Sticky note solution that is reliable, cross-platfrom, off-line and synchronizable

I have tried quite a few note taking app/programs, includes tomboy/GNote, xpad, Knote and several others web app. However, none of them have both crucial features, namely off-line mode and easy synchronization.

I was using xpad for some months, it is small and quick and looks like a sticky note. However, for some reason, it started create a lot of empty note that I have no way to delete them from GUI, nor can it synchronized with other devices.

I eventually come up with following combination: emacs as editor, asciidoc for format and styling, and git to sync.

emacs is surprising good for note taking, as it

• Can change background/foreground color, so it can looks more like a stick note
• Fast enough start up (I have a special setting for that)
• Variable font sizes and styles (so you can emphasize text with larger, bold and italic fonts)
• Great offline support 🙂
• Full feature text editing 🙂

asciidoc provides simple yet powerful markup. Some might say that asciidoc is complex, but hey, for note taking propose, basic text decoration making is sufficient.

This is how I set my environment:

1. Install emacs

   sudo yum -y install emacs

2. Configure emacs
   Edit the file ~/note.el

   (custom-set-variables
    ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
    ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
    ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
    ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
    '(ansi-color-names-vector ["black" "#d55e00" "#009e73" "#f8ec59" "#0072b2" "#cc79a7" "#56b4e9" "white"])
    '(show-paren-mode t)
    '(make-backup-files nil)
    '(auto-save-visited-file-name t)
   )
   (custom-set-faces
    ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
    ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
    ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
    ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
    '(default ((t (:family "DejaVu Sans Mono" :foundry "unknown" :slant normal :weight normal :height 240 :width normal)))))
   (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d")
   (require 'adoc-mode)
    (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist (cons "\\.adoc\\'" 'adoc-mode))
   (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(foreground-color . "black"))
   (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(background-color . "yellow"))
   (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(width . 30)) ; character
   (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(height . 20)) ; line
   (setq inhibit-startup-message t)

3. Set up asciidoc for emacs
   You don’t actually need to install asciidoc itself.
   Follow the instruction of adoc-mode, and copy the .el files to ~/.emacs.d/
4. Run the note taking program

   emacs -q -l ~/note.el  -T Note note.adoc

   Basically that is it .

5. Some optional final touches
   • sync: Put note.adoc in git or dropbox
   • You can also alias the command

     alias enote='emacs -q -l ~note.el -T Note note.adoc'

   • If your window manager support remember, let it remember the window location of “note”

Enjoy!