mdBook VS Joplin

I'm responsible for a number of Java products. I try to provide high-quality Javadoc for all public library interfaces, library user's guides where appropriate, and development guides for applications. The latter two take the form of MDBook documents (https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/), with the document source living in the GitHub repo so that it's tied to the particular software release in a natural way.

My org has used mdBook: https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/ (That link is itself a rendered mdBook, so that'll give you an idea of the feature set.)

(While it's definitely a Rust "thing", if you just have a set of .md files, all you need is a "SUMMARY.md" (which contains the ToC) and a small config file; i.e., you don't have to have any Rust code to use it, and it works fine without. We document a large, mostly non-Rust codebase with it.)

If you want the lowest friction, open source, easily extensible Markdown to Web, Kindle, PDF, etc. tool, highly recommend mdBook: https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook it’s written in Rust, but you don’t have to know any Rust to use it. And then wing is all CSS; for which there are many good (free) themes.

Interesting enough there seems to be an open PR for that: https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/pull/1918

I've had great success with using Joplin for this, with Syncthing as a sync backend. Works well across OSes; I use it on Linux, macOS, Windows and Android.

https://joplinapp.org/

The tools to manipulate SQL aren't that bad, no.

But rather than having a self explanatory markdown & flat file, now I have to start learning about the schema & making specific tools (in my preferred language) for manipulating Joplin's schema.

Suddenly I'm digging through 20 different technic specs to decode what data is where, how it works, and what I can do to it. Want to edit history? This is the best help you'll get, pray it's adequately technical to expedite you to your purpose: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/dev/spec...

As I began with, I struggle to imagine anything that generates anywhere near as much user agency as flat files and markdown. Having boring common data & systems lets me apply portable skills I already have, rather than having to skill up in some particular product's own ecosystem.

Joplin is a good open source option too, feels more like the original Evernote in terms of UI/UX https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/

Joplin, an open source, extendable, Markdown-based hierarchical note-taking app: https://joplinapp.org/

It lets you choose a synchronization backend, offers applications for every major desktop and mobile OS (also has a terminal version). You can create notebooks and subnotebooks to organize your notes. You can also add tags for better search experience. I created notebooks for specific domains (work-related, home improvement, etc.) and also keep a "temp" for quick notes and W.I.P. snippets.

Its only con that it uses Electron on desktop which causes relatively slow start of the application.

done