Taking fleeting notes with koreader

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planted: 19/08/2023last tended: 19/08/2023

Looking at how to add and sync basic fleeting notes with koreader.

1. Why?

I don't mean notes related to a specific book. I mean general fleeting notes. Things that pop into my head that I want to action at some point. Part of the reason being, I'm avoiding having my mobile phone in my bedroom. But at night I occassionaly have random ideas pop into my head, and I'd like to jot them down in a way that doesn't involve turning the light on.

2. How?

Options:

  • Just use a pen and paper. Disadvantage: I don't want to turn the light on and disturb my partner.
  • Use Boox. Advantage: I already have orgzly and syncthing set up and running nicely on there. Disadvantage: bit bulky, have to wait a short time for it to turn on, I don't always have it in my bedroom.
  • Use Kobo. Advantage: I usually am reading a book at night anyway, it's nice and lightweight. Disadvantage: syncing always a bit of a pain.

2.1. Taking the notes

koreader has a simple text editor that I can use. It's not amazing, but does the job well enough. Go to the 'spanner and screwdriver' menu item in the the top menu, go to Text Editor, create a notes.txt file, open it up. Now it lives in a list of recent files for the text editor, so it's only three taps to get to it wherever I am - nice and quick. Could possible set up some gesture or corner tap zone if I wanted it even easier, but this seems fine.

2.2. Syncing the notes

To be honest, the question is more about file sync. I'm sure I looked at getting syncthing on there before, but it wasn't really possible as I recall.

How best to then sync the notes to somewhere that I can then process them later? Ideally, I'd like that sync to be automatic, not a manual thing.

There's lots of stuff around progress sync, but that's not what I want.

Oh nice, actually it looks like installing syncthing is possible - https://anarc.at/hardware/tablet/kobo-clara-hd/#install-syncthing. Maybe I'll try that. It looks slightly fiddly though, so perhaps I'll save it for a rainy day and just copy the file manually periodically for now.

To be honest, I could also just hand copy the notes from the file. There will next be that much in there.

3. Elsewhere

3.1. In my garden

Notes that link to this note (AKA backlinks).

3.3. Mentions

Recent changes. Source. Peer Production License.