I was an Evernote user when I was on macOS. When I switched to Linux, a proper web clipper was something I really missed. I'm now on Joplin and it does everything I used to use Evernote for and then some.

It even has vim bindings now!

As far as longevity goes, I think they got their archive / backup format right - it's just a tarball with markdown in it.

Also people need to move away from those esoteric reactjs, angular, vuejs and plethora of CMS as API or static site generators relying on some js framework which won't last even 2-3 years. Use a static site generator which can generate a plain html, like static site generators built on pandoc, python docutils or similar.

Personally I like restructuredText as the preferred format for content as its a complete specification and plain text. So the only thing in this article I will change is that content can also be in rst format and then generate html from it. Markdown is not a specification as each site implements their own markdown directives unlike restructuredtext specification and most of the parsers and tooling are little different from each other.

I have used rst intensively on a project. A few years later, I would be hard pressed to write anything in ti and would need to start with a Quick Start tutorial. With all its faults, Markdown is simple enough that it can be (and is) used anywhere, so there is no danger of me forgetting its syntax (even if it wasn't much simpler to star with).

So personally I would prefer md over rst anytime.

Not by that name... https://commonmark.org/

If you are in restructuredText world there is one specification and all implementation adhere to it, be it pandoc, sphinx, pelican, nikola. The beauty of it is that it has extension mechanisms which provides enough room for each tool to develop it. But markup can be parsed by any tool.

[1] https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtex...

It's better than "designed by a committee" standards, but it lacks elegance or maybe craftsmanship.

You don't really get bit by its lack of a standard and extensibility until after you've bought in.

It's essentially designed by the opposite of a committee -- rather than including everything but the kitchen-sink, it contains support for almost no usecases except the one. Which is very appealing, when you only have the one usecase.

So markdown needs to thank the popularity of Wikipedia for its success, as rst did not have any application like Wikipedia. But still rst is used widely enough with its killer Sphinx, readthedocs and now its kind of de-facto documentation writing markup in Python and many open source software world.

Joplin is free and open source.

Joplin is open source, which is a big part of the sell to me. It definitely isn't the best of all possible note taking systems that could ever exist, but it's the best open source one I've found so far, and I don't have time to write a better one at the moment.

> why not build it into browsers. I have seen Firefox and Chrome can download web pages. So it will be nicer if they can download the bookmarked pages and store in a local html, css, image folder. I think it's pretty easy to achieve

This is solving a different problem though. WARC/MHT and other solutions can do this. Joplin is more of a note taking system that allows ingesting content from the web into one's own local notebook, which is relevant to what the GP post was talking about - Evernote.

However, it would seem that "the modern web" is the now popular standard. 10 years ago it might have been Flash or Java web applets or whatever. Now it's JS. I'm not convinced that JS is any better than what it has replaced. However, people keep paying developers to write them, so presumably someone likes them.

> Also people need to move away from those esoteric reactjs, angular, vuejs and plethora of CMS as API or static site generators relying on some js framework which won't last even 2-3 years. Use a static site generator which can generate a plain html, like static site generators built on pandoc, python docutils or similar.

Agreed, but that's also not a problem that Joplin, Evernote, or any other such tool is going to be able to solve. Unless you are complaining that Joplin is an Electron app? That's my biggest issue with it personally. It runs well enough, but is definitely the heaviest application I use regularly, which is a little sad for a note taking program. On the other hand, I haven't found a better open source replacement for _Evernote_. There are lots of other open source note-taking programs though.

> Personally I like restructuredText as the preferred format for content as its a complete specification and plain text. So the only thing in this article I will change is that content can also be in rst format and then generate html from it. Markdown is not a specification as each site implements their own markdown directives unlike restructuredtext specification and most of the parsers and tooling are little different from each other.

reST is indeed very nice. At one point, I kept my personal notes as a Sphinx wiki with everything stored in reST. I found this to be less ergonomic than Evernote/Joplin, although in principle it could do all the same things that Joplin can do, and then some.

Safari does this. pages added to the reading list archive the content for offline reading.

I have used Evernote and OneNote, but have finally, after a long interim period, resorted to using only markdown.

I have a "Notes" root folder and organize section groups and sections in subfolders. VSCode (or Emacs), with some tweaks, shortcuts, and extensions, provides a good-enough markdown editing experience. Like an extension that allows you to paste in images, storing it in a resources folder in the note's current location (yes, I see small problems with this down the road when re-organizing, but nothing that can't be handled).

For Firefox, I use the markdown-clipper extension the few times I would like to copy a whole article, it works well enough. Or I copy/paste what I need; mostly, I take my own summarized notes.

For syncing, I use Nextcloud, which also makes the notes available both for reading and editing on Android and iOS (I use both).

Up until very recently, I used Joplin, which also uses markdown, but there were two things I could not live with: it does not store the markdown files with a readable filename, e.g., its title, and being tied to a specific editor.

If you are mostly clipping and not writing your own notes, I can imagine my setup won't work well, or be very efficient.

I want to use a format that has longevity, and storing in a format that I cannot grep is out of the question.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/markdown-clip...

You bookmark in Pinboard or Delicious and ArchiveBox saves the page. Handy.

I had recently participated in a discussion on the problem of forgetting bookmarks[1].

Copying my workflow from there,

1. If the entire content should be easily viewed, then store via pocket extension.

2. If a partial content should be easily viewed i.e. some snippet with link to entire source, then store in notes (Apple).

3. If the content seem useful in the future, but it is okay to forget it; then I store it in the browser bookmarks.

But, my workflow doesn't address the problem raised by Mr. Jeff Huang; if Pocket app or notes disappear so goes my archives. I think self hosted archive as mentioned by the parent is the way to go, but I don't think it's a seamless solution to a common web browser user.

[1]https://needgap.com/problems/57-i-forget-my-web-bookmarks-qu...

I frequently see something and want to try it out the next time I want to do something else. So I emulate User Agent strings and append lots of "like [common thing I search for a lot]" to the bookmark. When I start typing into the search bar for those other things I'll be reminded of the bookmark.

For example, since file.io is semi-deprecated I decided to try out 0x0.st . But I kept forgetting when I actually needed to transfer a file, so I made a bookmark titled "0x0.st Like file io".

As a side note, I have a similar bash function called mean2use that I use to define aliases that wrap a command and ask me if I'd like to do it another way instead or if I'm sure I want to use the command. I've found this is a nice way to retrain my habits.

Disclaimer: needgap is a problem validation platform I built.

It is true that it is propietary software but it is worth mentioning that all the content can be exported as an .enex file, which is xml.

So, the data can be easily exported.

Have you actually looked at such an xml: https://gist.github.com/evernotegists/6116886

Exported sure, it's all there. But importing that into your new favorite notes application is not going to be trivial, especially not for regular users.

That's why I've decided to stick mostly to regular files in a filesystem.

Joplin, for example, can import notes exported from Evernote. It's just a menu option that even regular users should have no trouble employing.

> Only downside is I'm dependent on Evernote

No special software nor database required.

2. it works with any browser

3. I can move it to any machine and use it

4. It is not transmitted to the browser vendor

5. Being a text file, it is under my control

6. I can back it up

7. I don't need some database manager to access it

8. I can add notes and anything else to the file

9. It's stupid simple

I know about DevonThink, i read good recommendations. But it's IOS/Mac only.

Any Evernote alternative for Win/Android with great search ?

So simple! Thank you!

Edit: doesn't appear to be down, they're just using a self-signed cert.