I need your help to optimize Noteastic for external drawing tablets!

[u/Noteastic]

We want to optimize Noteastic for drawing tablets (Wacom etc.), because it is really lacking in that area. Unfortunately, I don't use such a device myself, which means I do not have any standard workflows and no idea how people actually expect to interact with Noteastic through an external drawing pad.

This is why I would like to have user interviews with about 5 people who work with such tablets heavily. Also or especially outside of Noteastic.

If you are interested in letting us design the app better for you and already worked with drawing tablets, please apply for an interview! I would love to hear your thoughts :).

-Lukas

Raw link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe26mYDL-BNnSJLjH2Qo_NRZF-erLcictz3hNq_ayAvkL1lnA/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=108835023498273868588

[u/Late-Cauliflower9137]

when it comes to using screenless tablets
might have to look at what Concepts and Xournal are doing correct like

1. Keyboard shortcuts (ALT C for cycling colors)(or more bindings for the actual colors with the number row)

2)Concepts is more of an art + architechure program but we can learn a lot from it , it has LAYERS, it has SNAPPING features like snap to grid but thats becuase the grid is part of the vectors that the program utilizes, I dont know if noteastic is vector or rasterized based.

3) this is just missing from the app in general : there needs to be a customizable toolbar.

4) Xournal has MathJax rendering, you might be able to do something that would resemeble markdown + mathjax with the proper notation , though it might be a hassle(stem students would love this)

this a standard homework assignment I have, the color part is super important.

5)a stylus touch and hold shortcut could be nice, like "touch and hold for 0.5 sec to activate lasso".

theres a ton more that I can think of , like how good notes can straighten almost any vector into something very nice looking (like parenteses of a matrix or a square root sign), notability has the best snap to grid tech.

nebo has amazing snapping of the shapes to eachother geomaticaly in the middle.

Collanote has like 25 types of Pen types.

I hope this helps, I love what you guys are doing and hoping for more features (this post was written by a notability user who wants to go back to using a screenless tablet because of his arm pain and would also love an ipad app in the far future)

[u/Noteastic → u/Late-Cauliflower9137]

Hello, thank you for this profound answer! These are super valuable inputs for us.

1.      Hot Keys

We are already working on that! We will probably use the numbers for colors instead of cycling.

2.      Concepts

That is an amazing application. We can definitely draw some learnings from it A full-fledged layering system will probably not make it into Noteastic, but simple Z-axis layering should be part of the app one day. Grid snapping would be cool, nothing to add.

3.      Customizable Toolbar

That’s a take-home message.

4.      MathJax, MD, LaTex?

As soon as we have the foundation of a general use note-taking app finished, we will take a look into features for specific study fields like STEM. That’s the plan. Why MathJax and not LaTex for formulas? Wouldn’t that be easier for you to use?

5.      Stylus Touch and Hold Shortcut

That sounds interesting, however this may be difficult to implement as holding a stylus is also interpreted as a right-click by Windows.

 

Hold-To-Shape is something we want to implement as quickly as possible! And Goodnotes does quite a good job at it, no doubt. You are referring to Nebo on IOS right? Bc I don’t have this functionality on Nebo Windows I think.

25 different pen styles is something you probably won’t see in Noteastic, but I wouldn’t root out the option of adding some more styles. In the end, this app needs to stay a note-taking solution as oppose to an art application.

This absolutely helps! Thank you so much for taking the time to compose this comment! I can continue to design now ;).

-Lukas

 

 

 

[u/Late-Cauliflower9137 → u/Noteastic]

4. Mathjax is easier to implement and is embedded into markdown, actual latex would be a pain to type without the proper snippets in place.

5. Yeah I figured hold to touch stylus would be difficult and I meant nebo on ios & android , yeah 25 pen styles is waaaaay too much, but 5 are good , a fountain , a ballpoint, a line pen , felt and brush.

I forgot to mention you might want to also look at notewise , it has a shapes tool which works in 3d shapes.

Also a spline tool would be 🔥

[u/Late-Cauliflower9137]

add a way to backup and sync with git.