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  • PC:

    1. Libreoffice -- the best, most customisable and powerful office software available
    2. Onlyoffice -- alternative for less-advanced users who are used to the UI of contemporary MSO
    3. Zotero -- great bibliography manager useful when writing scientific papers: lets you collect books, journal articles and all other types of sources, automatically finds full text PDFs online, fills in metadata and then inserts dynamic citations in thousands of different, customisable styles. Also generates bibliographies. Works with LO, MSO and GDocs
    4. Caprine -- clean Facebook Messenger client (web wrapper based)
    5. TeXStudio -- my LATeX editor of choice; integral (ha!) when formatting maths-heavy documents

    Android:

    1. Cloudstream --- free streaming app, works with SFlix, Sodastream, PH and other legally dubious streaming providers. Takes some trickery to set up though.
    2. Osmand --- OpenStreetMap client with offline (optional online) navigation and plenty of plugins; loads of customisation
    3. Material Files --- nicest file manager, especially for rooted devices
    4. Showly --- freemium open-source TV and film tracker. Syncs with Trakt.tv
    5. Simple Gallery --- out of all Simple Apps by this developer, this is the only one which is in fact superior to its alternatives. Highly customisable, powerful, lightweight gallery app
    • Thanks for spreading the good word on OpenData mapping solutions! In case you find Osmand's interface confusing, check out Organic Maps as well. FOSS and offline features are naturally part of the offering.

    • Good list I make use of a lot of these too. Keep both LibreOffice and OnlyOffice around depending on how I feel that day but been leaning towards LO quite a bit recently.

      I will say I had Caprine for a while but my god it uses so much memory, it has an absolutely massive footprint on my laptop. I find a nice compromise is using messenger.com as that way I can still send and read messages without delving into the horrors of FB, plus can keep it in a container.

    • Question about zotero, I just started using it and I can't seem to find a way to direct it to PDFs I have already downloaded? Is there a way to do that or does it only have the PDF finding feature? The citation thing is pretty cool though, it's gonna make my writing class easier and I won't have to use mybib anymore. Also, is there a way to make it always use the classic interface when adding a citation? I keep having to click "show classic interface" or whatever the button is, and it's a tad annoying.

      • Question about zotero, I just started using it and I can’t seem to find a way to direct it to PDFs I have already downloaded? Is there a way to do that or does it only have the PDF finding feature?

        You can just drag and drop PDFs. Either to the list to create a new item or to an existing item if you already have it there.

        Also, is there a way to make it always use the classic interface when adding a citation? I keep having to click “show classic interface” or whatever the button is, and it’s a tad annoying.

        Zotero: Edit: Preferences: Cite: Word processors: Use classic Add Citation dialog [X]

    • You can also enable tabs, like in MS office, in LibreOffice. I find that easier to use than how it is by default.

    • Over question about Simple Gallery: My Pixel makes those small clips before the image. Is there a possibility to see this?

  • Big fan of Krita as a painting program. You've gotta learn some different hotkeys and all that, but it's better laid out and easier to learn than like, GIMP or Blender ime. Lots of good tutorials, plenty of free brushes, quite customizable. I really like its alpha-locking and groups as an alternative system to clipping masks.

    • I actually use Krita for all my image editing because I just find it more intuitive than GIMP

    • KeePassXC, it is a client for KeePass password management, works great
    • Krita, KDE's awesome drawing program
  • Really going to plug KeePassXC. I think there are several forks for different platforms/slightly different implementations of the KeePass family of password managers, but I prefer the "app that creates a file" paradigm of KeePass to Bitwarden's "server that hosts a database" paradigm.

    RedNotebook. It's not 100% what I was looking for in journal software, but it's the closest I tried. For the longest time I kept a journal in plaintext using basically any text editor that fell to hand, but RedNotebook lets me use some formatting and rich text (apparently via YAML or similar markup notation?) and adding pictures/links etc. I do sometimes use my journal to kind of stream-of-conscious-brainstorm, and checklist functionality would be handy for that but any app I've found that provides that is also incomprehensible. I also like that RedNotebook respects my system theme.

    AutoKey. You're aware of AutoHotKey for Windows? Well AutoKey runs on Linux, and it uses Python for its scripting language instead of its own proprietary weirdness. I use it all the time.

    Gonna mention FreeCAD. FreeCAD probably has the worst case of FOSS disease I'm aware of; it's UI is a klunky mess, it's perpetually unfinished, but if you can survive the utter pain in the ass it is to live with it's extremely powerful. Just the fact that it's a CAD program with a built-in spreadsheet is a total game changer. There's a lot to dislike here, but I honestly don't know what I'd do without it.

    Firefox. Everyone reading this already knows everything I'm going to say.

    Thonny. A pretty basic Python editor/IDE aimed at beginners and students, but I'm quite fond of it, especially when playing with Micropython on various little microcontrollers.

    • Xonotic is an open source FPS with an active community. If you liked Quake 3 and Unreal, then I can highly recommend checking it out. It's got lots of active servers, and perfectly captures old school FPS vibes.
    • Calibre is a great way to manage ebooks
    • Logseq is a great way to organize notes and ideas
356 comments