The published note page doesn’t contain any OpenGraph Protocol or other metadata to enable detailed previews of the link when shared to social media networks and other link sharing platforms. Notes may still show up in some search engines like Google with a notice saying they can’t show a preview of the page, but indicate that the page otherwise does match the search query. The sharing is limited to link-only audience, as search engines are excluded from indexing shared notes. When you publish a note, you’re given a read-only link to the note that you can share with others on the web. Published notes support Markdown, and both formatting styles will be presented as a paper-sheet-width sized note on a plain page. You’ve some limited ability to publish a note on Simplenote. The iOS variant doesn’t have a character count at all, only a word count. The Windows app also is off by one character on the character count compared to the other apps except. However, iOS and MacOS both have their own unique way of counting that offsets its count from the three other platforms by a couple of words per 1000 words or so. The Windows, Linux, and web variants all agree on the same word count for the same notes. There’s a word and character counter hidden away in the circled-i icon or in the overflow menu. This is a pretty huge omission that can either lower the quality of your writing or boost your productivity depending on your stance on spelling assistants while taking notes. This means there’s no spell-checker in some versions of the app including the Linux and Windows apps. There aren’t any writing-assistive technologies in Simplenote besides the one you get from the host operating system. If either you or the note’s creator untags you from a note, the note will disappear and the sharing link will begin returning a blank page. People can untag themselves from your shared noted by deleting your note from their notebooks. For people with more than one email address, this can be somewhat annoying if someone shares to the wrong address – but it’s the way most other services work too. People must have a Simplenote account under the email address you shared the note with to be able to open it. When you tag someone’s email address, they’re automatically notified by emailed. There’s no confirmation dialog or anything indicating how this works, you just sort of have to know about it. You simply tag a note with someone’s email address, and it will show up in their notebooks. However, hidden away in the app you’ll also find collaborative editing so that you can work on a note with others. Simplenote is primarily focused on being a personal notebook. I’ve found it very useful to start jotting down a note on my mobile only to continue it a few seconds later from a full-sized device. You can work on a note from multiple locations as edits show up almost instantaneously on multiple devices. The first line of each note is automatically designated to be the title of the note. However, you must first go in to the circled-i menu and turn on the Markdown formatting option on a per-note basis. You can preview Markdown formatted note with the push of a toggle. Notes can be jotted down in either plain-text or in Markdown format. These inconsistencies are annoying and I find myself hunting for features that I know exist but sometimes have a hard time finding. Icons are slightly different and the same features are named differently and are found in different locations in the user interface. Slight differences between the various platforms make the app harder to use for its most dedicated multi-device users. However, if you’re anything like me and you use more than one platform then you might want to take notes on more than one platform. No features exposed in the menu bar, which MacOS users don’t appreciate (limited Automator and keyboard navigation.) You only have the global menu bar and an overflow icon. Except for MacOS where the toolbar is missing. The app looks almost the same on all platforms. There’s a row of icons at the top, and everything uses large and readable fonts. The right side is a big empty slate for you to type your notes on. The interface is organized as a simple list of recent notes on the left side, with a search field at the top. The service is operated free of charge by Automattic, the company behind the blogging platform. Notes are synced through Simplenote’s proprietary server-software, so the open-source commitment only goes so far. In essence, Simplenote is an open-source app for keeping your notes in sync between all your different devices. This will partially be a review of Simplenote for jotting down notes and partially a case-study in an inconsistent user experience across platforms. Simplenote is a minimalist and simple to use note-taking app for web as well as all the major operating systems.
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