5 mo. ago • 98%

KleverNotes Version 1.0 official release

KleverNotes, KDE's Markdown note-taking and management application using Kirigami, is ready for its first release!

KleverNotes lets you create and preview Markdown notes while giving you the freedom to customize the preview from settings or using a CSS theme.

You can organize your notes however you want with a combination of categories and groups, which will be directly reflected on your system in the hierarchy of your KleverNotes storage folders.

Simply choose your storage location and you're ready to write!

You can print your notes, add small sketches and even create specific tasks for each of them, all from the application!

Notes are saved as Markdown files in your KleverNotes storage for easy access. They support the entire CommonMark specification with extensive syntax. KleverNotes also introduces a small collection of opt-in “plugins” to extend basic markdown functionality, such as: code highlighting, note linking, quick emoji, PUML.

Special thanks

I would like to thank Carl Schwan who helped me through the incubator process, has set up the repository and the various KDE related things, fixed my code, and answered my many questions. The project would not be where it is without him.

History

I started KleverNotes as a small personnal project to learn QML and C++ and motivate myself to take notes in class. After posting a few screenshots of my progress on Reddit, people seemed pretty interested, which inspired me to continue and redouble my efforts. Once it was added to KDE, my motivation grew even more, my final goal is now to be able to offer a simple alternative to QOwnNotes using Kirigami. (I actively use KleverNotes in each of my classes now btw 😬)

Final note

This release doesn't add anything special compared to my last update, just UI tweaks from Carl, which makes the app better looking. I just wanted to get things moving in order to officially push more updates in the future. A big one is in the works and should arrive soon once my exams are finished.

As always, I'll be more than happy to answer your questions, discuss potential features, or hear your point of view 😉

Link to the repo: https://invent.kde.org/office/klevernotes

Mirrorlist: https://download.kde.org/stable/klevernotes/1.0.0/klevernotes-1.0.0.tar.xz.mirrorlist

53 comments

Looks nice from the screenshot. Very clean.

18
- Thanks you !
  
  I want it to look nice and easy to use while keeping some power under the hood ;-)
  
  11
In the future, if you plan to add sync, consider reimplementing Joplin sync algorithm

That would give you tens of thousands of passionate users, dedicated FOSS server as well as webdav/s3/dropbox/onedrive client sync ability, webclipper and a lot of support to navigate future issues/roadmap

If you ever decide to do that, there's even a plan to repackage the algorithm as a standalone library

14
- My first plan is to add NextCloud Note sync
  
  But if the two are compatible let's go for it ! Thanks for sharing this
  
  9
  
  Yeah, I'm using Joplin over Nextcloud and it would absolutely be compatible, the Markdown syntax is the same after all.
  
  1
Does it support KaTeX math, git integration, and spell checking? I'm using vscode for note taking but it's slow and power hungry

6
- Math integration is something I want, hesitant between Katex and ASCIIMATH, but there's no such thing currently
  
  Technicaly no git integration, as in, there's no way to "git add/commit/Push" directly from the app, but you can style do it. Your notes are saved inside a folder, you can see the path directly from the settings, so you can technicaly use git on it. I personnaly use syncthing
  
  No spell checking, never thought about it, could be a cool feature, thanks for the idea
  
  7
  
  Well, I'm biased because KaTeX is load bearing to my use case. But I would argue that it:
  
  Is more powerful
  
  Is an introduction to LaTeX (which is an industry standard)
  
  It's ubiquitous
  
  You could consider using mathjax instead of KaTeX which should render both latex math and asciimath, (and should be better in general). If you had unlimited resources (which I guess you don't) it would be cool if you made the math language into a setting.
  
  For git, other than the add and commit buttons, it would be useful to have a "git gutter" which shows changes from the last commit. Which is the only git integration feature that you can't get away with external tools.
  
  For spell checking, even just pulling in some dictionary, like the ones in vscode's cspell extension and having a basic dictionary check is much better than nothing.
  
  3
Is this why Kate dropped Markdown previews?

6
Maybe an edge case, but playing around with this I notice that if I create an ordered list at the same level directly after an unordered list, the preview displays it as an unordered list. This doesn't seem to happen if there is a separator between the two or if the ordered list is indented. Is this expected behavior or is it worthy of an issue?

6
- Just to be sure
  
  Create an issue with the list sample so I can try it out by myself, it will be easier to debug ;-)
  
  6
  
  Done. Thanks!
  
  3
Can I sync it with Nextcloud notes?

6
- Sadly not right now. I'm not against doing it, I just need to figure out the API
  
  13
- Probably can open your notes directory in the nextcloud sync dir and it'd work.
  
  2
  
  I don't have a Next Cloud instance but I don't see why this would not work :-)
  
  Just need to walk the folder hierachy to your note
  
  6
I'm not against one more md note taking app and I like KDE, but do we really need one more?

Are there major differences planned compared to Joplin?

3
- directly reflected on your system in the hierarchy of your KleverNotes storage folders.
  
  This is a big deal. Joplin is great, but its database structure is horrible for interoperability.
  
  Hopefully Klevernotes will also be more snappy and "native feeling". Joplin being Electron can be a bit sluggish sometimes ( which is mildly infuriating given that the database structure was chosen over plain files due to "performance").
  
  That said, it be nice if Klevernotes was a WYSIWIG editor. There really are a lot of dual-view markdown editors with a preview. For generel notes / productivity I find the dual view distracting, but need the preview for images etc
  
  15
  
  "WYSIWYG like" editor is the next step
  
  Not full richtext mode, but something similar to Marktext
  
  6
  
  I thought we already had a note taking app for plasma?
  
  4
- You might not need one more, but I'm having fun making it and the work is here, so why not sharing it
  
  Next step is "WYSIWYG like editor" And the addition of different Plugins
  
  8
- Joplin’s storage model made me stop using it.
  
  Managing plain text notes should not be this convoluted.
  
  3
  
  I'm not a fan of the bloated plain text md files either. But I had not found a FOSS alternative that offers all the other features, like Android apps, pencip drawing support on tablets, the E2E encrypted sync between devices via a central server, ...
  
  2
Does it support inline editing?

2
- Can you be more precise ?
  
  3
  
  Sure. I would like to know if this app allows to edit inside the rendered view. E.g. you click on a table cell and you get a caret to manipulate tect inside that cell. Something akin to a richtext editor.
  
  5
Are there plans to make it able to sync with Nextcloud Notes?

2
Anyone familiar with obsidian and have also used this? Any comparisons you can make?

1
- Based on you use of Obsidian this might change
  
  If you don't use some crazy Obsidian plugin the biggest change is the folder structure, which wil change to be less strict in the future
  
  2

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