Exploring Saga: A Note-Taking App

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New in #PAWS: A fresh series on Note-Taking! In 1 year, account name changed from Note Fun Here to Opines Notes Apps to Nerdy Momo Cat, but the passion for notetaking remains. Join me as I talk about one of the lesser-known app @saga_HQ's saga.so.

To be honest, I discovered Saga in late 2021, when I was more willing to try new note-taking apps. I even have an old review of Saga saved in my @typefully account, so ancient that it had an invalid date until I recently copied and pasted it into a new draft.

I was loving saga.so, but lately, I've stopped using it. So, why the shift? To understand, let me tell you about Saga and its features. It follows a generic structure and offers essential content blocks like headings, bullets, and text, along with templates.

Saga offers more than just the essentials. Included in its main features are collections, aliased mentions, side panel, tasks, @googledrive workspace and @linear integration, and keyboard-first navigation. I'll cover each one in thorough detail.

A. Collections. Collections are the basic organizational structure in saga beyond workspaces. Saga only does workspace based permissions though (not collection level). Collections are basically tags that are inheritable.

These tags aren't supertags as they lack assigned properties, but they are nestable. Pages can belong to multiple collections. Adding properties and applying them at a block level would turn them into supertags, similar to those in @tana_inc.

And I know you can do it @saga_HQ because I started using the app back in 2021. Fun fact, @saga_HQ used to have user-defined page properties, akin to @NotionHQ, in collections, basically a version of supertags but no longer does in an attempt to be more user friendly.

B. Mentions are first class citizens in Saga, just like relations are first class citizens in Notion. To know what is a first class citizen in an app, see where there current releases lie. Eg, in @NotionHQ , peek view, properties as page sections, all focus on page relations.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, in Saga, you can create page aliases (like Cat or Dumbo or 🐈) that all link to the same place. This is particularly useful when building a people CRM. Any name you mention in a journal entry will appear on the corresponding linked page.

Autolink for page mentions can be toggled as needed, with a hover and click feature for a mention. Editing the popup is a breeze with an editable popup that appears when the mention is hovered over. Notion-like workspace-independent page mentioning is not currently supported.

C. By holding down the shift key and clicking on a mention, you can open it as a side panel. The default side panel is an excellent feature. Additionally, Saga displays unlinked mentions, which refer to instances where a page or heading was named, but without using [[ or @.

The side panel gives you a convenient table of contents, wordcount, and speedy search function. The significance cannot be dismissed - even @NotionHQ lacks it, while @craftdocsapp just recently announced the feature as a major update.

D. Tasks. Tasks are another set of first class citizens in Saga. Notion does not like integrating tasks into their workflow while it seems like every other major note-taking app on the planet does. In Saga, you can create tasks with date, assignment and mentions anywhere.

Tasks are special pages, similar to how @CapacitiesHQ uses internal content types. You can assign tasks, set dates, assign them to people, and view all mentions. Just a suggestion to @CapacitiesHQ - consider having tasks as a content type instead of a different structure?

E. Google workspace Integrations. As much as all of us enjoy the memes of why this google doc should have been a notion doc, that is not how life works (or at least not how mine does). You can link to an open and work on any google doc from a saga doc.

Saga's Dec release features an integration into their search function, allowing you to search through both your Google and Saga docs at once. This is particularly beneficial for spreadsheet calculations, as you can write about it in Saga and run the calculation in Sheets.

F. Keyboard first navigation. Saga comes with a command palette (yes like every other note taking app these days). You can utilize the command palette to search for Tasks, Linear & Google Drive w/ filters. Plus, then easily access search results in a non-distracting side-pane.

In summary, Saga’s power lies in inbuilt task management and google workspace integration. That combined with aliasing, unlinked mentions, auto-linking and the very powerful split/side-panel view is why you should consider Saga.

Saga didn't meet my needs due to the absence of essential features like page-based permissions, columns, and toggles (recently added). And, its incompatibility with external software was due to its "newness" and the API's unavailability.

Personally for me, while I enjoyed using Saga, I do not consider it stable enough to use on an everyday basis. @saga_HQ and @cloverappco are amazing concepts but have been dormant in development for months now.

I get that dev takes time, what holds me back from jumping on the latest tech is longevity. I only require a decade of relevance. I won't go for @obsdmd or anything local-first. I know @googledocs would be here 10 years down the line. And for me, that is enough. That's all.

I just launched a MTG template yesterday for @NotionHQ and @wizards_magic lovers. Use code MAGICWAND to get it here for FREE: tinyurl.com/nmc-mtg-lmz-full I also started a 30x series on everything I know about in CS. This week was Apple Shortcuts 300. Check that out. twitter.com/nerdymomocat/status/1635899665953730560

I share weird notion tips that work every weekend. Megathread here: twitter.com/nerdymomocat/status/1634569897446608896 Megathread of academic workflows shared on weekdays here: twitter.com/nerdymomocat/status/1632321456968437760 Get NOMs & MEOWs, automations for Notion & other productivity software here: nerdymomocat.lemonsqueezy.com/