I’m currently looking to develop an open source app that can help somebody. I’m currently out of ideas, so I’d like to heard if from you guys.
Sorry if it seems to lazy to ask for ideas like that, I just thought that I could do it since the result will be a free app.
Joplin already does a great job for this, at least for notes.
I used Joplin extensively for ~2 years, but I was constantly put off by the desktop applications UI and how my notes was stored in SQLite. The move to obsidian felt natural and I felt more in ownership over my files in their existing structure. Granted, obsidian is closed source and could go rogue, but when that happens, I am prepared to jump ship without too much pain.
Exactly. Not a huge fan of notes apps storing the data in a db.otherwise there is a lot to like about joplin. With obsidian i open my notes in codium all the time to make mass edits or fill gaps that obsidians UI cant meet, which is not possible with joplin.
Fortunately with obsidian as long as you keep the plugins on the lighter side and keep any non-markdown content in seperate files via linking, im not too worried about having to jump ship if it ever goes bad. Worst case if a plugin dies or i have to migrate, the actual loss of data is that some plugin used json or whatever and it’d have to be converted or replaced.
I do have hope at least that if the company folds they’ll open source it, or turn a blind eye to a community reengineering effort. And what is unique about obsidian markdown and metadata will probably get community-built migration tools quickly if enough people jump ship en masse.
But for the time being Obsidian is the best option for me and i dont feel that bad about it.
I don’t see the hate for storing data in a sqlite database. It’s still your data, you get to do with it as you please, and I’ve yet to see the data encrypted (let’s not give anyone any silly ideas here). You want to see your data outside of the program, just download any sqlite viewer. If you don’t mind CLI, then the tools provided by sqlite are more than good enough and are only a few MB in size.
Generally speaking I’m not opposed to sqlite. The case of a notes app is the one exception.
If i need to make a big find and replace change, i dont need to rely on the app to have the capability or whip out a sql editor or cli tool. I just open my favorite text editor and do it. Or chain some cli tools built into the os.
Its not even about data portability or export. Its about working with the data.
I think it has more to do with preference than hate. For me particularly, I don’t care much about how things are stored. I just make sure to exporr/backup regularly, and if anything breaks, it’s an easy and mostly painless fix.
I tried Obsidian once, and while I did like it and the UI is light years ahead of Joplin, I guess I’m just used to the Joplin experience, so I saw no need to switch.
I used Joplin for up to 8 hours daily for half a year (university) before switching to Obsidian, too. As far as I know, Joplin lets you store the notes as files, too, but you need to set it up that way from the start.
Still, I found Obsidian to be much more pleasant and - ironically - easier to modify (by writing plugins) than Joplin.