Phenquestions
We have seen and reviewed plenty of note taking applications in the past including tomboy-ng, Boostnote and Joplin which we reviewed recently here on Ghacks. But here's one which works right in your web browser.
Tab Notes lets you write and save notes in Firefox and Chrome. It is from the same developer who is behind the excellent Textarea Cache add-on.
How does it work?
Once you install the browser extension in chrome or Firefox, it works out of the box. To begin using it, just open a new tab to get to the note interface.The extension takes over the New Tab Page of the web browser.
Type something in the page, it doesn't get simpler than this. You can use it to create as many notes as you want. To add a new note, click on the hamburger menu icon on the left to bring up the side bar, and then select the "Plus" button. And since it works in the browser, it uses the default spell-check tool of the browser.
The add-on displays the first few words of a note in the side-panel which you can use for identification and quickly navigating between notes.
You can have multiple instances of Tab Notes open at the same time by opening multiple new tab pages in the web browser; this allows you to work on multiple notes at the same time or display multiple notes in different tabs.
Tab Notes can be a priceless tool if you want to quickly jot down something like ideas or a to-do list. You could even use it to save links, though they appear as text, so you'll need to copy and paste them. The extension is available for Firefox and Chrome (I tested it in Edge Chromium).
How do you save the notes? You don't have to because your notes are saved automatically as you type. The notes are persistent, i.e., they remain after you close the browser and restart it. I'd advise you to backup the notes manually using a text editor so you don't lose any important information though; running a cleaning tool on the system could very well delete the data.
Closing Words
The main issue with Tab Notes is that it takes over the New Tab Page. This can be a problem if you were using a different add-on for the new tab functionality (like Group Speed Dial) or use the New Tab Page actively. There is no workaround for this which means that you are left with one or the other but not both. Many add-ons open a new tab with their own options, perhaps the dev could do the same.
The other major con, and this is very subjective, is the complete lack of customization in Tab Notes. I mean there is literally nothing that you can change, not even a bold/italics toggle, or font type or size selector. I was really hoping to try the dark theme, but it appears that the add-on uses the browser's theme settings.
Support for links or images could be a very useful addition as well, but it could remove a bit if the lightness of the note taking experience.
Tab Notes is not meant to be a text editor. It is a simple note taking add-on so some people may find the bare bones approach to be better. The developer has mentioned he is working on Markdown support; you can follow the development on GitHub if you are interested.
Tab Notes is an open source project, and does not require any permissions at all.
