Sketchbook with watercolors and a cup of tea. Usually I avoid post titles / headlines in the form of a question, but I’m genuinely curious: Have you found a good note-taking app that’s ultimately better than just plain text files in Markdown with Vim (optionally synced with Git)?

I’ve tried lots of apps like Joplin, Obsidian, and services like HackMD, but tend to get frustrated with them quickly. It may just be my impatience, if I stuck with one longer than a week or two I’d get the hang of it. I learned Vim as a job requirement (long story) and had to stick out the learning curve.

I’d really love something better that adds saving files (images, PDFs, etc.) and has decent todo functionality. Open source and cross-platform is also strongly, strongly preferred. Ability to edit on the fly, e.g. from my phone or iPad, would be real nifty but not mandatory.

Export to a portable format is non-negotiable. I really liked BasKet once upon a time, but that project seems to have gone completely stale.

Recommendations for apps and note-taking techniques/strategies welcome!