I think this thread, and the earlier Future of Joplin thread, are very interesting.
I used Evernote for many years. Then about 4 years ago I bought a Synology NAS, so I've been using Synology Note Station ever since then. Recently I watched a YouTube video about must-have open source apps, which talked about Joplin, and that's how I ended up here.
Getting notes out of Synology Note Station and into Joplin was a challenge and this made me think that having open data (e.g. markdown files) is more important than the application itself because ideally I could simply change to a different app without any export and import steps.
This is what I personally make use of:
- Simple formatting, certainly within the limits of what markdown offers.
- Ideally a WYSIWYG editor, or at least images should be shown in markdown.
- Organize notes into folders.
- Synchronize across my 3 Linux computers and one Android phone.
- Search for text.
- I have about 1000 notes.
Functionality I don't use:
- Tags. I use folders for organization and I search for keywords. Tags only work if you have the foresight to tag things in the way you will want to access them in the future. I guess I don't have that skill.
- Web clipper. Instead, I use the Copy Title and Url as Markdown Style Chrome extension, plus copy-paste of text, plus area screenshots.
- Links to other notes. In the 1000 or so notes I have, I think I've used links maybe twice, and only because it was a facility I wanted to try out.
- TODO lists, although I sometimes use checkboxes within notes.
- Sharing a link to a note with someone else.
- History (back-verions).
From my requirements, I think an app that works with folders of markdown files and their embedded resources (e.g. images) would be sufficient. The app can provide a side panel of folder structure and notes, and search would use brute force search because there is no database. Synchronization just means synchronizing folders, so I can use Dropbox, Synology Drive, or whatever. The note taking app doesn't need to be concerned with that.
So which applications should I consider? Joplin? Typora? Mark Text? VSCode (I'm a software developer) with markdown extensions, a combination? I'm thinking that if need be, in theory at least, I could use a different app on my Android phone from what I use on my Linux computers.
Can Joplin be used in the way I describe? Am I overlooking some functionality I would miss out on?