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+#+title: Easy, Reliable Note-Taking
+#+date: 2022-03-02
+#+description: My personal preferences to ensure notes are clear, portable, and long-lasting.
+#+filetags: :personal:
+
+* Choosing Durable File Formats
+
+#+begin_quote
+TL;DR: Write in a format that can be easily rendered and read in
+plain-text mode (e.g., =.txt=, =.md=, etc.).
+#+end_quote
+
+As I've written more and more over the years, I've found that my love of
+note-taking is always growing. Everything I learn or need to remember
+can be written down in a note and saved digitally, with no cost to
+myself. Unlike paper copies that need physical storage space, digital
+files simply need space on your local disk or cloud storage, which is
+fairly abundant these days.
+
+However, I had a historical struggle with migration of notes between
+different apps that require different formats and applied proprietary
+styling. This meant that I had to go through each note during migration
+and edit the file to look presentable again.
+
+For the last year or two, I have written everything exclusively in
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown][Markdown]] format. Small
+notes, long-form writings, and even these blog posts are all written in
+Markdown.
+
+Why Markdown? While I do appreciate the simplicity of plain-text files
+without any formatting, I often need visual cues such as heading and
+code blocks to keep my thoughts straight. Markdown provides a minimal
+set of styling indicators for me to style my notes without adding any
+proprietary, embedded data into the files. If I want a top-level
+heading, I simply add a hash (=#=) before the line. An added bonus is
+that even if a system doesn't understand Markdown, it will render it as
+plain-text and I can read it just as easily.
+
+For example, here's how TextEdit on macOS will open and display a
+Markdown file in plain-text, since it does contain any features to
+preview Markdown as HTML:
+
+#+caption: Plain Text Markdown
+[[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20220302-easy-reliable-note-taking/plain_markdown.png]]
+
+** Saving & Syncing Files
+In order to read and edit my notes across platforms, I use my personal
+cloud storage through Tresorit due to its native integration with macOS
+and iOS file managers. In addition, Tresorit works well on Debian-based
+Linux distros, which I used before macOS (and will likely switch back to
+in a few years).
+
+You can use whatever sync software you want - syncing plain-text or
+markdown files is incredibly easy and fast, since the files are
+generally tiny.
+
+Since the cloud storage syncs files automatically, there is no need for
+me to sync anything manually or kick-off a sync job to update my files.
+This means that I can edit on mobile, and it takes about 5-10 seconds to
+see the changes on desktop.
+
+*** Version Control with Git
+A different approach I've contemplated is storing my notes and
+attachments is using a hosted Git repository to track changes to the
+files. However, I don't want to rely on an external service that could
+potentially see into my data, even if the repository is private.
+
+I might just do =git init= locally and then commit my changes each time
+I write or update a note, but that seems to be a lot of work just for
+tracking changes - which I don't necessarily care to know.
+
+*** Backups!
+One small addition to the storage/sync conversation is the idea of
+backups. Personally, I manually create periodic backups of my entire
+cloud storage, compress it into an archive, and store it on my home
+server.
+
+To improve my workflow, I am going to be exploring options to
+automatically compress the mounted cloud directory and send it over to
+my server on a set schedule.
+
+** Writing on Desktop
+
+#+begin_quote
+*Update (06.14.22)*: Since writing this post, I have reverted to simply
+keeping my =notes= folder open and opening notes individually in
+TextEdit for a more minimal and relaxing writing experience on the
+desktop.
+
+#+end_quote
+
+The bulk of my writing occurs in a desktop environment, with a full
+keyboard layout and wide screen. I don't illustrate with a smart pen, I
+rarely use embedded images, and I love being able to see all of my
+notes/directories in a sidebar.
+
+With this simple set of requirements, I chose
+[[https://obsidian.md][Obsidian]] as my desktop text editor. Obsidian
+has some in-depth tools like a graph view, command palette, mentions,
+etc., but I've found that using it as a simple Markdown editor is
+incredibly easy and straightforward.
+
+Here's an example of how my Markdown notes look when opened in
+plain-text mode:
+
+#+caption: Obsidian Markdown Source Mode
+[[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20220302-easy-reliable-note-taking/obsidian_source_mode.png]]
+
+Here's the "live preview" version, where the Markdown is rendered into
+its HTML format:
+
+#+caption: Obsidian Markdown Live Preview
+[[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20220302-easy-reliable-note-taking/obsidian_live_preview.png]]
+
+*** Programming on Desktop
+While I was writing this, I realized I should specify that I don't use
+the same editor for writing notes and for writing code. For programming
+purposes, I use [[https://vscodium.com][VSCodium]] as my development
+IDE.
+
+** Writing on Mobile
+Personally, I write very little on mobile, except when needing to take
+important notes on-the-go. Any long-form writing, journals, etc. are
+done at home, where I always have my laptop available.
+
+I wanted a simple and foolproof editor for iOS, preferably open-source.
+After a long journey of testing the few (& terrible) open-source iOS
+note-taking apps, I finally found a phenomenal one:
+[[https://github.com/simonbs/runestone][Runestone]]. This app is
+fantastic for note-taking, has plenty of optional features, and
+integrates natively with the iOS file manager.
+
+This app opens the iOS file manager and allows you to click any file you
+want, opens it up in an editor, and lets me save and close out of that
+note.
+
+Quite simple but effective.