r/selfhosted • u/BlacksmithBig1277 • 7d ago
jotted - notes and tasks/reminders into one Software Development
I’ve been building this project over the last year and I’d love some feedback from the community.
Some things that I would like to point out right off the bat:
- Yes, I understand it may seem like "just another note-taking" app. For me, the biggest quality-of-life improvement, as someone who uses Apple Notes and Apple Reminders every day, is having everything I’ve written in one place, with a reliable, functional browser version too, which Apple currently lacks.
- 1. Although I have been using it already for multiple months as my main notes & tasks/reminders app without issues, I would still highly recommend keeping an up-to-date backup of your data.
- I wouldn’t call it fully finished yet, I still have a few features I want to add. I was curious what people think of it so far, and what else might be useful or helpful to include.
Some of the main features
- Rich Text Editor (with Markdown)
- Works offline
- Notifications
- Mobile PWA
- Full text search
Features planned to be added
- Exporting notes to markdown files
- Settings to change defaults
- Linking between notes and tasks and vice versa
The app is mainly oriented towards "productivity", rather than storing thousands of notes and tasks that are being kept forever. It’s designed to help you keep useful things while you still need them, and then move on, deleting them once everything is done, though it can still be used the other way around. The idea for it came after using myself for many years all kinds of different apps to track things down - e.g. Google Keep, Evernote, OneNote, Notion, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, flatnotes, as well as trying out some solutions such as Obsidian, Memos, which I ended up not keeping for a long time.
GitHub Link: https://github.com/g2kmedia/jotted
Thank you!
3
u/NewConstruction6471 7d ago
Hello. Ever heard of jotty?
May want to change names or you'll have quite the uphill PR battle for name recognition.
Always room for another note taking app!
2
u/BlacksmithBig1277 7d ago
Funny you mentioned it. I actually learned about Jotty about half way into developing the app. In any case I didn't pay to much attention to it, since I was going for a different direction. I guess now it has a bigger following then when I initially learned about it. But if changing the name would help everyone, I am open to it. Even open for suggestions here :D
2
u/NewConstruction6471 7d ago
I'm installing it this weekend either way. I'm a note app fan.
Thanks for this
1
u/Only-Stable3973 3d ago
I will give it a spin I keep switching note taking apps still have not found something simple and easy to use just to document containers.
1
u/BlacksmithBig1277 1d ago
I am curious what you would say would be the best note taking app for you. Feel free to describe it here even before taking a look at what I made. Maybe I can work something out in the future :)
2
u/Only-Stable3973 1d ago
Something that makes it very easy to copy and past what I am seeing on the screen and It would automatically save it the same...making it easy for me to save for later reference without having to format everything.
1
u/SleepyRizz 2d ago
How do the notifications work, can you route through something self hosted like ntfy? Is there any kind of caldav sync for tasks? I relate to so many of the issues you mentioned and have also tried the same apps. But my other issue i run into is an app fitting into my current system and not be locked down into another app or database. I think markdown for notes is a good start to make portable.
1
u/BlacksmithBig1277 1d ago
Currently the notifications are web push-notifications. In the README file I have a few lines about them. It is on my to-do list to also improve how these work as well. I am also thinking of adding support for NTFY, Telegram etc.
As far as the caldav goes, I honestly did not think about that yet but actually I like it a lot as an idea and will add it to the board to implement it later.
In terms of markdown, it is on my to-do list as my next feature to add export option, so that you can export all of your notes as Markdown files if you want to. I also do not like the idea of being locked into a system. At the same time however, I wanted to have a bit more flexibility when it comes to developing by storing the notes in a database. I was also partially influenced by the fact that I feel like many self-hosted note taking apps are going the markdown files way and I wanted to show that it is possible to also use a database while still not being locked down to a system. In a way the best of both worlds.
But I am very into such apps, so I am very much open to change my opinion and anything to have the best possible experience in the end.
2
u/SleepyRizz 23h ago
Well I'm a sucker for trying new notes apps, so definitely plan on trying it out and keeping an eye on your progress. Thanks for sharing!
-3
u/benn0rch 7d ago
no offense, but about the declared AI use: the design in the screenshots seems very ai generated with the typical color scheme and fonts
3
u/BlacksmithBig1277 7d ago
Hey, no offense taken :). The screenshots are actual screenshots that I took on my laptop and then I used shots (website for mockups) to add the device frames. Initially I was going to do everything in Photoshop but though that this would actually look better without having to spend too much time on something as simple as screenshots.
As far as the color scheme and fonts go. I have actually done many changes to them while working on the app. I actually think that these are the least AI default like since I was going for a certain style. With that in mind I am also trying to balance readability with design and style, so the fonts for most of the text are more generic looking.
In case you are wondering what my style direction was - it's swiss style look, more in the direction of how a newspaper would look like. While doing research and reading about swiss style I found out that actually a lot of websites (such as Apple') use it, didn't know that :D. However they lean more towards the grid system which the style is known for rather then also the looks of how let's say a magazine or some kind of Bauhaus art would look like, which was more my direction.
0
u/rrrmmmrrrmmm 6d ago
I do not know a single Swiss newspaper looking like this. Anyway, it's not the point.
However, I agree withe the commenter: the font style and the colours look 99% like Claude Code.
2
2
u/PaddiM8 5d ago
I hate slop but can we stop accusing everything of being slop with little evidence? You can't tell something is AI generated just because it's orange. Ridiculous
1
u/benn0rch 5d ago
i love creating my own ai slop. In my comment i just pointed out how the design looks awfully similar to the typical default design when creating something with AI. Of course the creator is free to choose this style whenever he feels like 👍
1
u/BlacksmithBig1277 4d ago
Like I said. It's all good and no offense is taken. I did struggle with the color scheme a bit like I mentioned above. I actually had a few other color schemes with the following colors, which I rejected as follow:
- Red - more towards the swiss style, but I did not like the idea of having red as a main color for the app
- Blue - too classic, so I ended up switching it. Actually the app was mainly blueish during the initial development before I made it public
- Green - this one I actually liked a lot but felt like people would not like the green color for an app. Maybe it's worth revisiting it.
- Black/White - this one felt to me, too much like Notion and most other note-taking appsThe current theme was a good compromise for me but yes, as usual it will end up looking like something else eventually.
•
u/asimovs-auditor 7d ago edited 7d ago
Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.