62 LXF260 March 2020 http://www.linuxformat.comTUTORIALS Joplin notes
up and synced for the first time. When you’re ready you
can choose from five minutes to 24 hours with the drop-
down menu. Click OK at the top of the Options menu,
and Joplin will start placing your notes on your chosen
server. Once your notes have uploaded to the server,
you can repeat this process on any other devices.
At the bottom of the left-side sidebar (below the lists
of notebooks and tags), you’ll find a Synchronize button
where you can connect with your defined server outside
the interval. Above the button is information on the last
sync operation.Take note
At its heart, Joplin on the desktop is really just a
Markdown editor able to sync with other versions of
itself. By default, you see a three-pane display. On the
left is the list of notebooks and tags (more on this later),
then the Markdown editor and the WYSIWIG display.
Type all your notes in the Markdown editor, which
automatically displays in the WYSIWIG column.
While Markdown is a lightweight markup language
designed to be easy to learn, Joplin eases (or
eliminates) the learning curve with a formatting toolbar
for the mouse-dependent. The toolbar generates the
Markdown code (such as ## for a Heading level 2) to
remind you that it may be easier next time to keep your
hands on the keyboard.
If the multi-pane layout is too cramped for you, click
Layout in the toolbar to only display the Markdown or
WYSIWIG editor. The WYSIWIG side is especially good if
most of your notes are web clippings.
As you’re writing or adding to a note, click the Tag
toolbar icon to add one or more tags to further identify
a note, making it easier to find.Tag you’re it
Joplin is a freeform notetaker. It offers many tools to
help you organise your information and your life but
doesn’t restrict you in how to do it. The basic method of
using Joplin is creating one or more notebooks to hold
your stuff. You can create separate notebooks for every
project or information area you want to track, or stuff
everything into one notebook and use the application’s
search engine to find things. You can use Joplin as a
personal journal, with a new notebook every day.
You can keep notes in multiple notebooks if you’re so
inclined. Right-click a note in the Note List. Select
Duplicate from the context menu and drag the note to
the other notebook.
Tags also help you to organise and find your notes.
You can consider Joplin your personal wiki or
autobiography, with tags acting as your index markers
and notebooks as a table of contents.
Joplin places all your notebooks and tags in a sidebar
on the left side of the screen. Click on any notebook to
see what’s inside. Click any tag to see what notes
contain that tag. To declutter your display, click Toggle
Sidebar to hide the Notebook and Tags lists. Everything
is searchable, and pretty fast at that.Get organised
It’s not a hefty project manager, but you can use Joplin
to make to-do lists for yourself. For a daily list, try
creating a Tasks notebook, and click New To-do fromaccess them. Of course, the servers belong to the
company; if that company stops offering the service,
either after going out of business or being bought by
another firm, you could be left without the stuff you’ve
collected over the years. Plus, you don’t know what the
service has been doing with your data over the years.
Surveillance capitalism uses your notes to traffic
advertising to you.
Joplin lets you select the location where you want to
keep your data stored and just handles the
synchronisation duties, enabling you to access your
notes and add to them in a place you trust. You can
choose from two proprietary locations (Dropbox and
OneDrive), Nextcloud, or any WebDAV-compliant server.
You can also choose a defined directory path on any
filesystem that all your devices have access to.
Start the synchronisation process on your desktop
or laptop. In Joplin desktop, go to Tools > Options (we
visited here to set up the web clipper). Click the
Synchronization tab to set up your storage server.
Under Synchronization Target, choose Dropbox or
OneDrive, and on the first sync attempt you’ll be asked
(by the service) to log into your account.
If you already have a Nextcloud or WebDAV-
compliant account somewhere, then it’s a good idea to
add a Joplin folder to store your notes separately from
other data.
Choose Nextcloud or WebDAV, and then you’ll enter
the Nextcloud WebDAV URL and your credentials for the
Nextcloud server you’re using. Once you’ve done that,
click Check Synchronization Configuration and see if
you can get in.
Choose Filesystem to select a network drive or some
other directory that is backed up frequently. Enter the
absolute path of the directory you want to synchronise
your notes with.
Synchronization Interval is disabled by default, and
you should wait to set this until all your devices are setWhen connecting to Nextcloud, aim to separate your Joplin data from any other files you’re
backing up.Make a catch-
all notebook
to put random
web clippings
in, as you
cannot create a
new notebook
from the web
clipper. You can
always move
the clipping to a
new notebook
when you
return to the
desktop app.62 LXF260March 2020 6660March 2move0s2o
TUTORIALS Joplin notes
up and synced for the first time. When you’re ready you
can choose from five minutes to 24 hours with the drop-
down menu. Click OK at the top of the Options menu,
and Joplin will start placing your notes on your chosen
server. Once your notes have uploaded to the server,
you can repeat this process on any other devices.
At the bottom of the left-side sidebar (below the lists
of notebooks and tags), you’ll find a Synchronize button
where you can connect with your defined server outside
the interval. Above the button is information on the last
sync operation.Take note
At its heart, Joplin on the desktop is really just a
Markdown editor able to sync with other versions of
itself. By default, you see a three-pane display. On the
left is the list of notebooks and tags (more on this later),
then the Markdown editor and the WYSIWIG display.
Type all your notes in the Markdown editor, which
automatically displays in the WYSIWIG column.
While Markdown is a lightweight markup language
designed to be easy to learn, Joplin eases (or
eliminates) the learning curve with a formatting toolbar
for the mouse-dependent. The toolbar generates the
Markdown code (such as ## for a Heading level 2) to
remind you that it may be easier next time to keep your
hands on the keyboard.
If the multi-pane layout is too cramped for you, click
Layout in the toolbar to only display the Markdown or
WYSIWIG editor. The WYSIWIG side is especially good if
most of your notes are web clippings.
As you’re writing or adding to a note, click the Tag
toolbar icon to add one or more tags to further identify
a note, making it easier to find.Tag you’re it
Joplin is a freeform notetaker. It offers many tools to
help you organise your information and your life but
doesn’t restrict you in how to do it. The basic method of
using Joplin is creating one or more notebooks to hold
your stuff. You can create separate notebooks for every
project or information area you want to track, or stuff
everything into one notebook and use the application’s
search engine to find things. You can use Joplin as a
personal journal, with a new notebook every day.
You can keep notes in multiple notebooks if you’re so
inclined. Right-click a note in the Note List. Select
Duplicate from the context menu and drag the note to
the other notebook.
Tags also help you to organise and find your notes.
You can consider Joplin your personal wiki or
autobiography, with tags acting as your index markers
and notebooks as a table of contents.
Joplin places all your notebooks and tags in a sidebar
on the left side of the screen. Click on any notebook to
see what’s inside. Click any tag to see what notes
contain that tag. To declutter your display, click Toggle
Sidebar to hide the Notebook and Tags lists. Everything
is searchable, and pretty fast at that.Get organised
It’s not a hefty project manager, but you can use Joplin
to make to-do lists for yourself. For a daily list, try
creating a Tasks notebook, and click New To-do fromaccess them. Of course, the servers belong to the
company; if that company stops offering the service,
either after going out of business or being bought by
another firm, you could be left without the stuff you’ve
collected over the years. Plus, you don’t know what the
service has been doing with your data over the years.
Surveillance capitalism uses your notes to traffic
advertising to you.
Joplin lets you select the location where you want to
keep your data stored and just handles the
synchronisation duties, enabling you to access your
notes and add to them in a place you trust. You can
choose from two proprietary locations (Dropbox and
OneDrive), Nextcloud, or any WebDAV-compliant server.
You can also choose a defined directory path on any
filesystem that all your devices have access to.
Start the synchronisation process on your desktop
or laptop. In Joplin desktop, go to Tools > Options (we
visited here to set up the web clipper). Click the
Synchronization tab to set up your storage server.
Under Synchronization Target, choose Dropbox or
OneDrive, and on the first sync attempt you’ll be asked
(by the service) to log into your account.
If you already have a Nextcloud or WebDAV-
compliant account somewhere, then it’s a good idea to
add a Joplin folder to store your notes separately from
other data.
Choose Nextcloud or WebDAV, and then you’ll enter
the Nextcloud WebDAV URL and your credentials for the
Nextcloud server you’re using. Once you’ve done that,
click Check Synchronization Configuration and see if
you can get in.
Choose Filesystem to select a network drive or some
other directory that is backed up frequently. Enter the
absolute path of the directory you want to synchronise
your notes with.
Synchronization Interval is disabled by default, and
you should wait to set this until all your devices are setWhen connecting to Nextcloud, aim to separate your Joplin data from any other files you’re
backing up.Makea catch-
allnotebook
toputrandom
webclippings
in,asyou
cannotcreatea
newnotebook
fromtheweb
clipper.Youcan
alwaysmove
theclippingtoa
newnotebook
whenyou
returntothe
desktopapp.