I have been very slack with the blog, primarily because I’ve not had a lot to say or show.
The good news is that Clibu Notes is coming together nicely and IMO looks, feels and works well.
There was a major setback with the library I was using to handle offline use which forced me to discard a lot of code that I’d put a lot of time and effort into. The switch to a different library required an extensive rewrite to both backend and frontend code, which in turn took considerable time and effort.
I also switched high level editor frameworks and some other low level libraries. Again taking time and resources. Much time has been spent evolving and improving the code base whilst trying to prevent runaway complexity. That said Clibu Notes is an ambitious and complex app.
An overarching goal is to keep the UI and UX as simple as possible, not an easy task. This has also required quite a few iterations and there maybe more to come, once it is out in the wild.
I’ve been using Clibu Notes for real for the past little while, instead of Clibu and I’m finding it quite magical, especially the offline use case. I’ve been on the road with intermittent Internet and have Clibu Notes running on a Windows Laptop, Android Tablet, Android Phone and a Lenovo Duet Chromebook. It is running as an Installed App on the Android and Chromebook devices.
When any device comes back online all changes automatically sync up in both directions. This is something that is lacking in most applications, including of course Clibu. Without doubt knowing that intermittent or no Internet has no effect on Clibu Notes usability is a very comforting feeling.
The Clibu Notes editor is quite a step up in functionality from Clibu and it will also continue to evolve. Some new capabilities include a task list, which you can reorder using drag and drop or the keyboard, back links as mentioned in the last blog post, collapsible text blocks, uniquely identified text blocks, smart context aware popup toolbars, markdown support and lots of keyboard shortcuts.
PWA support is largely complete. This enables Clibu Notes to be installed as an application and opened like any other native application, without any download from the Web and even without any Internet connection. PWA’s can also be distributed through App Stores.
I’d also like to touch on Clibu Notes ability to have multiple note editors open at once. On larger screens these can be laid out side by side or maximized to use all available space. On smaller screens they occupy the full screen and you switch between them. This helps you stay in the flow as you can keep a note open in one editor while working on another.
Finally we’ve invested considerable effort into multi-device support. This enables you to seamlessly move between Smartphone, Tablet and Desktop PC regardless of the underlying operating system.
As always we welcome your feedback. You can comment below or reach me at info@clibu.com
– Neville