[HN Gopher] Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat ...
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Show HN: Minimalist offline journal app with a chat interface
Author : randomor
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-12-09 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thezenjournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thezenjournal.com)
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| This is great! Do you know if this can run an M1 mac? I would
| like to journal on a laptop versus my phone.
| randomor wrote:
| Oh good question, I just tried this the first time, it does! It
| runs as an iPad app though, and everything seems to be working?
| :D
|
| My plan is to add some log merging functions, so you can
| eventually merge your logs from your phone to your Mac and vice
| versa. Thanks!
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| Thanks for checking, will try it when I get home
| skurtcastle wrote:
| That's an epic journal. I like the simplicity of it and
| minimalistic to it as well. Keep up the great work.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Feedback: your website on desktop seems way too complex for me to
| figure out. Kinda goes against the "minimalist" app. I would
| suggest re-designing the site.
| occamschainsaw wrote:
| Love the idea! I am installing it right now and will get the pro
| to support you. I have a question about backup/restore. What is
| the backup format? A markdown/plain text would be best for
| archival purposes, especially for a journal that might be read
| far into the future. I get that it is offline, but having a
| journal on one device only without is a double edged sword. If I
| lose my phone, I lose my journal. Would it be possible to sync it
| to iCloud? Then it would be easier to have it on multiple devices
| as well. Thanks for making this!
|
| Edit: After playing around with the app, I see that the backup is
| a zip with a json file and images. That is great for archival.
| randomor wrote:
| The backup format is a simple zip with a folder `assets/` that
| contains all the images, and a `logs.json` file that contains
| all the logs, which itself is a simple array with `createdAt,
| text, image` as keys.
|
| Yes, the offline thing is kinda a hurdle to many. The way I'm
| convincing myself: if I log from multiple devices and backup
| often, I get some sort of offline partial replication? :D
| iCloud is great in its partition of user data so the devs don't
| have access to it, so yes if I were to support auto sync,
| iCloud would be top of the list. NextCloud is also on the
| table.
|
| Thank you for the support!
| myowz wrote:
| Please add iCloud! I just subscribed today. I really see the
| value in your app but just want optional no-thinking backup.
| ximeng wrote:
| Testimonial not Testmonial
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| whoa, the design of this web page threw me off at first.
| Interesting apple vibe but it's all over I don't know where to
| look, it's just all over/in my face. (on desktop)
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| The first word I noticed on that page: "Declutter".
|
| Yeah, the minimalist websites of today can sometimes be too
| minimalist, but this... is the opposite.
|
| Edit: ah yeah of course it's an optimized-for-mobile page.
| Watched the video, it uses hashtags, this potential user says:
| pass.
| justusthane wrote:
| Hashtags aren't only for social media...they're a commonly
| used tagging mechanism for lots of text-based interfaces. You
| don't have to use them though.
| balaji1 wrote:
| App looks great. The autocomplete suggestions for hashtag is
| nice. Would you add functionality to edit notes?
|
| Also I want to keep a few different "threads". I guess the
| workaround is the hashtags.
| deegles wrote:
| I think it would be fun to have Whatsapp integration, and I can
| easily send pictures, notes, voice notes etc to the journal. The
| other part could be to have a simple chat bot that provides
| prompts throughout the day, like "what are you doing right now?"
| or "take a selfie with whoever you're with."
| randomor wrote:
| Interesting. I've seen people using telegram to post messages
| to their Roam graph, it will require some significant work
| considering this is an offline-only app. But then again, if I
| do support all these log types, why not just go to the app
| directly? I do like your auto prompt feature and have thought
| about it as well (or even support different scripted prompts as
| plugins), some people do like the prompt and structure, maybe
| someday when there is enough user interests...
| eitland wrote:
| > I've seen people using telegram to post messages to their
| Roam graph,
|
| I've so far gone the other way: I use the share sheet on my
| phone to share to myself on Telegram.
|
| If you could get something like that working it would be
| super smooth. That said I have already subscribed.
|
| I hate subscriptions but the pricing was reasonable enough to
| let my urge to support it win.
| randomor wrote:
| Thank you so much for the support. The share sheet is
| exactly the way I'm thinking. Skipping the cloud. I'm going
| to look into that soon.
| eitland wrote:
| I found I installed this a long time ago and didn't use it.
|
| Today however it _seems_ like something I can definitely use.
|
| I've been thinking in the same direction a few times (I.e. a
| personal Twitter) but never came around to it and always fell
| back to saved messages on Telegram.
|
| Now however this seems to have become what I want.
|
| We'll see, I might still fall back to Telegram but I have at
| least signed up for the trial without immediately unsubscribing
| like I usually do; the service is that promising and the price is
| that good.
| randomor wrote:
| Thank you for the shoutout. Yeah most of the features are free
| but with subscription you are supporting me and also unlocking
| the photo logs and fonts and hopefully more in the future.
| jwong_ wrote:
| At first I thought it was broken in Firefox 94.0.2 for me.
|
| Then I realised that form in the middle of the page was just an
| image. I also thought the light/dark mode toggle in the middle
| was real as well.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| Yeah, I also thought that I would be able to interact with
| these elements at first.
| randomor wrote:
| Face palm moment indeed. I was actually kinda proud of the
| redesigned landing page, but yes, the image needs to be
| separated from the copy, maybe with a clear border.
| clon wrote:
| Thank you. This will replace my notes app.
|
| One small thing that got me confused. Typing ? in my SO's Android
| (MS SwiftKey) automatically adds a space after it: "? ". No idea
| why it does that, but it stops search from working. Maybe skip
| leading whitespace?
| randomor wrote:
| Hope it helps you. That's a surprising bug. Does it happen with
| every keyboard? Thanks for the report.
| clon wrote:
| It's a SwiftKey quirk, apparently, trying to be helpful in
| inserting common punctuation.
| tehbeard wrote:
| Not so sure it's a true bug. Seems like it'd be adding
| whitespace after what's usually punctuation. Definitely a
| quirk though.
| handrous wrote:
| Hm. Now I want a journaling/note-taking app that just listens on
| every chat service I use.
| junseok wrote:
| This is excellent! I've discovered that I value very similar
| features as I have tried other journaling apps.
|
| I found that my personal favorite solution so far is actually a
| chatroom with just myself in KakaoTalk. It also has the extremely
| simple input, which is critical to make sure capture and
| journaling actually happens, and fast search using substrings and
| tags, which make recall simple.
|
| EDIT: Also, automatically timestamped input! Which puts both your
| app and my solution a step above a plaintext file
|
| It's not without its warts, which your app does away with.
| However, I personally find the ability to post photos, videos,
| and audio recordings very useful, and for that reason will likely
| stick to my existing solution for now. Regardless, it's really
| great to find others share similar values in journaling, and I'll
| be following closely! Thank you!
| randomor wrote:
| Thank you for the kind words! Yes I've also tried a private
| twitter account, private slack/telegram channel, those would
| also work wonders if you desire something cross platform. I
| just realized I need something with minimum distraction, thus a
| dedicated UI for journal logs, which means no cloud or other
| people's servers, no profile images, no retweet button etc. :D
|
| Feel free to follow the journey via our Twitter handler
| @thezenjournal or sign up for the newsletter if interested in
| following.
| felipeqq2 wrote:
| The best journaling app is anything that opens a markdown file.
| You can always build the workflow that suits you best.
| randomor wrote:
| I'd like to differentiate between journaling and note-taking.
| And I do enjoy software that's designed for a specific purpose.
| e.g.: VS Code for code, Typora for Markdown, Roam for outlines.
| Markdown file is a great way for persistence, I find the
| formatting although great for expressing complex and structured
| thoughts and ideas, a bit redundant for my casual journaling
| needs (plus no timestamps per log, which I find useful to
| preserve the context). I do recommend Logseq or Obsidian for
| longer form note-taking. I also find ZenJournal could be a
| decent gateway to your other workflows: you log on the go from
| the phone and transfer the logs back to your other workflows.
| :)
| mongol wrote:
| What do people use journal apps for? One thing I want to do is to
| log nature observations when I am out and about in nature.
| Preferably through voice recording (not neccessarily transcribed)
| and geotagged. Bonus points if the phone can stay in my pocket
| and I can do it through a PTT microphone.
|
| Are there apps for this?
| Otek wrote:
| if i could have a suggestion, rethink the home page design again.
| I was stunned because I couldn't focus on anything, I didn't
| understand what I was looking at for a good 5 seconds. My main
| complaint: the images are too big and the text too small. The
| information that you can lock using your fingerprint is
| unreasonably more prominent than the information about what the
| product is and where you can get it.
|
| Good luck, we need privacy oriented tools!
| randomor wrote:
| Haha thanks for the feedback. I definitely am hearing some
| echos. I was inspired by apples keynote grid design but then
| realized maybe for a landing page it's a bit too chaotic? And
| your eyes don't have a linear place to start and have to do
| some extra work. Definitely thinking ways to mitigate this.
| dang wrote:
| One previous thread:
|
| _Show HN: ZenJournal - Fast journal app with chat interface_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876939 - Dec 2019 (25
| comments)
|
| (Reposts are ok after a year or so:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Links like this are
| just for readers who may be curious for more.)
| randomor wrote:
| Thanks for the added context! It's been almost 2 years of
| idleness from me. Although I've released the android version
| and few small changes in between, I wish one day I'm updating
| the app frequently enough that I need to post every year. :D
| randomor wrote:
| Maker here. I've went against the grain[1] and maintained this
| journaling app for the third year now. This is V3 that I just
| pushed few months ago that added photo logs (iOS only for now
| unlike V2). It may help people reflect now we are entering the
| holidays with a new start soon.
|
| Why make another journaling app when there are so many other Day
| One look-alikes? Because it's unique in the following ways:
|
| - Offline only, no cloud, no tracking
|
| - Easy to export to JSON (you own your data)
|
| - Minimalism design taken to it's logical conclusion
|
| - Open and type, no step 2
|
| - Type "?" to search, no step 2
|
| - Type "#" to use hashtag to organize
|
| - Double-tap timeline to hide and keep logging in discreet
|
| - Pull up the timeline to see a 100 day GitHub like heatmap
|
| Also it tries to avoid the following anti-features:
|
| - journal titles (my pet peeves, way too much info up front)
|
| - Sparse timeline with main/detail layout that forces you to
| drill down to see your full journal entry
|
| - Notifications/reminders
|
| I try to expand the answer in this post too:
| https://thezenjournal.com/why
|
| Feedback and suggestions welcomed. Thank you!
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1303812935773556736
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(page generated 2021-12-09 23:01 UTC)