I am using Evernote since a long time and prefer to browse my notebooks from the Evernote website. Although Evernote is a great service, I don’t like Evernote’s Mac app because I find it a bit complex. Evernote sports tons of features(which is good for power users) but its Mac app is too cluttered with all those buttons, information and settings that one average user might not want.
Alternote is a new note-taking app for Mac which uses Evernote as its backend. The app features three-pane layout with your notebooks listed on the left pane, your notes in the middle pane and note’s content on the right pane. Unlike Evernote, Alternote is simple and easy to navigate. There’s just the right stuff on the screen.
Through the left pane, you can access all your notebooks, starred notes and tags. You can also create a new Notebook from this pane and view the trashed notes using the Trash button at the bottom of the left pane. When you hover over the notebooks and tags, the app shows the number of items the notebook contains. The middle pane lists all the notes in the selected Notebook or tag. The app also features a search box at the top of the middle pane. You can alter the way the notes are displayed in the middle pane by clicking on the sort icon at the top. You can switch between Full mode which shows the excerpt with the Note title and Compact mode which shows just the Note title. The app also gives sorting options. You can add a new note using the Add icon at the top.
The right pane displays the content of the selected note with Note title at top. The app gives a lot of options for writing notes including a WYSIWYG editor, option to switch between Night and Day mode, option to change the font and the font-size. Alternote also features a distraction-free mode which lets you focus just on your writing. You can also create to-do lists in Alternote.
Apart from the above mentioned features, Alternote also lets users change the background of the left pane. The app is so nice and simple that I started using it instead of the using Evernote’s web app. Alternote is in Public beta and can be downloaded from Mac App Store.