Notes: Store notes in CalDAV/VJOURNAL

[bestouff]

Hi,

Some PIM apps (e.g. Evolution) use CalDAV to store their notes (in a VJOURNAL entry). This works quite well with Nextcloud, after running something like update oc_calendars set components='VEVENT,VTODO,VJOURNAL' where id in (...). It'd be nice to be able to see/edit/create these notes with this app.

[stefan-niedermann]

I disagree, i think this makes more sense for apps like tasks/todos - a use case the notes app should not cover imho because there are better alternatives for more powerful management.

[bestouff]

Why ? This is just a backend change, which allows it to be compatible with Evolution and KOrganizer.

[stefan-niedermann]

You forget many users who only use the default file sync client to synchronize their stuff and write their notes with a markdown editor of their choice. Switching the backend would be an backwards incompatible breaking change, that requires users to even more think about how to manage their simple notes, which tools, which protocols and so on.

It should simply work, ideally without additional software (optionally with, so advanced users can take benefits).

That's the reason i do not support leaving the filebased approach.

[bestouff]

The idea would be to offer another backend for the notes, for those who want to be able to read/write their already existing notes from their PIM, not to eliminate the already existing files backend.

[jancborchardt]

Yeah, as @stefan-niedermann mentions, moving away from file-based is not something we will do – but I guess that’s not what you request @bestouff :)

The biggest issue I see here is the tradeoff of investment and usefulness: This so far has been the first time we had this request, so I assume the need is quite low. CalDAV is used for Calendar and Tasks, but doesn’t seem so popular for Notes. Also, there’s so many clients for WebDAV or Nextcloud already so you can sync your notes very easily, and even edit it with whichever app you want. With CalDAV, there’s a much narrower spectrum – as you mention Evolution and KOrganizer.

So the time involved in developing and maintaining this just so that it integrates a tiny bit better into these systems is not really worth it in my opinion – sorry. Especially as there’s already much better integration on a direct file system level.

[jancborchardt]

However @bestouff if you (or someone else) are up for developing and (more importantly) _maintaining_ an optional CalDAV backend integration for Notes, you are very welcome to do so! :)

Just please understand that with our limited resources and the limited demand it’s not something we can commit to – because if we can’t do it well we’d rather not do it at all.

[Woren]

I just want to add that very popular eM Client also added Notes support with CalDAV in the newest version 8.