r/HelixNotes

I have spent the last six month searching the internet for a good note taking app. I get suggested one app, I try to use it for one week, get frustrated for some reason. Functionality, design, pay wall, you name it, ditch it and move to the next one.

Until a couple of weeks back when someone suggested Helixnotes. I wasn't so thrilled but decided to give it a shot. I liked a bit in the beginning, so I moved my Obsidian folder to it but then the writing delay frustrated me, I stopped using it, until I saw a post here addressing that issue and the developer's reply that they are working on it.

I gave it another shot, and it was the best thing I ever did, ever since, I moved my obsidian vault, copied all my old onenote notes to it and I've been working so much since then, I can't be more relaxed, organised and productive about my work now.

So thank you Helix developers. You've been a life saver. I hope you continue working on the app and I would love to support in any way. Even if it's just donation or buying a coffee.

greetings everyone..

is there any windows x64 portable version of HelixNotes ??

i like HelixNotes app and it's features.

but i like my notes app to be portable and self contained.

I appreciate the improvements and fixes that made it into 1.3.6. After a few minutes of tinkering with it, here are some observations (Mac OS for now):

Improvements Made

• WebDAV syncing (one device for initial test) is now more reliable and predictable.
• Delayed write when editing improved responsiveness.
• Ghost text when selecting text has been resolved.

Issues (bugs or need tweaking)

• When highlighting text in markdown mode, background and font colors are too close in color.
• “Open in a separate window” causes the app to “beachball” on Mac OS and hang.
• In markdown editor, Ctrl-A (to select all) selects all text but also selects all notes in the current folder)

Feature Change Requests

• Add Graph support for markdown links (currently only wikilinks are supported)
• Add setting to allow hiding note counts on folder tree

_____________

Benefit of a Design Choice

Sometimes a developer's design decision has a side benefit to end users. The one I'd like to highlight has to do with notebook covers. Consider this a tip for those who want to dive into HelixNotes a little deeper....

• custom notebook covers are external files stored in the attachments folder.
• notebook cover assignments are stored in a separate file: (notebook_icons.json in the .helixnotes folder)

By manually editing the .json file to remove the HelixNotes' generated filename prefix, and renaming the image files in the attachments folder, I am able to have a single image file apply to multiple entries.

I have over 200 folders but most fall within a 3-level deep Johnny.decimal structure so I only need 3 different icons in 6 colors. So rather than have over 200 individual image files in attachments (and have to manually reassign images if I want to change them), I can have 18. And if I want to change the design of the icons on a particular level, I can swap out 6 files and have them all instantly be updated.

Just this morning I changed the 3rd level icons and although there are something like 150 folders that are on the 3rd level, it took just a few minutes to create the 6 images and update the vault.

https://preview.redd.it/hcxqteeudwsh1.png?width=337&format=png&auto=webp&s=46a371e41b312c8c0d1954ce5ea2b246812e4865