A long time ago, in So, you want to vibecode an
other note taking app? (Part 1), I promised to follow up on these ideas. It has been a while since then, but that doesn't mean I abandoned the project. In fact, I am a mostly happy user of it, and if you look at the another-note-taking-app repository, you can see commits from just last week.
When browsing the web, shopping, or simply needing to jot something down on the go, there are many options available—from opening a dedicated app to sending a WhatsApp or Telegram message to yourself. However, as discussed in the previous post, you often end up with scattered notes across different apps, resulting in a rather unsatisfactory workflow.
Because our note-taking app is command-line based, opening a terminal and SSHing into a remote server to quickly write a note isn't practical. What feels effortless with a physical keyboard on a desktop quickly becomes cumbersome on a mobile phone.
Fortunately, we already have A (non intelligent) chatbot multi-interface and distributed as a personal information manager, which makes adding new utilities very straightforward.
In this step, we developed (or rather, vibecoded) err-notes—a plugin that lets us interact with our note-taking app remotely (typically via Telegram, though other interfaces are supported).
We selected a core subset of commands suited for quick mobile interactions:
- Create Notes: Quick and easy note creation.
- List Notes: See all your stored notes at a glance.
- Read/Show Notes: Retrieve the content of a specific note by title or index.
- Search: Perform a universal search across all note titles and content.
- Delete Notes: Remove notes you no longer need.
We also created command aliases, as shorter shortcuts are essential when typing on limited mobile interfaces.
Now, we can easily capture URLs, log measurements around the house, or save arbitrary data to access later whenever needed. Searching for stored information at a moment's notice works seamlessly. This plugin has been remarkably stable (the last modification was three months ago) and exceedingly useful, indirectly driving improvements to the core note-taking app.
My main grievance is handling line breaks: I primarily use Telegram as the front-end, and sending multi-line text in a single message can be clunky.
To address this (and to aid occasional cleanup), a join command was added to the original app. You can log quick, single-line notes at any moment and organize them later—joining multiple entries together and assigning them a clear, unified title.
Next, we need to rethink how we structure and organize this information. The upcoming part will focus on another workflow: passing URLs to an AI system that automatically creates calendar entries. I hope I won't have to wait several months before writing that one!
AI disclaimer I've used Gemini AI to help to correct my English for this post.
