Server: API - Investigate integration with desktop apps such as Akonadi

[Fmstrat]

See: https://community.kde.org/KDE_PIM/Akonadi

[radoeka]

Would like to see this too.

[DemoFreak]

+1

[mckaygerhard]

theres and app that already integrate notes.. QOwnNotes in this repo: https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes

[radoeka]

I know. I want Akonadi to be able to use Owncloud's Ownnote, so there will be a standard way for KDE applications to access the Notes, and at the same time be able to modify the notes via Owncloud's web interface.

[mckaygerhard]

ummm, so then this issue then must be close, cos the problem are then in akonadi!

[Fmstrat]

How would everyone feel about a stand-alone desktop app for Linux or as a Notes plugin for Mozilla Thunderbird (similar to Lightning for Calendars)?

[mckaygerhard]

notes plugin for mozilla its not a "stand-alone" app... depends from mozilla, and this depends of many versioned-scheme libs on linux installed system.

The icalc format for calendar marks a standar for Calendars apps in linux desktop related apps..

similar must be done for notes app.. so if akonai does not handle notes from owncloud, there two reasons:

• akonai does not support that
• notes does not provide some api or standar to implement it

and currently the both are the fact!

[Menthix]

My usecase is to mainly use ownNotes on my Android phone and Windows PC. For Android I am waiting on the official app. For PC I figured I would get a WYSIWYG HTML editor and directly edit the HMTL files created by ownNote, which the ownCloud client would then sync.

I do use Thunderbird and Lightning. An add-on for that, or a standalone Windows client, would work great for me. But I do wonder how much recources it will take from the developer. Not everybody uses Thunderbird, not everyone uses Linux either. I feel like it would be a lot of work for a fairly small set of users?

But if you do feel like creating standalone/thunderbird add-on apps. Sure :). It would be a seperate issue from integration with Akonadi and others though.

[mckaygerhard]

for androit u can recompile the qownote app and install it

[seal20]

After a little test I think qownnotes does not fit as it works with the "official" notes application which use text files. Why do you advise for qownnote? Am I understanding wrong? For the moment I didn't find any suitable editor for html notes except bluefish html editor but the results are not good and it is not convenient...

[Fmstrat]

@seal20 You are correct. Qownnote will not work with this application.

[gabrielbenedikt]

+1, would love to see ownnote working together with KJots.

[eemantsal]

I'd love too to see finally a decent note taking desktop app for Linux! Knotes is a total mess: you can't organize in folders, so you end with hundreds or thousands of notes all thrown to your face at once. It isn't a serious app for moderate to intensive notes users. Recently Kjots has been resucited for KDE Plasma 5, but doesn't solve any of the defficiencies Kjots 4 had: old design, and especially, total lack of audiovisual support. In 2016 it's a real drawback that you can't insert images, sketches or voice recordings. Notes nowadays aren't only text, one wants also to include photos, videos and recordings one has done with his mobile and wants to unify in a note, they are basic features every mature note taking app like OneNote, Evernote, Google Keep, etc, have. Then there's the young Renku/Zanshin app, but it only admits plan text notes, not even basic text format, and, in some users' questions on their website (https://zanshin.kde.org ), the devs have said that notes aren't ther main goal nor have much manpower (as usual, sadly), so they are more centered on task management as the main purpose of Zanshin. And finally there's QOwnNotes, with a nice QT 5 app, but it does almost the same than Kjots, some things worse: text format is done with that markdown language, that most users don't want to learn, they want buttons with icons to easy and intuitively format their notes; people want to use the software, not learn how to use. Besides you can't simply copy and paste to make a note with some webpage text, for instance, and keep its format, eveything you paste becomes plaintext. Also, it doesn't have "notebooks" to order your notes. Some other things are better thn in Kjots: it's well integrated with Owncloud so you can keep working with you notes in your portable thanks to an Android app; and markdown allows image insertion, manually, it seems, though, forget drag and drop and even copy and paste.

So, in the end we have 4 projects that involve note taking tasks, but none of them is really finished, none is completely useful. It seems that Ownnote doesn't allow other audiovisual content besides images, am I right, but it's a step forward, and probably the most significative, compared to Kjots; but permit me to make a probably simple question: if, in reality, rich content notes, are HTML "mails" (you can open a Kjots note in Kmail and it will look the same,or, if you share a note from Evernote's site by mail, you get an HTML mail with all the content embedded), why nobody has been able to write a really complete note taking app for Linux? If Kmail can compose HTML mails, how come nobody has reused Kmail's composer code completely (seems that Kjots does, but "castrates" it and removes image insertion feature). For us, coding illiterates, seems incomprehensible why, if the code is already there, lots of skilled and goodwilled people start projects and more projects that serve for the same purpose, but none reachs it and just seem to be reinventing the wheel, and not finishing it.

So, if you finally decide to write a desktop app. Couldn't you just take Kmail's composer code, keep all its audiovisual content support, and do the necessary modifications to make it a note taking app, removing all its email client features that are unnecessary for note taking, and adding the feature to save to an Owncloud account, or whatever else is necessary to be OC compatible?

Again, excuse if I've simplified too much, I'm aware I've probably done it, but I, like many others, just can't understand why so many projetcs, that always admit that are scarce in manpower, seem to do things that have been done already, instead of grabbing those things and taking them further and higher. Regards; and if you decide to start that project (that hopefully isn't yet another more note taking app project that will be as incomplete as the other 4), count on me if you need testers and bug reporters. :)