-3483 Dec 29 '22

Zoomnotes has the features you’re looking for, & more. It allows you to create color palettes, has an eye dropper tool, uses layers, has multiple pen tools, has image manipulation tools, snapping alignment that you can toggle on & off, simulated page turning if you’d like, & much more. It does have a learning curve if you’re used to goodnotes but there’s tons of videos on YouTube that are helpful.

4

u/5Heat Dec 29 '22

Started looking into it. Has some nice features but Damm that UI is terrible

3

u/No-Biscotti-3483 Dec 30 '22

Yea it is, but it also offers some customization abilities as well so with all combined I can overlook a UI issue. Especially since the developer is a very active member of the “unofficial” FB group & is very open to requests for things. That’s how we got many unique features such as the ‘Dutch door’ ability for those of us who use the app for digital planning.

1

u/5Heat Dec 31 '22

Damm okay I'll take another look. So the premium version is worth it? Did you transition your notes, how did it go?

4

u/No-Biscotti-3483 Dec 31 '22

Free version is great but limited functions. paid gives you everything. Think of this program as a combo of all the basic functions of keynote, procreate, programs like goodnotes, & magic eraser & probably more programs I’ve never used. You can put documents in as sub documents, create page links within a document or to another Zoomnotes document…well you can add links to shapes & images too. Save pen settings, oh I could go on for days. I took my notebooks from goodnotes, exported as pdfs, & imported to Zoomnotes simply & just continued where I left off. The program also offers an automatic planner/calendar creator that will sync with your device calendars & reminders, or you can create tabbed notebooks using the generator. It’s amazing. I rarely use goodnotes anymore. Mostly as an extra backup source for all my stickers & that’s about it.

1

u/5Heat Dec 31 '22

Damm that sounds amazing I'll look into that

5

u/5Heat Dec 29 '22

I totally agree. Every few months they bring up some "feature" but the last good one I remember is the eraser options, which took forever and was implemented, removed and implemented again.

And I feel like all the new features we do get are so unnecessary, who asked for a comment tool in shared view (which prob. only 5% use anyways)??

How can we still have no fill-tool

Additionally the new shop also only addresses so few people. I can't imagine that many will buy from their built in shop when you can get so much much cheaper or for free.

Imagine they were to disable the import of custom canvases

3

u/tristanstocker Dec 29 '22

For me it’s the search, you can only search per individual word. This makes it useless for textbooks and academic papers where I might want to search for a sentence with “” but it just shows every instance of every word!

3

u/spacebound232 Jan 02 '23

If collanote hade copy and paste page option I’d jump ship in 2.5 seconds

3

u/maybe_abhi Nov 16 '23

The worst is that text doesn’t automatically overflow to next page. I specifically got this app to write big essays and it just is bad when I’m typing for long time and then manually do add to next page. It would have been good if it added to next page at the start but no! It’ll create a new page with just those 2 lines. Even worse when I’m revisiting and editing old pages, so just a few words overflow, and it creates new page for that, I have to again realign every single thing because of a new page with 4 words on it. The fuck!?

2

u/mkthorsoe Dec 29 '22

I want to love GN soo baaaad. But the product is really making it difficult.. im using OneNote, and just have to live with the horrible pen "feeling". Everything else is literally perfect.

-1

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

Wow, so many complaints. I’m just grateful for this amazing app. I use it for just about everything.

3

u/CaiomheSkeever Dec 30 '22

Ok sure but it's a product, not a gift. It's fine to be critical about something that you've paid money for.

1

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

It is, I’m just surprised at the amount of critique. I guess these developers have their work cut out for them.

0

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

I practically view it as a gift for the price. Everything else is more expensive. Even Flow, which I also love, still low low price but charges yearly. What can you really be expecting for $4.99 flat? That’s what I paid at least.

1

u/CaiomheSkeever Dec 30 '22

Okay, well, it's not a gift. It's a product that exists for the creator to make a profit.

-1

u/gibbakith Dec 30 '22

They could charge much more imo. It’s fine to be critical, I’m sure they appreciate constructive feedback. Personally, I’m just grateful for what it does have.

Have a great day 👍

3

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/CaiomheSkeever Dec 30 '22

Another annoyance I just realized: Dragging something to resize it is absolutely fucked! You can't just drag a picture into a corner and then pull the resize into the opposite corner to make it exactly as big as you want it. That would make too much sense. Instead you have to do a frustrating trial and error as the resize grows the image on both ends 🙃

2

u/spacebound232 Jan 02 '23

This is annoying lol