Note-taking seems to be a hot topic lately. I used Apple Notes for a long time because it was very lightweight and minimalist, but recent releases of macOS have been very buggy, so I decided to review all the options. I wrote this up at https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-m... which has become one of the most trafficked post on my blog in the last few months!
The key for me is a) plain text files I can manage myself i.e. no database or mandatory custom sync; b) markdown.
Apps will come and go. You might decide to switch platforms and maybe a new editor will come along sometime. This means you want a format that can be opened by anything (plain text) but with lightweight markup that the editor can parse to make it look nice, but you can also parse with your eyes and get a reasonable sense of the document structure (markdown).
Then it's all about search. There's no point making notes if you can't find them. This is where something more than Markdown - that allows you to link notes - is handy. It's what is appearing more and more in the likes of Roam, Obsidian, etc.
I ultimately chose iA Writer on macOS because it is lightweight and really nicely designed, plus has good native support for Markdown. I sync using OneDrive but you can use anything because they're all individual files. iA Writer is also native, and I find most Electron apps to be slow and/or buggy. There are exceptions e.g. VS Code, but I prefer native where possible.
Seeing as your list is pretty comprehensive, it might be worth having a look at Writemonkey. It's been in development since 2006 - so long before the markdown editor trend in recent years, and probably even pre-dating the distraction-free trend about a decade ago.
The most recent incarnation (v3) fits your two criteria well and its plugin system is very versatile. Sadly cross platform supports only came with version 3 and that means saying goodbye to the small Windows native downloads, but it's not an Electron monstrosity.
Just a long time fan and always feel a bit disappointed that it never comes up in these kind of discussions :)
> Sadly cross platform supports only came with version 3 and that means saying goodbye to the small Windows native downloads, but it's not an Electron monstrosity.
Yes, it's NW.js instead of Electron, but that's still an almost 100MB framework (and the >50MB sounds directory doesn't help much either). It's also closed source, though the documentation is hosted at GitHub: https://github.com/writemonkey/wm3/wiki/Documentation .
I wish it was native too, but I just meant it's not as bad as it could be on that front - 200ish MB RAM compared to some of the famous Electron examples.
The sounds are from the zen/focus software trend days, when you have minimal distractions from the interface and background noise loops built in.
I use typora to write markdown on macos and am very happy.
To sync, I use a git repository (you can set a watchpoint on macos and linux to any directory to invoke a command on changes, so I just invoke git and commit).
I haven't touched it in a while, but I wrote some code to extract data from apple notes and export to html, quiver, or bear formats. (bear is markdown-like, it looks like I targeted HTML for quiver.) It could be adapted to your needs if you know a little python:
https://github.com/dunhamsteve/notesutils
It might need updating for features added in the last few years, but the cron job I have it running in is still working. (The html version dumps the drawings as svg, but png versions are available too.)
The key for me is a) plain text files I can manage myself i.e. no database or mandatory custom sync; b) markdown.
Apps will come and go. You might decide to switch platforms and maybe a new editor will come along sometime. This means you want a format that can be opened by anything (plain text) but with lightweight markup that the editor can parse to make it look nice, but you can also parse with your eyes and get a reasonable sense of the document structure (markdown).
Then it's all about search. There's no point making notes if you can't find them. This is where something more than Markdown - that allows you to link notes - is handy. It's what is appearing more and more in the likes of Roam, Obsidian, etc.
I ultimately chose iA Writer on macOS because it is lightweight and really nicely designed, plus has good native support for Markdown. I sync using OneDrive but you can use anything because they're all individual files. iA Writer is also native, and I find most Electron apps to be slow and/or buggy. There are exceptions e.g. VS Code, but I prefer native where possible.