Boost Note Roadmap 2020
We want to explain the current status of the Boost Note community and our future plans.
Current status
Currently, we have 2 different applications which are Boostnote (the old app) and BoostNote.next (The new app). This document will clarify the current status of those 2 apps as well as the future of them.
Boostnote(The old app)
https://github.com/BoostIO/Boostnote
The old app is using file system based storage. Every note is stored as a CSON file. So you can manage(control) your data easily. But the problem is that it doesn’t support data sync for users who are using many devices. So lots of users are relying on 3rd party cloud file storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox. It is kind of working, but it is hard to manage. Because the storage is not controlled by the app at all. Once you make changes, you have to refresh the app running in other devices because the app couldn’t recognize data is synced.
Also the app is quite old now. It has been around for almost 5 years. With age come some advantages and disadvantages. A plus point is that the app has many features. You can draw sequence diagrams, post notes to Wordpress, spell checking, etc… It’s quite a lot. The downside originates from the same place. The app has TOO many features to maintain properly. Due to having too many features, the app is very inefficient, unstable and heavy.
To deal with these problems, we decided to start from scratch. This new version of Boostnote is called BoostNote.next. It is still missing a ton of popular features that are present in the old app. Most of them will be supported in the new app. This will mean that some lesser used features won’t be implemented in the new app. Hopefully, one day the new app will be in a state where all users will happily make the switch from the old app. Until that day we will keep maintaining both versions of the app, so don’t worry.
BoostNote.next(The new app)
https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next
The new app is using PouchDB/CouchDB to support cloud syncing properly and natively. It was not that difficult because the DBs are designed for syncing data among multiple devices. So, as long as data is synced with cloud storage, your data is safe. Also you can use this app on mobile devices and in browsers.
However, the app is still very young, therefore, it is still missing quite a lot of the crucial and popular features that you know and love from the old app. We have been fixing a lot of problems for the new app but there are still much work to do before it can replace the old app.
Also the app supports our cloud storage only which is based on cloudant. So you cannot use Google drive or Dropbox like the old app anymore.
Future plan
We want to make the app more versatile and extensible. So we want to make this app kind of Git for developers. For now, we are going to focus on the major features listed below:
- File system based storage(The end of June)
- Plugins(In this year)
- Snippet app(In this year)
File system based storage
When we started developing the new app, we were expecting that users just want to have proper cloud storage. But, after revealing the app, we found that lots of users are missing File system based storage. So we decided that we are going to bring it back. But it will be a bit different than the one of the old app. We will use JSON(Also a plain markdown with frontmatter) rather than CSON. CSON breaks sometimes when file contents include some special characters. Also the app will recognize changes of note files. So, once 3rd party cloud storage syncs note files, the app will automatically refresh the notes. But the very first version of the storage won’t be available on the mobile app and the browser app because their file system api is quite different from one of the desktop app. But once we introduce the first version of this, we will figure out how we are going to introduce out of box syncing with Filesystem. We might use Webdav or support 3rd party cloud file storage apis like Google Drive and iCloud. But before deciding, we’ll do a poll to see which method would be the best for you.
Plugins
To make the new app more extensible and to have better performance, we have decided to create a plugin system. This will first enable users to use any Markdown extension that
is supported by Remarkjs (the markdown engine that we are using). Once the app is shipped, we will extend the feature and scope of the plugin system, allowing plugins to be able to modify/customize sidebar and other UI components in the app.
Snippet app
Unfortunately, the new Boostnote.Next app will stop supporting snippet notes. For those who still consider snippet notes as an important feature, don’t worry, we will develop and provide a separate app for snippet notes and from that, we will support Github gists more actively. Once the first app is shipped, we will increase the interactivity for the snippet note app like services such as Code Pen or Code Sandbox.
Thank you for reading! If you’re interested in our work, please follow us. You can follow us from medium, reddit, facebook page and twitter account. Also it would be really awesome if you can share your idea from our slack and Github repository.
- Github(New) : https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next/issues
- Github(Legacy) : https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote/issues
- Slack : https://join.slack.com/t/boostnote-group/shared_invite/zt-cun7pas3-WwkaezxHBB1lCbUHrwQLXw
- Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/Boostnote/
- Twitter : https://twitter.com/boostnoteapp
- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/boostnote/
Boost Note for Teams
We’ve revealed a new collaboration wiki service called BoostHub.
It will be a collaboration version of Boost Note but much more powerful. The feature, called “Custom Blocks”, will let you make custom react components, integrated with various 3rd party app apis like GitHub and Trello, and embed them into markdown contents like MDX.
To know more, please check this slide.
