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
Hi Neville,
It’s good to hear from you. I had stopped visiting the blog for a long time because there were no updates to read. So it is very good to see you posting again. And your July post was an exciting read, for sure.
Your summary of features sounds great. PWA support is a big plus as it produces an OS-agnostic app. This caught my eye because I want to start moving to Linux but don’t want to lose access to all my apps and data (and that’s been the thing that has held me back from a near-total transition to Linux). So browser-based apps are the solution when native apps aren’t available.
In fact, I wish some ambitious programmer would organize a large group of like-minded programmers and start writing PWA apps to rival the biggest and most popular software titles (like QuickBooks, Photoshop, TurboTax, etc.). There are a lot of tech-heads that don’t want to go back to the office to work, but rather prefer to work at home. And maybe all those FOSS programmers giving their time and talent away want a side gig that pays, and writing commercial apps for their beloved Linux would appeal to them. Maybe all they need is a Steve Jobs-like visionary leader (hint, hint). I would love, love, love to see a PWA app store for Linux so it would FINALLY take off on the desktop and I could dump Micro$oft and its Win10 spyware.
As for me, I would gladly pay a subscription fee for the apps I need for Linux and don’t understand the people who expect it for free. FOSS is certainly a noble idea but, in my opinion, it has kept Linux from reaching its full potential on the desktop, and that is very disappointing to me. So, if I can’t have quality native apps for Linux, comparable to the best Windows apps, then I’ll happily accept apps that run in a PWA-compliant browser as a close second place.
Also, the mere mention of the Clibu app running on my Android smartphone and tablet was like music to my ears. I’m really excited about that.
As always, thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the Clibu project. Hopefully it will become a source of revenue for you at some point to keep it interesting and make it all worthwhile. I look forward to watching the continuing evolution of Clibu and I’ll watch more closely for your next post. Take care down under, Neville.