NixNote

No portable Evernote version because there is no permission from the publisher

On http://portableapps.com/node/22217 there have been created portable versions of Evernote developed under the PortableApps.com format and for use in the Portableapps.com Platform. But the developers had no permission from the publisher to repackage the freeware. So unfortunatelly the link to the illegally packaged software had to be removed by mod JTH. But very many people need a portable Evernote version, which can be executed on a DropBox-, TeamDrive- or USB-stick-folder. Both DropBox and TeamDrive can be executed portable, but only DropBox can sync through all business proxy servers. TeamDrive cannot sync through some proxy servers.

• http://alternativeto.net/software/teamdrive/?platform=windows&license=free

Best portable Note-Apps CherryTree and PNotes cannot be used on SmartPhones

People, who have no admin rights on their business computers must use PNotes Portable or CherryTree portable until now. PNotes Portable is quite good, similar to Evernote, and able to use images in the Notes (also pasted from the clipboard). PNotes is able to sync the notes with an FTP-account and supports automatically working internet-links and you can search with tags and words in the text with very quick results similar to evernote:

• http://alternativeto.net/software/pnotes/?platform=windows&license=free

In CherryTree you can save big notebooks with a hierarcical and tagged note-structure in ctd-files and in CherryTree you also can paste images from the clipboard to the notes, but there is not tag-list, and the search function and not-automated internet-link-setting is not so good as in PNotes.

• http://alternativeto.net/software/cherrytree/?platform=windows&license=free

Nevernote with Evernote-SmartPhone-access waits for a developer making a portable version

The best app similar to Evernote is its Open Source-Brother-App NeverNote (= NixNote). It is able to be synchronized with the Evernote account and able to use images and rich formatting features in the Notes. All functions are nearly equal to those of Evernote. Both neither for EverNote nor for NeverNote exists a portable version until Feb. 2012. Only Evernote and NeverNote (NixNote) have access to the notes from all SmartPhones, CherryTree and PNotes only can be used on desktop computers. Because NixNote is Open Source it should be legal to make a portable NixNote version.

So I suggest to make a portable version of NeverNote = NixNote

• http://alternativeto.net/software/nevernote/?platform=windows&license=free .

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/nevernote/

NixNote claims to be for Windows, Mac and Linux, but primarily Linux. Ok. But what about Windows and Mac? How should it be installed? No obvious information to this effect. For beginners, that's about as helpful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Of course, it's inexcusable that Evernote treats Mac users as 1st class citizens, Windows users as 2nd class and Linux users as... well... something below third class. Evernote releases the nicest apps and clients for Mac, Windows users enjoy fair usability, Linux users get nothing. Nada. Well, they can use the web interface, actually, but Evernote seems to have made that as awful as possible just to discourage it. How that fits with the idea of being a premium productivity-enhancing service, I've no idea.

Nixnote exists to give Linux users a fighting chance. It uses the Evernote API for a Linux-native client. I really wanted to like it too. Nixnote 2 beta is the latest release. I've tested it extensively on Manjaro 16.10 Mate. Sadly, it doesn't rise to the occassion because:

• it has an ugly interface, starting with the way in which it lists notes. If the UI was a thing, it would be a 1970s hospital bed. Now I realize that sounds terribly petty of me, given that a single guy has tried to defeat the "Evernote won't go on Linux" problem, so please consider this least important.
• has some kind of Evernote-imposed limitation on the rate of download. If you've got a lot of stuff in Evernote and you go to your Linux machine and install NixNote, it starts downloading it. This is painfully slow. And then, quite early on, a limit is reached and you get an error that says you have to wait 45 minutes for downloading to continue.
• after a while, this error kicked in: "EDAMNotFoundException: Note note found..." and all syncing stopped. So I have about 20% of my stuff downloaded onto my Linux machine. Searching online revealed this to be an oldie: something about authentication, yada yada... but a replacement for Evernote on Mac Nixnote is not.

In my view, given these limitations Evernote's overt hostility to Linux, I would encourage developers to consider an alternative approach: Develop a Linux-native - or better still cross-platform - note-taking app that saves things locally, simply into a folder. Syncing the data can be handled by the user, with Dropbox, or whatever similar service he/she would like to use. The closest thing I've seen to this in terms of functionality is Leanote, but that's self-hosted (not for beginners) and the website is in Japanese (also not for beginners but in a very different way).

I'm a huge fan of TagSpaces and Turtl. TagSpaces allows you to take notes and organize files through a tagging system. But syncing this is tedious if you want also to sync your tags and the mobile version is too immature to be usable. Turtl takes notes and syncs them with end-to-end encryption. It's an excellent privacy-enhancing idea. But it's in beta and the free version limits attachments to one per note and also the size (under 1MB, it seems). That's unsuprising, given the developer is doing all this for free (please consider a contribution!) but it doesn't an Evernote replacement make (yet).

Seems SSL libraries of openSUSE has some kind of trouble with NixNote's RPM packages.

For online note taking, I'll have to stick with Evernote for a while.