I'm in search of a new cross-platform note taking tool. I use a paper notebook for jotting simple things down, but there are certain types of notes that I need to be searchable, editable, and accessible anywhere.

In the past I've used Evernote, but Evernote's new design is a non-starter for me. I take notes on many different subjects, and I have them all organized into notebooks. I almost never want see the the notes from different notebooks mixed together, and I need to be able to bounce back and forth between different notebooks easily. It's much harder with their new design, and honestly I've never liked their UI in the first place, so the heck with that.

What do you use?

I'm pretty put off by Evernote's new design as well (I switch notebooks a lot, which they've made a pain in the ass), but I'm sticking with it, since all my notes are in it. Also, learned the keyboard shortcut cmd-J, which will quickly let you jump between notebooks. Not perfect, but better than clicking around.

Honestly, I don't think there's much else on the market that's as good as Evernote overall. Simplenote is okay, yet limited by not having a desktop app. Note from Squarespace is good, but again, super simplistic and not what you're looking for.

You could try emailing yourself notes and having Gmail auto-tag them, maybe.

Notational velocity (the nvalt variant) + Dropbox + simplenote.

Evernote and iA Writer for simpler notes.

I am really surprised sometimes that Evernote is still the only company active and really leading in this space even with their not so great design.

Random fun fact: I once bought Pensieve.it (harry potter anyone?) to build a better note taking app.

Notational Velocity is pretty well known as the anti-evernote. I highly recommend it. It doesn't even differentiate between a title and a note. Even iA Writer, which I love for writing spec and long-form, is much heavier. NV stores its files in Dropbox and syncs with Simplenote, which makes your notes accessible anywhere, even away from your own devices.

Byword:
It's really, really clean and great for quickly hopping in and out of while making notes. I prefer its design to iA writer. So clean. If you use it with Dropbox, it's perfect for cross-platform note-taking; just use folders as 'notebooks'.

Drive:
For me, Drive is perfect for writing longer documents. It's by far the best if I find myself switching devices often whilst writing a single note.

Paper:
This obviously isn't exactly what you're looking for, but I also use Paper a lot for note taking. For quickly capturing ideas, it is by far the best app for the job. I usually end up emailing myself notes I've written with it if I need them elsewhere, but I'll normally have my iPad to hand, so that's rarely an issue.

Will check out Byword!

I've used xPad for a long time, it's probably too simple for you, 3but you can keep its data folder in Dropbox and sync it across machines.

For super quick (mobile) note taking I use Squarespace Notes and send it to email for immediate action and Evernote for later access.

I like note taking in Note because because its minimal. The Evernote interface just gets in my way.

I'm with y'all on the Evernote redesign, but I've so many notes in there that there is no way I'm switching. For taking quick notes on the go I've really been enjoying Scratch (iOS app) which I use to jot things down and then email into Evernote. For more visual note taking I've been using Paper and like that a lot as well.

For shared stuff, I just use Google Docs (Drive) and that seems to work better for me than Evernote when collaborating.

Has anyone used Evernotes Smart Notebook? evernote.com

I'm curious about it as I very often take notes by and and transcribe the juicy bits later.

+1 for nvALT. Syncs with Dropbox, can use it with Simplenote or iA Writer on my phone, or iA Writer or Vim or whatever on my Mac.

Winner.

Doesn't seem to be much else to say, for the two main notebooks I know about have been discussed. But I'd like to add a bought iA writer for iOS & OSX and after using it for about 5-7 months I later tried Byword and I must say its far better. It just renders better markdown support, and oh so clean. After some youtube reviews I was sold to buy byword for my iPhone and it has been about a month and I love it, it blows iA Writer for IOS out the water.

Additionally, I'm a simplenote user and use Nottingham as my mac app.

P.S. John Gruber loves simplenote too
daringfireball.net

For those who love Evernote (with thousands of notes such as myself) who cannot switch but hate the new UI, dragging Notebook folders into the shortcuts menu solved most of my problems.

@Jared - I discovered that after I started this thread, and it definitely helps in the Mac client, but not on iOS.

@Melissa. Yes, agree. They went for form over function.

@Melissa - Our team has been building a cross-platform note-taking tool like the one you're describing, for the past 8 months. It's web and iOS (for the moment) with strong hooks into email (inclusive of auto-filing into notebooks). If you'd like to beta test it, I'd be happy to get you an account. You can get a sense of the nav structure in this screenshot: cl.ly

We'll be building an Evernote integration over the next couple of months as well.

@drupeek Your app looks interesting, can I beta test?

@drupeek I'd love to, as well!

I've used Evernote for years, but it's always been so difficult to navigate and take quick notes. I just installed NV 2 days ago and am blown away. I also use Workflowy for some note-taking tasks, which has been particularly helpful when on the go and searching for some note.