Text: Regarding the Notes app

[jancborchardt]

Now the main thing we are doing with the Text app is replacing files_texteditor and offer a lightweight collaborative document alternative.

But we also overlap a lot with the simple Notes app. Maybe we should talk with the contributors (korelstar and stefan-niedermann) there ahead of time since it seems that when the Text app is fully fleshed out, Notes is a bit redundant. Since the design goal with Notes from the beginning was simplicity, then if the Text app is using the Viewer then it’s even _more_ simple and focused as it doesn’t even show a left sidebar.

Or what we could keep in mind for Text and / or viewer is possibly have a left list on the side which could be expanded to show other documents in the folder for quick switching?

Not entirely sure here, what do you think @juliushaertl @skjnldsv?

[skjnldsv]

I think Stefan would be glad to be able to only focus on the android app.
Now I don't know exactly how it works. Is the note app a simple frontend to dav?
Is there some custom endpoints that the note android app is also using? If so this will be complicated, because installing the old note app just to be able to support the android one is a very bad UX.
Replacing the note app is maybe the way to go, but we need to have infos from Stefanb before.

Also, the note app was being rewritten to vue apparently: https://github.com/nextcloud/notes/tree/vue
So it's not great to throw away lots of work.

The two apps kinda overlap, but maybe the current note app offers more features than _just_ a markdown editor? :thinking:

[tobiasKaminsky]

Personally I am using notes app on server with notes (by stefan) on Android and qOwnNotes on desktop.

As far as I know/understand notes are only text files (with markdown) stored in /Notes, but they can (somehow) have categories.

While text editor and notes have something in common (text editing), both are for me from UI/UX two totally different things:

• notes:
  
  
  
  • like a note book: I have 30-40 notes (I do not care that they are technically files), I just use them for storing infos, e.g. work report
  
  
  • notes are "mine", I do not share them as easily as files (also it is technically a bit harder)
  
  
• text editor:
  
  
  
  • I browse through files, either on web ui / android and have readme.txt, howto.txt and want to see / edit it. So here the context is from files/folders.
  
  
  • I share them quite often, maybe they are even within a shared folder --> collaboration is needed / makes sense
  
  

So all in all, I would see (of course only from my personal view) that notes is still needed, but can benefit maybe from collaborative editing.

[juliushaertl]

Now I don't know exactly how it works. Is the note app a simple frontend to dav?

The notes app also provides a rest api for the notes (e.g. with category management) which is used by the android app.

Replacing the note app is maybe the way to go, but we need to have infos from Stefan before.

Stefan was in the 17 meeting as well, he is aware of that we work on "something" but yes we should talk with the other notes maintainers as well I think.

I would actually just go for having text as a file editor. Since the notes app also works on files, it shouldn't be to hard to integrate out new collaborative editing view into the notes app as well. So we could keep Notes as an interface to the notes folder with the sidebar showing all notes with categories.

[jancborchardt]

Yeah, good points, also about the rewrite. I think we should just contact both korelstar and stefan-niedermann ahead of time about this.

Some more:

• Notes is basically just a dead-simple view on the "Notes" subfolder, showing the list of notes on the left
• It uses SimpleMDE as an editor since that does inline markdown. However a lot of people have requested WYSIWYG, which we would do with Prosemirror.
• Also a lot of people requested embedding of images, which is not possible with SimpleMDE as far as I can see, but is possible with Prosemirror.
• The Notes Android app could move towards a mobile app for the Text app I guess – we will have to talk to Stefan, and putting in collaboration is definitely a big part.

[jancborchardt]

@tobiasKaminsky regarding your points, that’s the current state, but I’m not sure if people really make that distinction. Apple Notes for example is both things – a simple personal notes app, but you can also share and collaborate. It’s very nicely integrated.

[jancborchardt]

(I’m just mainly worried about having X apps for the same thing again, kind of like with Circles / Contacts / users and such. :) It takes away focus and dev resources, and in the real world people don’t care about these small differences and won’t find all the different apps that we have. It needs to just work.)

Maybe also cc @MorrisJobke @rullzer regarding general direction.

[juliushaertl]

@jancborchardt What a lot of apps in #2 (Apple Notes, Evernote, Slite) but also other note-taking software like OneNote or Google Notes have in common is that they don't use a file based approach but have a simple interface for navigating though your notes, just like how we do it with the Notes app.

I would actually say we should integrate the editor properly into the notes app, so this is our basic note taking system and the ability to edit files from the files view is the "bonus" feature. :wink:

[jancborchardt]

I would actually say we should integrate the editor properly into the notes app, so this is our basic note taking system and the ability to edit files from the files view is the "bonus" feature. :wink:

Ok, sounds good! But let’s properly communicate that with the Notes devs?

[skjnldsv]

So, what is the status here? :)
Did we talk to them?

[juliushaertl]

Yes, apart from Stefans concerns that his Notes app for android would not have any usecase anymore (which I don't see that way) they liked the idea. Once I have finished the basic files app integration, I'll create a branch that hooks our new editor into the Notes app, as a replacement for their markdown editor.

[juliushaertl]

It should be possible to handle this in the notes app, once I find some time to look into, so let's keep this without a milestone for now.

[jancborchardt]

Stefans concerns that his Notes app for android would not have any usecase anymore (which I don't see that way)

:+1: Absolutely don’t see it that way either. I use the Notes Android app _a lot_, and a big part of it is that it’s super snappy and works offline.

Nothing that we will be able to do soon (ref Future plans for mobile #1) – and actually Stefan’s app is a great "Nextcloud Text" Android app already, and we can improve upon it too.

[jancborchardt]

Also cc @korelstar @stefan-niedermann @nextcloud/notes here. :)

[korelstar]

Yippie! :tada: I just created a (pinned) issue in the notes repository in order to provide some information for users and developers of the notes app: https://github.com/nextcloud/notes/issues/331

I'm looking forward for the first integration attempt by @juliushaertl (see https://github.com/nextcloud/text/issues/6#issuecomment-490775649). As soon as I find some time, I will have a look at the code of Text. But I doubt that it will be in the next weeks.

[sunjam]

Perhaps @pbek has some thoughts on this as the maintainer of Qownnotes. Cheers.

[pbek]

I also think Notes and Text are overlapping but not the same, like QOwnNotes (that is a note taking app) and a Markdown editor. Notes and QOwnNotes should making using a lot of markdown files to take notes easier, I'm not sure Text does that already or should even do that...

[juliushaertl]

I also think Notes and Text are overlapping but not the same, like QOwnNotes (that is a note taking app) and a Markdown editor. Notes and QOwnNotes should making using a lot of markdown files to take notes easier, I'm not sure Text does that already or should even do that...

The idea is more to integrate our new editor into notes, so notes is taking care of managing notes and providing a sane interface, which is more suitable for notes than a file list while you get the rich editing possibilities of the text app.

[pbek]

The idea is more to integrate our new editor into notes, so notes is taking care of managing notes and providing a sane interface, which is more suitable for notes than a file list while you get the rich editing possibilities of the text app.

Sounds like a good idea to me :smiley:

[brainchild0]

I agree that the concepts of text and notes might appear strongly overlapping, especially given the ongoing convergence of software components.

However, it might be valuable to consider that comparing the two terms, as they have evolved recently, might be mixing metaphors.

Text a type of asset, in contrast to images, audio, and so on; whereas notes has come to mean a way of managing assets, that favors an informal, ad-hoc organization. A text document might be note, or might be a book that takes years to write. A note might be a photograph, or an audio recording, or a photograph with a text snippet attached, or any combination of such elements.

Notes versus files being one distinction, and asset type being another, appear to be orthogonal considerations. A notes application should ideally handle a variety of asset types, but itself should focus on the appropriate organizational metaphors.

As such, I agree largely with the consensus, but I would emphasize the organizational approaches provided by a notes application might equally be available for other asset types.

Aside from being able to handle a variety of media types, a notes application that excels is one that helps the user store assets quickly and without planning, and also helps the user to find an asset later, despite lack of conscientious organizational practices. For such purposes, a metadata-based view that emphasizes fields like creation date and user-supplied tags is more helpful than a file-based view, regardless of what might be the actual backend storage means.

A simple example that gives me an idea of how useful a notes application is for my needs is to ask both of the following questions:

1. Can I create a note with no title?

2. Can I create two notes with the same title?

   This freedom marks a strong contrast to a file system, in which every asset is identified by at least one unique path. In a notes context, forcing me to choose a unique title at the time I create a note takes time and focus away from my other responsibilities.

[Fmstrat]

@jancborchardt What a lot of apps in #2 (Apple Notes, Evernote, Slite) but also other note-taking software like OneNote or Google Notes have in common is that they don't use a file based approach but have a simple interface for navigating though your notes, just like how we do it with the Notes app.

I would actually say we should integrate the editor properly into the notes app, so this is our basic note taking system and the ability to edit files from the files view is the "bonus" feature. wink

Just to throw this out there, I create OwnNote back in the day which got hugely popular (still a lot of users using it in Nextcloud, but if this integration occurs they will likely tail off. One of the most commonly said things in issues was "make sure to keep both the file view and interface view."

Looking forward to the progress here as I was just about to jump in and see if I could integrate the two until I saw this conversation ;)

[Fmstrat]

Is there a branch this is being developed against?

[Fmstrat]

Sorry for the flood of comments, but as I've just gone through a little evaluation of using the existing Notes, using a folder of MDs with Text, and the different mobile apps (along with non-Nextcloud solutions), I wanted to mention a potential "method" that could simplify things:

Could notes just be handled with a slightly altered view with tags?

• Add a file list view option that lists the files without extensions and quick-click filters on tags (https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/6424)
• Update Text to allow for renaming of filename from the editor to help with UX
• Have the Notes app become a "shortcut" into that view/folder (configurable)
  This would basically recreate the Notes experience without an entirely separate interface.

What about mobile?
The Nextcloud Android App is already adept at editing MD files. Setting a folder to sync makes that even better. If the server has the "shortcut" setting, show a notes icon in-app that jumps there in the same way.

[brainchild0]

Update Text to allow for renaming of filename from the editor to help with UX

A good idea in general, it would seem, but apparently already planned (see nextcloud/viewer#15).

Have the Notes app become a "shortcut" into that view/folder (configurable)
This would basically recreate the Notes experience without an entirely separate interface.

Then would the Viewer have a separate interface for notes? Or would a similar interface be provided by an entirely distinct component? The specific actions and information desired for a file view may be different than for a notes view.

[Fmstrat]

Then would the Viewer have a separate interface for notes? Or would a similar interface be provided by an entirely distinct component? The specific actions and information desired for a file view may be different than for a notes view.

@brainchild0 I'm guessing what I'm envisioning is allowing existing tags to be categories, and simplifying the layout. For instance, if the "Notes" app altered the view (granted, I think having the left nav "Tags" option be a display/filter like in the "after" shot is a good idea regardless).

For instance...

Before (Standard files view of Notes folder):

After (Notes "app" view of Notes folder):

Differences:

• Hidden via CSS (or altered listing):
  
  
  
  • File extensions
  
  
  • Thumbnails
  
  
  • Header breadcrumbs
  
  
  • Header "notes, lists, or links..."
  
  
• "Tags" is the default highlight in left nav
  
  
  
  • Instead of "Tags" navigating to a separate filter page, have it display the tags underneath where clicking limits the file list to files and sub-folders that contain files with the tag