u/Neither-Classic2058

Running through my evaluation use-cases with version 1.3.6 has been quite enjoyable. I've got my HN vault syncing across all of my devices (Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iPad OS) (3500+ notes)

It's at a point of stability and consistency that I'm moving on to phase II... that involves using HN for heavy editing and creating. But creativity and productivity in a notes app, FOR ME, is affected by the look and feel of the app.

This is why theming capabilities in a notes app are important to me.

The HelixNotes' developers' approach to themes is something that, IMO, other developers should take note of.

First, there are the bundled themes in HelixNotes. Out-of-the-box, it is a moderately short list that offers a wide range of (luminance and color palette) options. I found nearly all of them to be pleasant and useful as-is.

Second, the ability to create custom themes using a simple interface (Styling Settings page and custom theme edit dialog) makes it easy to create a theme without having to bounce around to see how color choices affect the look.

Third, themes can be exported to .json files. This makes it easy to share themes with others as well as the opportunity to tweak them external to HelixNotes.

Within a few minutes of mouse clicking, I was able to "copy" themes from my other notes apps. (on Mac OS, the color picker of the system color dialog comes in very handy here... just keep the other app open, and eyedropper the colors in the other app)

In contrast, my currently primary notes app provides only 2 theme options... bright white and dark abyss, with the ability to select a highlight color from a palette of 8 colors.

In Joplin, I need to modify two .css files to theme it.

In Obsidian, I need to pull in a theme from the repository and use/create a .css snippet to tweak it to my liking.

HelixNotes can do this WITHOUT needing a plug-in infrastructure or sifting through .css files. 👍

There is a lot to like about the NXTPaper tablets. There are bundles that included a case and a T-Pen at an attractive price, but using the pen wasn't a pleasant experience. The nib is hard and produces a sharp clackity-clack sound when writing on the screen. (even with the softest pressure required to register)

I tried a few hacks and work-arounds to deal with the issue with varying degrees of success. The last work-around was tolerable but not something that I was looking forward to when writing.

The TCL T-Pen 2 appeared on my "Recommended deals for you" on Amazon and I was intrigued by what it promised. I ordered one and it arrive 2 days ago.

After a few hours of testing on my 11+ with both the "hard" and soft nibs and comparing them to the T-Pen included in the bundle, I'm pleased to say that the T-Pen 2 resolves the sound and slipperiness issues of the original pen.

The hard nib of the T-Pen 2 makes a muted tapping sound. It is noticeably quieter than the original pen but not completely silent.

The soft nib is far quieter than the Pen 2's hard nib and offers a bit more resistance on the screen. This is VERY acceptable to me.

It is the last piece of the puzzle in making the 11+ a reasonable alternative to my 2022 Scribe (and the Colorsoft Scribe I had been mildly considering). (don't @ me bro about the NXTPaper not being e-ink... I know) 😛

The action button defaults to an erase function which is very handy (I'll need to see if that can be customized)

My assessment scale of the writing experience/feel (10 being the best):

0 - iPad with Apple Pencil

7 - NXTPaper 11+ with T-Pen 2

10 - Kindle Scribe with Premium Pen

Just putting this out there for others in my situation. Obviously, acceptability is subjective so if anyone wants to try the T-Pen 2, buy it from a place with a reliable return policy.

If you're already using the T-Pen 2, what are your experiences with it?

Good news! The latest update to UpNote (9.22.5) fixes the issue of gray backgrounds being too dark in the dark theme and too light in the light theme.

Thanks to the devs for resolving this. 👍

Greetings all.

I finally got around to updating my Cupertino theme for the Y2 to support the 3.2.1 stock firmware.

Innioasis had rearranged much of the settings menu and introduced new entries. These needed new icons.

Unfortunately, the displayed album art on the Now Playing screen is still getting chopped. With 3.2.1 it is evenly cut off on the left and right sides. The original firmware chopped the image on the right side.

I've noticed a few additional minor changes between the 2 Y2 firmware versions and Y1 so I suspect there'll be more tweaks to make. 😁

I'm lovin' the built-in screenshot feature on the Y2. This makes it much more enjoyable to create and edit themes.

Here's the link to download it:

https://willysjeepman.neocities.org/y1

HelixNotes version: 1.3.5 (Mac OS)

When editing a note in the markdown editor I am experiencing some odd behavior. Attempts to modify existing text resulted in unpredictable edits. This seems to happen primarily when editing text toward the end of a paragraph.

In the selected text screenshot, you can see the "phantom" purple text. This phantom text appears when an edit is done.

Bonus Issue:

HelixNotes insists on saving a note after each keystroke typed. This causes performance issues when typing... even on a fast system with SSD. Speaking of SSD, the constant writing to disk will speed up the degradation of the SSD. (even with the high number of writes permitted before issues arise, writing to disk for each keystroke adds up quickly)

I'm attempting to flash inniclassic on my Y1 (on my Mac OS system) but the updater wants to download Y2-related files. Has anyone else encountered this?

Greetings all!

I finally managed to wrestle with the Y2's stock firmware theme engine to get something that is visually consistent and useable. There are definitely some bugs and limitations in the theme engine (perhaps more restrictive than for the Y1) but it's nice to have something clean and familiar.

I had to go with a gray background for the menus because the stock firmware's UI menu structure is more comprehensive than on the Y1 and hardcoded white text is more prevalent. So rather than keep the white menu background and render those entries unreadable (with the forced white text), I went with gray.

Free to download from my website (instructions for installing it are included):

https://willysjeepman.neocities.org/y1

The "official" tool for updating firmware on the Innioasis Y1 and Y2 using a Mac is the app found on this page: https://www.innioasis.com/a/docs/innioasis-y1/updater-mac

There are chronic issues with this app that remain unresolved. Please correct them or provide a simpler, more direct way to flash firmware to the Y1 and Y2.

Environment:

• OS: macOS Tahoe 26.5.2
• Innioasis Updater: 2.0.1
• Device: Y1

Issues:

• The installation of the Updater doesn't recognize that TKinter is installed. I have confirmed that it is installed and functional for python by running: python3 -c "import tkinter; tkinter._test()"
• The installer downloads a 1.5GB virtual environment for python. (the venv folder under Application Support/Innioasis Updater) This is unnecessary.
• The prompted steps to flash the firmware aren't accurate. Progress in the status doesn't reflect what is actually going on. When I flashed the 3.1.2 firmware, the status started changing and reporting progress even though the Y1 wasn't connected. I connected the Y1 and waited.. eventually it said 100% and then the status went back to 0% and looped through again. I allowed it to cycle yet again through 100% and detached the Y1 from the computer.
• (potential issue) Selecting inniclassic from the software pulldown installs Rockbox. I flashed inniclassic but when the Y1 booted, it displayed Rockbox. Perhaps inniclassic uses Rockbox, if so then it's not an issue, but if not, then the wrong software is getting flashed.

There are other technical issues with the updater but if these are fixed then it would go a long way in improving the user experience.

Greetings all.

I'm working on updating my Y1 themes to support the Y2 and am looking to take advantage of a few of the new theming capabilities of the Y2 (as is evident in the HoloPebble theme).

Unfortunately, the HoloPebble theme doesn't appear in the internal filesystem when attaching the Y2 to a desktop computer (not even as hidden files). I'm assuming that it is embedded in the system partition.

The stock firmware was recently uploaded to https://archive.org/details/y2_v3.1.7-20260601

thanks!

As I work through evaluating HelixNotes, I thought it would be helpful (and encouraging) to see what HelixNotes looks like with a "live" vault (rather than a sample test vault). My vault is around 3000 notes.

This has been imported from Obsidian/UpNote and tweaked to take advantage of some of HelixNote's unique features.

My vault is organized using the Johnny Decimal method and I use color-coordinated icons to visually group them. Custom icons depict the 3-levels of folders.

My "Daily Hub" page is where I start my day. I love the callout formatting and that it is done in markdown. (In UpNote, they're called collapsible sections but aren't exportable as callouts to markdown)

Please ignore the icons in the callouts. I chose the icon for the callout based on color, not the symbol. 🙂

EDIT: This is a raw import and tweak. The "Daily Hub" layout is based on what is and isn't able to be done in UpNote and/or Obsidian. The next step is to rework those Hub pages to take full advantage of what HelixNotes can do.

I'm curious to see what others have done so far with HelixNotes.

Greetings all. After being a bit frustrated by all of the rough edges on the Y2, I decided to do something a bit more satisfying... what I call a "blind" audio test of three of my modern media players.

These are the results. If you are interested in the details of the test, I've put them here:

https://getupnote.com/share/notes/UBdQ5YXcqdTVZxlYdCVN5t3qElf2/019f765d-2375-73c8-ad7b-d7bf73d179d4

It was a fun experiment and I highly recommend that those who want to spend their money wisely do something similar. Because far too many people spend far too much money on things that don't offer proportionate improvements in quality and experience.