Alternatives To Simply Plural We Use
Hello darlings! Since simply plural and octocon are being shutdown, I'll share our little set up. I'll be focusing more on non system oriented apps and websites since there are several posts about system oriented alternatives already.
A great post I recommend reading is this one by slightly-sigilant! Along with this website. They have a lot more suggestions for alternatives than this post will. I might be making full tutorials on how we personally use each of these in the future and will likely share inspiration + templates for some of them.
Obsidian 🟣
Our personal app of choice is obsidian! It's highly customizable with tons of themes and plug ins. We use it for logging system information, writing stories, taking notes, and our digital link garden! It's very versatile. It's available on Android, PC, and iOS.
The link to their website
While they are optional, here are some plug ins we use:
Templater - A plug in that boosts obsidians core template mechanic, it's very helpful that way we can have templates for logging information at the ready and easily insert them into a new note.
Style settings - A plug in that makes themes way more customizable! If you're into things looking aesthetic or need some extra options for accessibility purposes we'd definitely suggest getting it. It doesn't work with every theme, but it does work with all the popular ones!
Homepage - This will open a specific note, workspace, canvas, or base when opening the app. We haven't set ours up yet, but it'd probably be helpful to have links for new headmates + any important information you want your headmates to see there.
Iconize - A plug in for icons! If you happen to like notions options for having icons for notes and folders then we'd suggest getting this.
Editing Toolbar - This is a plug in for a word-like editing toolbar! It's helpful for doing quick text + formatting adjustments.
Extended Markdown Syntax - Helpful for people not used to HTML, it allows you to do more markdown rather than having to use HTML tags for some things.
Some notes:
Yes the syncing between devices is paid, but there are ways you can sync them for free! This is the tutorial we used for syncing ours for free. Tutorial here.
There's also tons of tutorials on YouTube on how to use obsidian in general + their documentation.
Simple Time Tracker ⏱️
This is a time tracking app meant for productivity, but it's pretty feature rich with a built-in statistics option like simply plural had. I'll call the members being tracked activities with quotations here since that's what they're called in the app. It's an option if you want to track fronting times and have statistics. It's Android only though I think.
Disclaimer: This app wasn't intended for systems, so we're unsure of the exact limits of how much it can track.
Link to it on the play store
It's notable features:
Multitasking - There is an option in the settings at the top to turn this on so you can track multiple fronters at once. We haven't added everyone in our system, but we were able to add all 38 "activities" as being tracked at once when testing it.
Comments - You can add comments to individual "activities" records and there's even the option to automatically prompt you to add a comment when you start tracking them.
Statistics - As mentioned there's a built-in statistics option! It's in the form of a pie chart with the individual "activites" time below it and you can choose specific time ranges for how much data you want to see.
Categories and tags - Categories act like folders so you can group specific "activities" together and you're able to select specific ones to see just their statistics on the statistics page. It doesn't sort the "activities" in the activities page though. There is also a tag option that applies to specific records.
Customization - There's a ton of settings so you can change how certain parts of the app work, and you can also change the color and icon of the "activities"! We have ours as our sp colors + our emoji sign offs.
Notes: There's also an option to have a permanent notification you can toggle on in the settings! This app won't track anything besides stuff you want a timer for though. There's also backup + exporting options.
Draw Note ✏️
A bullet journal styled notes app. It's got several widgets you can add to your home screen including the option to have a specific note displayed. It works well for our specific flavor of memory issues. I believe it's only for Android though.
Link to it on the play store
Some notable features:
Drawing - As the name suggests you can draw on it! Lots of people use it to do little sketches and doodles. It's also good for making things pretty.
Widgets - There are several different types of widgets you can add to your home screen for easy access! We personally use the one that displays a specific note, our to do list, and our recent notes.
To do list - It has a built-in to do list page, you can make specific categories of to do lists as well as mark their priority level. You can also link notes to specific tasks as well as pinning tasks to your notifications bar.
Mind mapping - It also has a built-in mind mapping option for notes, we haven't used it yet though.
Any App/Website that Tracks OCs + World building 🌐
This is something we actually used a lot when we first soulbonded, though we have since stopped using the specific app we used back then and wouldn't suggest it- it was what we first had on hand since we enjoy making ocs and stories.
We've seen foretelling suggested a lot, though there are other apps out there for it!
