My main requirement is that I am using Syncthing to sync my notes from my Android phone, which uses Quillpad. Quillpad is amazing and looks super nice, and functional too, but all the notes are in one big folder rather than being subdivided by notebook. So I require a markdown editor that can create “notebooks” but don’t change the folder structure of the notes (I tested putting notes in subfolders, and quillpad thought the notes were deleted. Silly Quillpad!)
So the notebooks/similar organisation of notes needs to be specific to the app and should not change the folder structure. I would prefer if the app is open-source too, and something that fits with my desktop (KDE Plasma) would be cool too :D
This rules out Obsidian (which puts notes in a folder structure. Obsidian is great, but won’t sync well with Quillpad), Joplin won’t work either. Ghostwriter is pretty much a markdown notepad (quite good, but can’t see all my notes in one place)
I am using EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma
edit: To clarify, I want a markdown editor that is able to separate notes into different groups without using folders as Quillpad doesn’t like folders. I also need to have a way to view all the notes at once in each group
Using a code editor VSCodium wouldn’t really work as there isn’t really a way to organise notes, aside from putting them in folders (which I don’t want), and I am not yet ready to jump into the Vim rabbit hole of plugins and configuration
edit 2: Markdown editor to note organiser to satisfy the pedant
edit 3: Looks like Obsidian has tags, so I could use those to organise notes without folders. I will try that and see if it works!
edit 4: Obsidian does have tags, but it seems like you sort by tags by typing tag:#NAME, and you can’t use spaces for tags. So not Obsidian then unfortunately. Are there any other options that have a larger focus on tags or similar?
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Try KleverNotes
the one with the stupidest name - qownnotes, it’s QT, so it isn’t an electron slob and integrates nicely into plasma. when you turn off all the cacophony of the zillion toolbars and stuff, it yields a distraction-free UI ala apple’s notes. I use it with subfolders but it’s got tags, so you can mimic the same functionality.
it’s got buncha stuff in it (its own nextcloud sync, AI summary support, etc.), which thankfully is/can be turned off.
Interesting, I might look at that later
Others have said, but I’m a big fan of obsidian. I use syncthing to keep my vaults current across my phone and computers.
It looks good, has a plugin for just about anything you’d need, and works really well on every system I’ve tried. Ios, macos, Linux, windows, and android.
You can put all your notes in a single folder with Obsidian. Use a note to link to other notes, the first note will act as your “notebook”
I use https://silverbullet.md/ since a year after migrating from logseq.
Can silverbullet be used as a team knowledge base? Online collaboration and such?
It can. Silverbullet can do quite anything, that’s where it’s name comes from. You can code your own logic directly in markdown through lua like code, get pages tags, generates tables etc… but the tool is very “hacky”. Either you love it, either you hate it. And if you are not a hairy nerdy guy, you will hate it.
Well… I am a very hairy nerdy guy. What does the collaboration workflow look like? The end result should be simple because my teammates aren’t hairy nerdy guys :))
You have very specific requirements. You may attract the Vim and Emacs fans…
Joking aside, I have very specific requirements, and I just use Vim to edit Markdown, on desktop.
I don’t think Vim has a way to show all my notes in one place, or any way to organise notes? (unless it does, you never know)
Also, Vim-based editors have steep learning curves. It would be cool to learn how to use it, but I want to explore other options before I fall into the rabbit hole
I switched from Obsidian to Neovim mainly because of Vim-motions and keybindings. Obsidian has Vim-motion support but it’s pretty basic and some stuff doesn’t work… it’s just not the same.
I have a pretty minimal Neovim setup and don’t use any special plugins for markdown. I just use Treesitter to create some custom highlight groups to highlight links, codeblocks, headlines and similar stuff. I don’t do images or complex tables or all of that other jazz and I know markdown by heart for the most part so I don’t really need any markdown preview plugins. But there are plugins that render markdown in the Neovim buffer itself, instead of having you go to your browser to see your changes.
It’s way simpler. I use
gOto see the outline of my file, alsomini.pickwhich is just a grep and fuzzy finder to find specific lines, words, files and navigate between them. I have been using Neovim for over a year so and use it basically everywhere so the benefits keep compounding as I learn how to navigate where I want faster. It’s a powerful tool. One thing I will say is because you use Neovim you don’t need to really organize your notes as you just use your picker to find stuff for you and it’s sooooo much faster and better than whatever Obsidian had. You never have to go to your file tree or whatever and search for that file.This wasn’t a switch that I did fanatically. I went back to Obsidian a few times for a couple of days / weeks and just used that. It’s fine … It works… But afterwards every time I just went back to Neovim, did some modifications to my config, and started using it more and more until it just became way better.
All of that being said … would I recommend someone start Neovim just to write markdown? No. As you said it has a pretty steep learning curve and you will never get back the time you spent on it, it’s also a bit overkill to use it just for markdown, you will need to make some modifications as well… But I find it more fun and enjoyable to work with.
I don’t think Vim has a way to show all my notes in one place, or any way to organise notes? (unless it does, you never know)
Many use the “Nerd Tree” plugin for this, but there’s…too many options.
I want to explore other options before I fall into the rabbit hole
I respect that. The rabbit hole goes very deep. In your shoes, I might still take a look at an editor with a strong plugin ecosystem, like Emacs or VSCodium. Is Atom still around? Atom was nice.
Does Vim have any live markdown preview or plugins that enable that? If it does that would be quite interesting
https://github.com/iamcco/markdown-preview.nvim
There is one in Neovim that might interest you. It opens up the current file content you edit in a new web browser, Firefox in example. The cool thing is, it is also synchronizing the current position of the document in Neovim and the browser view. I don’t need that functionality, but found it very cool.
Does Vim have any live markdown preview or plugins that enable that?
Yes. I recognize some of the ones mentioned in this article as ones I have appreciated, in the past.
https://www.w3tutorials.net/blog/is-there-a-vim-plugin-for-previewing-markdown-files/
If it does that would be quite interesting
Oh yeah!
I’m not actually trying to get you to switch, but your post reads to me as someone ready to bring in some serious tooling to achieve a precise workflow.
Vim still might be a bit extreme, haha. As you know, it has a whole learning curve. If you decide to give it a spin, be sure to try
:vimtutor, it is nice.Anyway, setting aside vim, it sounds to me like your needs call for an editor with a strong open plugin ecosystem.
I understand that Emacs and VSCodium also have excellent Markdown plugins.
OP asks for markdown editor, not for beeper and text spoiler
Any editor can edit markdown. Whats your point? Vim is a good option and nothing wrong with bringing it up or recommending it.
Vim is a good option
It isn’t. And it stopped being one 30-40 years ago. All it “goodness” holding on the fanaticism of those who spend too much time mastering this “editor” and inventing excuses to call it “good”. It the most counterintuitive interface ever.
And no, I won’t stop pointing that. I wasted a few years of my life on this shit while being younger and trustier. I listened to advise of people who I hoped were more experienced and know better. Alas they were crazy fanatics.
What specifically is bad about it?
Extremely low profit/effort ratio. Vim demands an enormous (as for a text editor) effort to master it, demands regular usage (it is impossible to keep those voodoo enchantments in the head. Vimers even have cribs with most important commands. Pathetic), and all that for practically nothing.
Oh you’re just mad at how much power it puts in the hands of the user. Yeah it has a steep learning curve but these text editors (for reference I use emacs) are more like power tools. There are so many different areas where they get used it’s impossible to build a one-size fits all solution. Do you see how many different sawbenches there are? This is like that.
What if I have to, typeset math, write some auxiliary python code and keep notes? Well I need a text editor that is fundamentally different from someone a kernel hacker.
I’m for sure not gonna switch between Writer and some python IDE and another notes taking app, that’s just the same learning effort spread over different apps.
how much power it puts in the hands
Yes, repeat that mantra until you find yourself omnipowered power-vimer of powerful power :)
It’s so arrogant to make universal statements like this. Not everyone finds the same interfaces work for them.
Sometimes things are simple. You just see an ugly thing and say “it is ugly”.
You can apply some mental gymnastics, some philosophical voodoo, some psychological tricks, etc to make shit look like something nice. Moreover, you might even find a few people who sincerely like the shit. But shit is shit.
And there is no any reason, except for spreading the fanatical craziness, to suggest shit to people who want a real tool to solve real problems. No, a few coprophiles don’t make shit an appropriate suggestion to people who just asked for some video.That’s not “arrogance”. That’s defense of new people. Now they at least won’t unconditionally trust whatever you say. Now they will see that the are other opinions on the matter. And rather strong opinions. Strong opinions don’t appear without reason. It worth investigating. Investigation leads to comparison of other options. Vimer lose. Common sense win.
If I listened to you, then I would never try Vim and never understood how wonderful it is. Before that, i thought Vim is ugly and dumb. Why would anyone use Vim? Someday I had enough of the bullshit with the GUI tools and tried out this mystical Vim… and fall in love. Whenever I use a non Vim editor, it feels lacking, it feels holding me back. Or more specifically, I like to think how a Vim user thinks with combining the keys (
wcwto replace next word in example).Lot of people like using Vim. Just because you didn’t like it does not mean we should stop recommending or bringing it up. Let people try and find their own opinion, do not force your opinion on others.
As long as people like you would recommend vim, people like me would warn people to not trust fanatics.
You are entitled to your opinion, I grant you that. But you are not entitled to say what others think is good or bad.
LoL.
I’m just sharing what I use. I can’t help that I was indoctrinated so young into the cult of Vim.
Orgmode!!
any quick way to learn emacs syntax for a long time vim user? I understand if you suggest evil mode but lets assume i actually want to learn the emacs motions.
I can go through the emacs manual but that is more of a longer term engagement.
For the basics the tutorial that comes with stock emacs is GOAT. You navigate the tutorial in the program you’re learning the navigation in, that’s how I learned it. It covers the basics, moving, killing/yanking (cutting/pasting), moving the view without moving the point (the cursor), handling buffers (open files), windows (subframes in the emacs window) and frames (multiple emacs windows). There is a bit of a translation required as emacs is old and some terms come from a time before the concepts were in common english but it’s nothing really. I’m rather new to emacs as well, and this is how I learnt it.
After that what I found most useful was the following packages
(require 'use-package) (require 'diminish) (require 'bind-key) (use-package eldoc) (use-package which-key :bind ("M-H" . which-key-show-top-level) :init (which-key-mode t) :config (which-key-setup-side-window-right-bottom)) (use-package marginalia :init (marginalia-mode)) (use-package embark :bind ("C-<return>" . embark-act) :custom (prefix-help-command #'embark-prefix-help-command)) (use-package embark-consult :hook (embark-collect-mode consult-preview-at-point-mode))This binds
Alt+Hto show all the keys available (useCtrl+h nto scroll) as well as automatically pops up a buffer when you entered a command that isn’t complete, e.g.Ctrl+x. And it bindsCtrl+Returnto a kind of right-click menu that tries to guess at all the actions you could do with the thing you have at under the point.But most useful, is
Ctrl+h fto describe what a function does andCtrl+h vto describe what a variable does as well as the customize menuAlt+x customize.For a theme I would suggest one of ef-themes but that’s up to you ofcourse.
Emacs is a bit daunting to set up but I’m really loving it. See also https://github.com/SystemCrafters/crafted-emacs/tree/master for some ideas for how to set up some other stuff, although I went with the stock completions.
There are also non-emacs ways of interacting with org files https://orgmode.org/tools.html but I don’t know anything about them.
yeah thanks for the resources. I decided to just go through the manual.
And yeah, the older terms… I understand them as I am a crusty millenial and kind of like the charm of it.
my goal is to shift to emacs for work as I am drawn to the efficient notetaking + planner + dev environment with org mode.
Logseq might be a good option for you. You create “graphs” for a topic. Markdown notes for that “graph” are separated into “pages” and “journals.” For example, if you created a project called “cider_making”, you could create the following Markdown page files and save them in the pages directory: “Fuji Apple.md”, “cider press.md”, and “pectic enzyme.md.” If prefer to track notes in a journal format, your Markdown file would use the following format and be saved in the journal directory: “2026-02-19.md.”
Logseq is not cloud based. All files are stored locally to the machine you installed the software on. There are options to use a code repository to sync to other devices, but Syncthing can also be used to sync your notes. I’m using an rsync script to send notes I write on my laptop to my phone, living room computer, and file server. If I’m on a trusted computer on my network, I can use SSH X11forwarding to open the Logseq UI remotely to create new notes. Otherwise I can create a new page or journal Markdown file via SSH and vi. I’d just need to save the Markdown file in the appropriate journal or page directory to keep things organized. You can also host a webUI for your notes if you are so inclined.
Best of luck!
Can you clarify what you mean about the folder structure? As far as I know, Obsidian doesn’t change up the directory structure at all; it just uses what’s already there: if you’ve got folders, you’ll see them in Obsidian. If you don’t, all the notes will be in one big directory.
But to organise notes, you need folders. I’m looking for an app that lets you organise notes in a way that doesn’t use folders. (so still able to group notes together and being able to separate them, but not with folders since Quillpad doesn’t like folders)
Just use Obsidian without using folders, then? They’re completely optional.
It sounds like you could use any markdown app that supports tags or links. You can search for file by tag or create index notes that you link other notes to, letting you view all of them from the backlinks pane.
A lot of Obsidian users do not use folders for organization at all, both of the methods above are common. You could also look at Logseq which has similar features.
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding your requirements, lmk if I did.
What about tags?
What you’re looking for is not a markdown editor but a notes organiser that uses markdown. Any text editor makes a decent markdown editor, because that’s the point.
OK, no problem. Post has been edited
Nice! Hope you get some help. I am also interested in a notes organiser but don’t have the folder-structure constraint.
Just curious (genuinely not criticising your app choice) - I’ve tried Quillpad and it doesn’t seem much different from Joplin on Android to me.
What is it you find it does better than Joplin for you?
(I’m always testing notebook apps as I’m trying to get away from OneNote.)
Joplin is awesome, super customisable, has many plugins to extend functionality, etc., but the main downside is that markdown files aren’t saved as files that can be easily synced with something like Syncthing. Also, Quillpad has a slick UI that matches my theme, which is a nice bonus :0
One thing I will say, Quillpad isn’t as customisable as Joplin (the toolbar of different functions can’t be modified, for example) but it works for me and I like using it
I also like that you can view many notes at a glance (including some of the description) whereas Joplin only let you see the titles of the notes at a glance I think
I use Joplin with Syncthing and it works fine, so far?
Is there something about it that’s known to have issues with ST that I just haven’t run into yet?
Yea, not having a better view of note titles is a downside. I really like having that high-level view
Alternatively, you could suggest an Android markdown editor that does create a folder structure and looks as good as Quillpad (and hence can be used with Obsidian or similar)
Quillpad is hard to best for me though…
Yet more suggestions which you didn’t ask for:
-
GitNote might be up your alley. Its UI is not as slick as QuillPad, nor does it have as many features, but it does faithfully keep the folder structure.
Somewhat of a deal-breaker for me personally: It can’t do reminders. -
Embrace the chaos. 😅 I have a little program for managing my notes on desktop and it just dumps them all in one folder, too. If I need to find something again, I’ve got a little text search, which is basically the equivalent of
grep -iR. I just make sure to mention enough keywords in each note, so that I can find it again.
Personally, I much prefer this workflow, because you can start typing (and hitting Ctrl+S) and then later ensure that it has all the right metadata, rather than having to select a folder upfront where it will be saved.
I actually tried QuillPad not too long ago and couldn’t make it work for me, but being able to save as normal files seems to be a recent addition, so maybe that’s what I was missing.
I’ll probably try setting it up to work with my desktop note system then…-
I use helix editor for my markdown editor. Its use case is for the people that have no interest in configuring vim/neovim plugins. I would totally recommend it. Otherwise, you could use the kde editor Kate, or if you are a masochist nano.
helix-editor.comi would use (vs)code or pycharm
Well, Kate would be the obvious choice for KDE…
