First impression: Craft note-taking

If you’re a Club MacStories member there’s more discussion of Craft on this week’s episode of MacStories Unplugged, with an emphasis on using Craft for collaboration.

I still don’t get the point of the “Inbox”. There’s no way I can see of automatically getting external stuff in there. Why create a new page directly in the inbox, you might as well put it into the a specific named folder, you can always move it later.

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I find the Inbox to be very helpful (essential even). Sometimes I’ll capture something…and don’t always have the time to put it where it belongs at the point of capture. The Inbox designates it as something that needs to be clarified and organized.

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This describes me.

I know that the more dense my folder structure becomes the more time I’ll need to sift through. An Inbox allows me to just toss it in and manage letter.

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I’ve been happy with Craft. It’s native Notion. They just need to add tables and I can quit Airtable and use Craft for everything. Granted, my needs are lighter than most people’s!

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Against my better judgment, I’m going to give Craft a solid try notwithstanding my just completed new workflows. I’m doing so given the recent comments about Craft by David and Stephen in the contextual computing episode.

My early impressions are positive but I agree with the concern about text selection across blocks. I’ve shared this concern with the developer and also suggested, as I’m sure many have, that the ability to create tables is important.

IF I decide to continue using Craft, I will restrict its use to meeting and project notes. It seems much better suited for these uses than Drafts, Apple Notes or DEVONthink. I’ll continue using Drafts for quick capture, email, action and DEVONthink is my document repository (native and indexed files and folders). Ulysses will continue to be my writing platform.

I’ll have to do some experimenting with back linking to determine if it will work as well as Obsidian.

What I like thus far:

  • Lots of quick keyboard shortcuts
  • Great GUI on MBP, iPad, and iPhone
  • Fast sync (time will tell how reliable it is)
  • Cards and Pages–this is already proving helpful for long documents and extensive notes
  • Links to pages and blocks–this makes it easy to connect with Things 3, DEVONthink, etc.
  • Markdown support
  • Bulk export–I don’t feel locked in
  • Active email links when adding an email message from Apple Mail. I have not tested this with other mail apps.
  • I prefer document links to attachments because it keeps the database smaller and all documents in one location.

What needs work:

  • Text selection across blocks
  • The ability to add tables
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Intersting perspective. The page/card/block architecture seems great in theory to me, but in practice I look at it and get confused.

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I was too at first but I found a good use for it. For project/committee notes I create a card or page with details that I don’t need to see every time I open the note but I want fast access to the details. I took a screenshot of one of my notes for the Board. You’ll notice that you can make the page/blocks in different styles. I prefer the page view (3rd example on the screenshot) but changed the first two to cards to illustrate the flexibility. In a long complex proposal, I can see this as being extremely handy.

I also wrote in Markdown and then exported to PDF and I did another export to Word. The results looked excellent.

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I believe it will; but keep in mind I’m pretty new trying Craft. You may want to also try Agenda—it is a date-based system that integrates with the Reminders App.

I tried it for a couple of weeks, got super pumped about it, set some stuff up for my next semester in preparation and stopped. While gorgeous, I found it rather clunky in practice. Putting pages in pages doesn’t make it accessible to quick open, sometimes it was awkward to get to where I wanted to go.

So my personal tldr:
Beautiful design, clunky to use.

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The biggest draw of Craft to me is the iPad compatibility. I do most of my research and writing on my iPad which means I’m stuck with 1Writer to use my Obsidian database. That feels less and less “fine” the longer it happens. I know Obsidian says they’ll do iPad compatibility at some point, but how long should we wait for that to happen?

In theory Craft will lift the 200 note batch import limit this month so I can pull my Obsidian database in and not loose any links that span import batches. Then I will give it serious consideration.

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Just found out that Craft will be allowing 1 time purchase if you bring your own storage solution and loose the collaboration features.

For 99% of my use that would be fine. Few people I know are really hot on Craft and are asking if I’ll use it for some content collaboration so I’m not sure I’ll really be able to use it with the 1 time payment.

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For what it is worth, I’m in constant contact with the developer and he has been very responsive. I’m encouraged by some of the things he as shared (I’m not sure I have permission to share the information publicly). I’ve also offered to be a Beta tester for them. Like email clients, no note taking app meets every need or is perfect for our individual workflows but so far, and given the development plans actively underway, Craft is coming closest.

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He’s been very responsive in the Slack channel.

I signed up for a year’s subscription at the academic rate, since the app has such potential. And it’s beautiful! The more I explore it the more I don’t think it’s for me, but not everything works well for everyone’s workflow.

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FWIW, NotePlan sits right in the middle of Craft and Agenda.

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I too have the academic pricing. May I ask what is not working well for you? I am finding that the more I figure it out, the better it is working.

I would say they’re both notes-based. I say “right in the middle” because the NotePlan dev recently introduced backlinking.

I’m not crazy about the way backlinks display. The multi-level nesting under a toggle drives me nuts. I realize that it provides context, but I can get that context, if I want it, by actually clicking on the backlink. I much prefer Notion where backlinks are concerned.

I also need tables for some of the things I do. I know it’s on the roadmap, but it’s not here yet.

All of that said, it also took me quite a while to wrap my head around Notion, so it’s entirely possible that Craft will start to click for me in time. I just don’t have the time to deal with it right now as I prepare online courses to start in February. Fortunately, my subscription’s good until December. :+1:

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I checked NotePlan out but I need to use a more robust task manager like Things or OF. I also don’t really need calendar focused notes, which is why I’m not using Agenda. My notes are very project, meeting, and/or person focused. My main need is a solid note taking app that I can link notes to emails, calendar, tasks, etc. and conversely from those to the relevant note(s). It is also important for me to be able to use Markdown and bulk export notes as md or plain text files if needed. Based on my needs thus far Craft is working better. That said, it is not perfect for my needs but I have yet to find an app that is. I should probably stop looking for the Holy Grail of note apps. :slight_smile:

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I’m curious, have you looked at Obsidian? Mobile apps should not be long now. :slightly_smiling_face: