Markdown

Ruslin

Fairly basic open-source app that is local first, fast, and supports Markdown including tables, folders, and 4 themes. A key feature is synchronization with Joplin Cloud.

Stone

Oct 14, 2023 • 2 min read

Welcome to episode #105 in the ongoing journey to find the best Android note-taking app out there.

It is a very sad time with the devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan and the Israel-Hamas war. My thoughts are with all of the innocent people and their families who have and continue to be impacted by these tragedies.

Here in Toronto, winter is fast approaching and the leaves started falling. My wife and I have migrated off the front porch inside and I've been doing a lot of extra hours for work so this hobby slowed down a bit. I'll also be taking some training in Design Thinking from Ideo which I'm very excited about so the next reviews will be delayed.

This week I tried out Ruslin, created by DianQK, a Developer based in China. I couldn't find much more about him.

Ruslin is a very new Open-Source app created in Jan 2023 which can be found on F-Droid or Google Play. It's local first, fast, supports Markdown including tables, and has folders and 4 themes.

That said it lacks so many fundamental features that I need in a note-taking app, I can't recommend it beyond a simple and fast Markdown editor at this point.

An interesting aspect is that Ruslin supports synchronization with Joplin so you could subscribe to Joplin Cloud for about CAD $5 per month or set up your own Joplin Server.

Read on for the ugly, the bad, the good, the great, and the (couple of) awesome aspects of Ruslin.

Quotes

a cross-platform note-taking application that can be synchronized using Joplin Server.

Ugly

No end-to-end (E2E) encryption
No import or export
No backup and restore
No undo or redo
No sharing
No attaching files other than images
No audio recording
No tags
No filtering of notes
No sorting of notes
No images in the note list
No linking of notes
No trash
Not WYSIWYG (need to use Preview)

Bad

Double-click text doesn't select text
The first time I selected preview, it was blank. Go back and
Click when in preview doesn't switch to edit mode
In preview mode, the H1 is not shown

Good

Text formatting: bold, italics, strike-through
Code and code blocks
Bullet list
Numbered list
6 Heading levels
Hyperlink
Dark mode
Inline images
Inline checklists
Folders
Search across notes
Horizontal line
Quote and blockquote
Formatting toolbar

Great

Markdown support
Local first
Fast
4 themes

Awesome

Open-Source (GNU GPL v3.0)
Syncs to Joplin server

Conclusion

Ruslin is a good start and I love that the Developer is leveraging an Open-Source model to develop it. That said, it's not staying on my device until it has more functionality. I wish them luck and hope they continue developing it.

Thanks for continuing to subscribe to the newsletter, stay safe, and have a good note-taking week ahead.