Curiota: a replacement for nvALT

nvALT has been one of the most useful productivity apps around. I have been using it for the last couple of years. I totally love how it works; and started to use Markdown because of it. It is the best pieces of software to capture flying ideas fast. As time goes by, Brett, the developer who imported it from Notational Velocity, said that nvALT will be not updated, and promised to develop a replacement application. He promised a year earlier; but never released the application yet. In the mean time, as the number of notes I have grew exponentially, I have trouble to manage them in a single folder (which is how nvALT stores the files). Since nvALT has no other  means of organising notes except the tags, organising the notes has been very cumbersome.

I then started to look around a number of other tools. I ultimately get hooked into Tinderbox. But, TB is not the easiest, best application to catch small ideas as they pop-up in my mind. I usually get confused where to put the notes in TB; since my notes are usually organised into Containers (folders). I also tried three other cool applications which are great for the task:

1. Unclutter
2. MiniNote Pro
3. and, finally, Curiota

Curiota, I slowly learned, is the true replacement for nvALT; if you can live with RTF, rather than Markdown. It is a little sister of the well known Curio, mind-mapping and note taking application. I am not that much a fan of Curio. But, I find its little sister very useful. Curiota has all the things nvALT has and more. It also has a means of grouping files; unlike nvALT’s flat filing system. Like nvALT, it transparently puts the files in Dropbox folder, something I highly appreciate. It also has a global shortcut which is used for a snappy note taking. The “stay on top” feature is another little touch, still extremely useful for somebody like who takes notes all day.

• Mac Apps