This year, many note apps are focusing on integrating AI AND infinite canvas!
Notion and Craft already announced their versions of AI integrations.
And apps like Obsidian and Logseq also announced their versions of infinite
canvas which allows you to put your notes on a whiteboard freely as you do on a mindmap.
But there are some note apps that have been focusing on visual note-taking
even before. And Scrintal is one of them. I reviewed Scrintal a long time ago when it
was still in early development, but it seems they added lots of updates and new features since then.
So I wanted to take another look at the improved
version and show it to you so you can see if it's something you might like.
If you want a simplistic but powerful visual note app, this might be for you.
If this is your first time hearing about Scrintal, it’s essentially like a combination of a typical
note app and a mind-mapping app. You can take notes just like you usually do, and
then put your notes on an infinite canvas. You can also link them together with lines.
It was kind of basic when I saw it for the first time months ago. But it looks very different now.
The first thing I noticed was the UI. It looks much cleaner and more polished. I love how simple
it is because nowadays many note apps have so many features that they have kind of confusing
UI with many buttons. But this looks very nice. I like the idea of My Desk. It’s like your virtual
desk where you can put anything you want to work on or like something you want to
remember for the day. So for instance, if you’re working on multiple projects today, you can have
notes for each of them on your desk. And also have things like your journal and a task list
and arrange your desk layout however you like. Unlike the real-life desk, it’s pretty easy to
find what you’re looking for. It now has this spotlight command where you can find the things
you need instantly. It’s a small thing, but hugely important! Even when you have
a pile of documents on your desk like in real life, you can find the thing you want easily.
If your desk gets too cluttered, you can create a board, which is kind of like a folder in a way.
It’s another empty canvas where you can put notes for a specific project or topic. This way you can
focus only on that and keep your desk tidy. And when you have a long-term project,
it’s useful to pin them to the sidebar so you can always see what you’re
working on currently and open them quickly. Once you’re done with your day, you can clean
up your desk so you can start the next day from a clean slate which is pretty cool in my opinion.
Another thing I noticed is that there’s more freedom in how you want to create your mind-map?
Before, you could only put notes on your canvas, but now it lets you put a text, and also create
a table too which is my favourite, actually. You can create a new table from this button,
and add more columns as you wish. Here, you can create a new note or add existing ones by
dragging them into the table. I think this is a great way to organise information visually.
I can think of many use cases for this. For example, if you’re writing a blog post or
even a book, you can make a table for it, and create columns for your resources and
each section. Then add notes you want to use in the resource column. And put them into each
section you’re planning to use them for. Let’s say you’re going to use this note for the intro,
put it into the intro column. Something like that. I think this is actually great for students
because they have to write lots of essays and reports, and it usually requires lots of reading
notes. This might be a great way to organise all of the notes before writing essays. I wish I had
a tool like this when I was in university! It would have been perfect also because it lets you
upload academic paper as PDF and read it on the canvas directly. Then take notes while doing it.
Lastly, I noticed that you can now share your board easily with other people. I don’t really
collaborate with other people now, but I think this is useful for many people,
again especially for students because they have lots of group projects. They can brainstorm
ideas together or share their study notes and so on. Even if you’re not a student,
it might come in handy when you want to share a document because it might
be easier to convey information visually on a canvas than on a typical document.
Alright, that was my another review of the new improved version of Scrintal.
Honestly, it surprised me a little because it got a lot better in many aspects.
I know some of you would say, like, oh but Obsidian is better because it now has
an infinite canvas with tons of other features. But I think to some people,
that’s a bit too much and want something simpler. And this is just perfect for them.
Anyway, I really liked the updates they made and hopefully, they can add even more this
year. Seeing their roadmap, it looks exciting. Personally, there are some things I want to see
though. Like for example, their backlinks are not that useful — it’s just a list of
mentions with no context. It’d be nice to see how the page is mentioned in what context.
Also, I’m not sure if they have a Readwise integration yet. I believe many people use
Readwise for managing book highlights and exploring them to their favourite note app,
but I don’t think you can do that with Scrintal yet. I hope it will be possible soon!
Cool! Thanks for watching this review! I really appreciate it. If you liked it,
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