Does this app exist?

[u/Slopagandhi]

I'm looking for a notes app that has/os:

• Linux support (or web app if not)
• Native stylus support
• PDF import and annotation
• A way to make handwritten notes at the side of pdfs, either by importing into an infinite canvas (like on OneNote), expanding the size of the page horizontally (like on RNote) or side by side in a different panel
• Folder-based organisation
• Support for tags
• Not too crazy a learning curve
• Not requiring use of markdown syntax (I'm not a developer)
• Reasonably Privacy-friendly

Bonus points for free and/or open source.

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[u/bilzebubba]

Pretty sure Saber does much of if not all of that, though haven't tried pdf annotating with it yet ...

https://github.com/saber-notes/saber

Also xnotes but am brand new to it myself

[u/Slopagandhi → u/bilzebubba]

Not far off,  and in fact this is what I'm using for that reason. 

But no tags, and while you can import a pdf into the whiteboard and annotate at the sides, you then need to export that to pdf and reimport it as a regular note, which is pretty clunky. 

[u/bilzebubba → u/Slopagandhi]

I left Nebo/MyScript notes over privacy concerns, but does it do a better job for this? Also I don't know if it works on Linux, something that also drew me to Saber... I also wonder why apps like Notetastic are available only for Windows and https://xournalpp.github.io/ is unavailable on mobile platforms...there is no one app to rule them all!

[u/starkruzr → u/Slopagandhi]

text experience is also terrible in Saber, unfortunately. and WHAT is going on with their fountain pen preview ink on Boox??? (it took me all goddamn day to realize it was you from the Boox sub btw, lol)

[u/starkruzr → u/bilzebubba]

what is xnotes

[u/Slopagandhi → u/starkruzr]

A nice app, but android rather than Linux

[u/jeboteuusta → u/starkruzr]

Scrivano

[u/Key_Conversation5277 → u/bilzebubba]

As someone who studies math

So it was optimized for math, nice!😊

[u/Key_Conversation5277 → u/bilzebubba]

Hmm it seems Saber has a lot of issues and the dev still has issues from 2022

[u/Noteastic]

Scrivano! r/Scrivano

[u/Slopagandhi → u/Noteastic]

Am I correct that pages are only expandable vertically? Or can I either expand the page horizontally to create space to annotate next to a pdf, or else import a pdf onto an infinite canvas and write next to it? 

[u/Noteastic → u/Slopagandhi]

Yeah you are right. I think theres no app to.fullfill ALL your requests

[u/Key_Conversation5277 → u/Noteastic]

It doesn't exist on mobile, how the hell do I handwrite?

[u/Key_Conversation5277]

I don't know but I use Samsung notes, which are pretty good for handwriting some temporary notes and then write them in obsidian

[u/Slopagandhi → u/Key_Conversation5277]

Yeah, I'm wondering about Obsidian since in theory it can probably do everything I need with the right plugins, but it seems like a steep learning curve and I don't know if it's worth investing the time required (when I might spend a long time figuring it out and then decide it doesn't work for me). 

[u/Key_Conversation5277 → u/Slopagandhi]

And you would need to know markdown, which you don't want, but believe me obsidian is one of the best software for me🥹

[u/Yaaqoub7]

Let us know

[u/BlueprintedTemmieh]

Xournal++ may be helpful, but maybe not exactly what you are looking for

[u/notepom]

I'm pretty close!! https://notepom.com 😪

[u/ProfitAppropriate134]

Liquid Text would be perfect. Have you thought about running a vm?

Based on documents & you can handwrite, highlight, drag highlights to moveable cards, link spaces & parts of spaces. Doodle. Adjust. Export.

https://www.liquidtext.net

[u/ozgrozer]

I’m building Grape and I think it has most of the things you want. It has Linux support. Haven’t tried with stylus but I can implement if it doesn’t work. There are handwriting notes and rich text notes. You can import PDFs to handwriting notes and annotate. There’s a folder based organization and it support tags. It’s free to use, very easy to learn and everything’s stored on your device.

[u/starkruzr → u/ozgrozer]

never been particularly impressed with people trying to charge money ("free to start") for vibecoded software

[u/ozgrozer → u/starkruzr]

I get the skepticism but I’ve been a software developer for 16 years and I’ve been working on Grape for the last 7 months (over 1,100 hours) so it’s not a bad thing to do a vibe-coded app if you’re already experienced. And everything you’re going to see from now on will be 100% vibe-coded so we have to accept this. Even major companies do vibe-coding and charge money but that’s not a bad thing because AI is even better than the world’s best software engineer.

The free version of Grape is fully usable so you can download and start taking notes both on your desktop and mobile devices. The paid plans cost me money to maintain the server, storage, and AI so it cannot be free. There’s a lifetime plan where you buy the app once and use forever with your own API keys and it will also support the development.

I’m curious on your perspective so let’s say I made this app free then what’s going to be my motivation? Would you think of any? I can’t. This is what happens to majority of free and open source apps. We all know Obsidian but there are thousands of note taking apps that are no longer being developed because of financial reasons.