![]() ![]() That’s the same shortcut for selecting the location bar in every web browser on a Mac, by the way. You can select the “Search or Create” field with ⌘+L. Using the “Search or Create” field is the main way to interact with the application. ![]() This search term matches on both the full text of the note and its title or file name. If you enter anything into the “Search or Create” field, nvALT selects notes matching the criteria. When the “Search or Create” field is empty, the list of notes shows every note file in your whole archive directory. Watch a video by lifehacker to see the base app Notational Velocity in action and get a feel for the speed. NvALT has a unique interface, as the “Search or Create” field is there to both search for existing notes and create new ones. Data export: how does the application manage to get everything out without losing information? How does it manage to get stuff in?.Note connections: which mechanisms does the app support to create connections?.Note creation: does it take many clicks or keystrokes to create a new Zettel note?.Note retrieval: for example, how fast and easy is full-text search?.This is how the app looks on first start Testing nvALT: the Four CriteriaĪs a reminder, the key elements I look at will be: ![]() I recommend you follow his setup steps to use a directory of plain text files instead of an arbitrary database.Īlso, I suggest you put this note archive directory into your Dropbox folder so you can access your notes from other devices. See Michael Schechter’s nvALT 101 for a general introduction and configuration tips. You can customize the font, colors, and even the width of the text area so you can use the application in full-screen mode on widescreen displays comfortably. Initially, the app is in portrait mode, with a smallish font and a few example notes. the contents of a selected note, which is a text field you can write in to.the list of notes, filtered according to the search term,.Looking at the picture above, nvALT has three elements I will refer to: Enter nvALT nvALT as it looks on my machine This app is Mac only, sadly, but there are alternative implementations popping up which promise to work on every platform. I mean, really, a LOT, as in 3000 and counting. I use nvALT since 2010, and I think it’s the best product available to create and find notes quickly and to manage a lot of them. It’s Open Source, free, and very popular. ![]() nvALT is a fork by Brett Terpstra and David Halter of the original Notational Velocity, which was created by Zachary Schneirov, and a few modifications by yours truly. While most things apply to the Notational Velocity base application, I will talk about nvALT exclusively in this review. I look forward to seeing nvultra when it’s released though.I want to start this series of reviews with a software I’m fairly familiar with. But it too does not have the sometimes overwhelming variety of functions and UI elements of word processors.Įarlier I just pointed out that Terpstra has had the habit of stuffing geeky functionality into apps that could have perhaps used a little more UI polish. Somewhere between the two extremes is Ulysses, which has a dozen themes, editable themes you can share, the ability to use any font, etc. (Now you can choose from three fonts and two display modes.) It’s a very streamlined app and is designed to keep you from playing with settings and just write. One the other end is IA Writer, which until recently mandated you use only the embedded mono space font they chose with no Dark Mode. May of them don’t know any other kind of app than something like Word. Some people love geeky software with bells and whistles they’ll never use. They use the app but it’s too complicated. I know four professional writers who use Scrivener but confessed that they barely used a small fraction of its functionality, and didn’t even know all the features. Word and Scrivener are old school, festooned with every possible option, and often multiple ways to perform some functions. One big reason Markdown apps and text processors have become popular is because they eliminate extraneous buttons and bars and functions, allowing you to focus on your writing. ![]()
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