I’m starting up another campaign shortly and I used to use OneNote for my session notes because it’s so easy to just put stuff anywhere on the page, which is really helpful for the scattered way I think.
But I switched to Linux since my last campaign and I can’t find something that I like that’s similar in that sort of freeform canvas.
I tried obsidian and hated it. I tried OneNote in browser and it’s just so much worse. I tried Notion and I did like it for a bit, but it’s really pushy about using its AI and linking to other pages and such.
So, yeah. I mean, my next thought is literally to start using Krita or Paint or something because I can’t find a program that’s just kinda bare bones and free form but lets me enter text wherever and slap down some character art, maybe draw a few arrows or something.
Help?
I dunno if you’re still lookin’, but there are a few options. I’m not sure why you bounced off of Obsidian (it’s what I use), but I’m gonna assume you need a more visual system. Obsidian’s Canvas provides that, but if you’re not using the other features, it’s a bit like swatting flies with a Buick.
The simplest option might be Gnome Notes. It’s very barebones, and probably not as freeform as you’d like, but if all you need is a simple note taking app where you can sorta Post-It stuff, it might be enough.
There aren’t a lot of options that work like One Note. Other folks have said Joplin, and that might be the closest. You could also look into:
- Logseq, which has a Canvas mode like Obsidian’s but doesn’t work quite the same way and might be a better fit for you (also it’s open source, which is a huge plus)
- Tomboy NG which offers automatic linking between notes and some other features that you might like, but is kinda old-fashioned, and doesn’t have that “post-it” feel
- Tagspaces which is pretty and very visually oriented, although it’s tag driven, so that might not be your thing. Still, it’s worth a look.
- Notable which is tree structured, but also offers a visual note overview. It’s not super powerful, but it is easy to use.
That said, IIRC it is still possible to disable all AI stuff in the Notions settings. It’s something like Settings>NotionAI and then set all options to “off”. I dunno if that’ll stop Notion from suggesting you turn it back on, though.
Anyway, hope this helps.
Depending on your needs and how technical you are, Emacs and org-roam might work for you. It’s what I use. But my notes are strictly text, so I’m not sure how good image support is if that’s something you need.
I very much appreciate UpNote for three reasons. First it is a flexible and straightforward notes app. Second, there is a one time purchase option. Third, I can use it for Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Nothing else combines these value propositions.
I was an Evernote user since version 2 but it has just become a bloated terrible experience, and it’s egregiously expensive. UpNote gives me those key features without any cruft.
Mhm in Obsidian have you looked into using it’s Canvas, where you can write boxes with text and or drag notes onto it and then connect them with lines? It’s imho the closest to the workflow in One note.
What was the thing that you didn’t like in Obsidian? I use Logseq (like Obsidian but Open Source and purer tag-based), both have canvas type of notes if you want to “enter text wherever”
Logseq
Could you try to sell that to me?
It’s open source, no need to sell ;)
Some video that will probably be more digestible
What’s underneath
I’m not sure from what POV you are coming, so first of all: Logseq allows you to write notes in markdown format (I don’t know how canvas’ work but it also should be some open standard. SVG maybe?). It is versatile while still being readable in pure text format. It also means that those are mostly pure files, so you can back them up however you want, you can move them to another markdown editor, another notes management program, etc.
Tags and references
Now, let’s say that after an adventure you want to have some news for your players. I would go about it this way:
- create a note containing only the text of the news
- tag it (file property) with
news,radio #1, maybe a reference to the parent adventure? Depends how you will want to view it in the future
- tag it (file property) with
- in the adventure put header
[[post mortem]], so it also is a reference topost mortemnote (does not need to exist ATM)- underneath put header
[[news]], so news tag/page (Logseq does not really differentiate between tags and links) will also get a reference to this adventure.- udnerneath embed our note with a
TODO/DONE, so you can mark if you passed it to them already
- udnerneath embed our note with a
- underneath put header
That way, after a bunch of adventures
- you can open
post mortempage and see all references from all the adventures - you can open
newspage and see a list of all pages tagged withnews- you can also put in some query to group them, but we’ll get back to that later
- you can open
radio #1and see all the news they said- and add some general notes about it, directly in that file. With links to
backgroundnotes
- and add some general notes about it, directly in that file. With links to
- you can open an adventure and read the whole write-up from the conception to post mortem (if you organized it that way. I could see someone splitting those up again into separate notes)
- you can open a news note and see in which adventure it’s referenced
- if you used some tags/links in the note itself, you can also, in the note for big bad, see in which notes they were referenced
Summary notes and tag structure
Let’s say you have a bunch of adventures, some tagged as
adventuresome asadventure/done. Logseq will recognize the latter as a part of a structure, same as if those were directories. But since everything is a note, you can have aadventurenote that is like a summary for all the adventures (you will get a list of all references out of the box). Or a noteact 1/adventureswith only the adventures in that act (andbackgroundtags structure shared between them). With queries, you can in any note get a list of for example all notes that areact 1, and not tagged withadventure/done. So you still can have hierarchies where it makes sense, but you are not locked out of some name for a note because there is a directory with that name (like Obsidian does and why I decided to phase out of it). BTW, you can also embed only one point from another page. So you can take a reference to a point in the plan for an adventure from the past, embed it in another note, and if you decide to add some info to it, editing it in the embedding note will also affect all the other occurrences of that pointTL;DR
So in general it’s very versatile, very tag-based, while not locking you out of directory-like structures and based on pure-text files (you can embed images) that are readable by other tools too
- create a note containing only the text of the news
For digital pen notes, check out Rnote
I came across Joplin recently. It’s multi platform and has a cheap cloud sync. Other option is p3xnote which uses one note api or something and works as onenote , in Linux
I second Joplin - works well on Linux Mint and on my Android phone and syncs seamlessly
Just switched to Mint and want to use Joplin. What are you using to sync?
I use OneDrive, but there are plenty of options - Dropbox etc
Obsidian looks pretty neat, and seems to be available on Linux. No idea how similar it is to OneNote, though.
I will second Obsidian. I’m just using the free version and backing up my own notes and it’s very good.
I like Trilium Notes. It’s rich text based, not markdown based, but haas most of the organiation structures of Obsidian. It doesn’t have the user base nor volume of plugin support, though. It does have a canvas mode for inking, but it’s a separate note type, not part or every note.
For a purer inking environment, look at Xournal++. It’s not as feature rich as OneNote, but it has the basics.
Or, you could try running OneNote with WINE. It looks like you’d have to use OneNote 2010 or 2013, though.
LibreOffice Draw. It‘s gonna be better than Krita or Paint but it‘s not a note taking app so don‘t expect fancy organisation or scheduling features.
