Notion-like FOSS app

jdaviescoates

Can I do one post for Athens and one for Logseq?

Go for it! You don't need permission

soup

The Athens post: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/4717/athens-open-source-and-local-first-alternative-to-roam-research-also-like-notion-obsidian?_=1616151737160

The Logseq post: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/4718/logseq-privacy-first-open-source-knowledge-sharing-and-management-platform-like-notion-roam-obsidian

infogulch

Athens is pretty cool, but it doesn't have an api or any kind of server side component. I tried to package it for cloudron a couple weeks ago ( https://source.infogulch.com/infogulch/athens-app ) before I discovered this. logseq is in the same boat.

See this discussion for input from a contributor: https://github.com/athensresearch/athens/discussions/737

ctrl

@infogulch Never had my hands on Trilium Notes. But judging from the screenshots doesn't it offer concepts used in these kind of roaming tools like the Zettelkasten Methode which was heavily used by Niklas Luhmann et al.? Btw. Anytype is on my personal watchlist, too.

@yusf I tried out Notion last year but only for a day or so and abandoned it quickly because of data protection and privacy concerns. My first impression was that it had a very specific characteristic in its appereance and handling. What I really liked about it was that it felt quite calm on the surface hiding and simplificating the complexity of its possibilities. In a way it reminded me of Things.app on macOS.
Yesterday I found Focalboard by Mattermost. I don't know if it fills the gap but at least it promotes itself as an open source, self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. @thetomester13 created an app request already. ^^

I am also on a long lasting journey on the search for the appropriate toolset that fits my way of thinking. Currently I use multiple tools. Most of the time I start out with a mindmap. Although it is not perfect Mindnode does quite a good job in the fields of mindmapping in regards of UX. It lets me quickly visualize my thoughts and doesn't get into the way too much in that process which helps me to slip into some kind of a flow state. Sometimes I wish we had neural interfaces to project all of these interconnected thought that seem to pop of the ground like mushrooms while surfing through an idea.

The problem with a mindmap is that it is neither interactive after it has been created nor can it be connected or extended by ongoing research in a comfortable/elegant way. Maybe the roaming tools mentioned by @soup could fill that gap. I'll get my hands on these asap. What do you think about Trilium? Does it fit in that kind of category?

yusf

Check this out:

Notea

Self hosted note taking app stored on S3. Notea is a privacy-first, open-source note-taking application. It supports Markdown syntax, sharing, responsive and more.

infogulch

@yusf Nice find! That looks ready to package up today.

jdaviescoates

@jdaviescoates said in Notion-like FOSS app:

I only had a very quick look but it looks like Athens is like Anytype in that it's not actually a server thing at all, no? i.e. I think it's just a desktop app, not a web app, no?

@infogulch said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Athens is pretty cool, but it doesn't have an api or any kind of server side component. I tried to package it for cloudron a couple weeks ago ( https://source.infogulch.com/infogulch/athens-app ) before I discovered this. logseq is in the same boat.

It's now clear that you can also self-host Athens on a server. The Github repo says "You can use Athens as a local desktop app that saves data to your filesystem or with a self-hosted server."

yusf

Explicit Notion clone: AppFlowy (AGPL)

jdaviescoates

@yusf said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Explicit Notion clone: AppFlowy (AGPL)

Upvote here:

https://forum.cloudron.io/post/39873

LoudLemur

@yusf I had only a quick look at notion, but it seems like it helps co-ordinate various functions in a way similar to Odoo (or Flectra, a fork of Odoo), both of which have been requested in the App Wishlist. Flectra was created with the goal of being as Free as possible.

marcusquinn

@loudlemur Tried both,, was disappointed that all the good stuff is kept out of the free version and reserved for the cloud hosted version. I suggest EspoCRM is a better faster, easier framework to work with anyway if you're after that sort of thing.

LoudLemur

@marcusquinn Thanks, I hadn't heard of EspoCRM:
https://www.espocrm.com/

I think there is a load of great functionality in Odoo Community Edition.

https://flectrahq.com/compare-editions-flectra-vs-odoo?category=--all--&feature=--all--&odoo-ce=--all--&odoo-ee=Y&fle-ce=--all--&fle-pe=--all--

marcusquinn

@loudlemur There is, but you will have to learn Python to do any useful customisations. The Odoo Studio, which is the most useful thing, is only available on the Cloud edition. There's so much missing from Flectra, I don't know why anyone would.