Proposal: Notes Functionality for the user in every lesson.

[Ratneshtripathi07]

I would like to propose a feature enhancement for The Odin Project curriculum platform:
Adding a "Notes" functionality that allows users to create, save, and manage personal notes directly within each lesson.

Motivation:

Learning web development involves processing a large amount of information, and taking notes is a common and effective way to retain knowledge. Currently, users must rely on external tools (e.g., text editors, Notion, or paper) to record important points, code snippets, or personal insights while going through the lessons.
Integrating a notes feature directly into the platform would streamline this process and provide a more seamless learning experience.

Proposed Functionality:

A simple and intuitive interface embedded in each lesson page.

Users can add, edit, and delete notes relevant to the current lesson.

Notes are automatically saved per user account and can be accessed anytime when revisiting the lesson.

Optionally, support basic formatting (e.g., code blocks, bullet points).

Notes are private to the user (not publicly visible).

Benefits:

Encourages active learning and knowledge retention.

Reduces friction by removing the need for external apps.

Provides a centralized and organized study workflow.

Adds significant value to the learning platform without overcomplicating the UI.

I’d love to hear feedback from the community and maintainers regarding the feasibility and possible roadmap for implementing this feature.

Thank you for considering this proposal!

[mao-sz]

Moved the discussion to the website repo which is where the feature would live were it to be implemented, as opposed to the curriculum repo which just houses the lesson contents.

Personally, I don't see this feature being as valuable as you may be thinking. There isn't really much friction caused by using external apps, especially if they're purpose-built for notes. I doubt we'd want to be trying to build a powerful note-taking app so unless you want huge scope creep and maintenance issues (potentially DB scaling since every single user would have stored their notes for every single lesson, even if empty), it'd be a half-baked feature that's better done by purpose-built apps. And many would want those extra features depending on how they like to write notes or organise them, so wouldn't use a in-house half-baked version.

But also TOP generally recommends against taking notes, at least in the way many do like they will do/have done for school or university, where they'd be making revision notes to prepare for closed-book exams. Basically recreating documentation.

There are no such exams in TOP at all. This field isn't about memorisation or similar. It's about problem solving, which means research. By making your own notes like that, you basically end up trying to recreate documentation, and that easily risks incorrect documentation or putting weight on the wrong things. Why use your potentially incomplete and inaccurate docs when the internet remembers for you, and is much more likely to be correct and comprehensive? That's how devs work in real life, by researching stuff, as opposed to making and revising from personal notes.