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Show HN: Octarine: Private Markdown stored notes on macOS

by rajatkulk on 4/17/24, 1:11 PM with 3 comments

Hey folks! Been working on this for a year now, and shipped a bunch of features over the last few months, since the app has come off the closed beta to available for all on Mac!

Comparisons with Obsidian are unavoidable, but the app has few distinctions like:

- A pure WYSIWYG editor that doesn't jerk when writing rich text.

- Stored completely in markdown

- Does not weigh in at 300mb, but rather just 7mb (Thanks Rust and Tauri)

- Opinionated in some workflows, and makes things easier for day-to-day workflows.

- Keyboard shortcuts for almost everything, and a super powerful Cmd + K bar.

Still loads to do to catch up, and reach where it needs to go, but would be happy if you give it a try!

Download - https://octarine.app/releases

Changelog - https://octarine.app/changelog

Windows/Linux versions are on the way, and are currently being tested and fixed for some issues.

There's also a discord if you want to hop in for discussion.

  • by oneeyedpigeon on 4/23/24, 1:30 PM

    I really love the app so far. Very much reminds me of Obsidian, which I've never really been able to get into, beyond just a basic markdown editor. Octarine makes it much easier to 'get going' with the whole network linking, daily notes, productivity aspect.

    A couple of requests:

    - It would be great to have some kind of documentation on the website. It took me a while to realise how to use a template (I'd assumed it would be a page/note-level thing, not a block-level one) and exactly how the daily note worked.

    - Well, I was going to ask about a non-dark theme here (the default really hurt my eyes) but I've managed to find the setting. Again, this was quite hidden — a settings dialog via the app menu would be better.

  • by rajatkulk on 4/19/24, 6:44 AM

    Maker here!

    Feel free to ask questions about roadmap, pricing, feature requests or anything in general!