What features would you look for in a selfhosted Journal? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XxNerdAtHeartxX · 2023-10-31 16:11 After multiple years of wishing someone else would make a selfhosted journal (since I don't want to pay a company a subscription to take all of my most intimate and personal thoughts, habits, and data), I finally decided to tackle my ignorance of Frontend Development and started building a selfhosted journaling application. Originally, it started out as wanting to track my sleep and habits related to try and figure out in a data-driven manner as to why I slept great some nights and why I didn't on others, but has evolved a bit from there. Current features I have include: - Encrypted entries within the Database - Multiple Users - Light mode/Dark mode - Daily Journaling with a 'unique' two-dimensional take on logging daily sentiment - Hierarchical tagging tools for Entries - Sleep Journaling to track sleep quality, duration, energy, and time spent awake (yay, insomnia) - A Filterable Timeline view to see all of your past entries on one page Things Im still working on: - CSS Styling - Customizable Themes - UX Design for some key points (adding tags, settings/options, user creation) Things I plan to add: - Habit Tracking (but with 'scalar' tracking instead of simple Y/N tracking since that doesn't work with my brain) - Importing of sleep/health data from an Apple Watch - Importing from different apps (Such as Daylio/LunaTask) - Templating - Gratitude Journaling/Other Journal Types - Graphs and Stats that actually use all of the data you've stored - Reactive UX - This one will be a long work in progress, most likely. I am using VUE, so it's definitely possible, however I have gone into this with a desktop design, and would need to completely redesign/work with someone who can help teach me how to do reactive frontend design with Vue Things I am debating: - Editing past entries. - I feel like a Journal should be a state of the past, and therefore shouldn't be edited once it's been created. I know people will likely want to edit entries, but I think it goes against the purpose of a journal - Images in Entries - I don't personally have a need/desire for adding images to my entries, but I know that n=1 in this realm. Just curious if other people actually do this, or if having the private text sanctum is most important in a journal. ---- Some initial UX pics: [Journal Entry Page](https://i.imgur.com/oVBBagb.png) [Daily Journal Entry Timeline](https://i.imgur.com/Me9XnL4.png) [Sleep Journal Entry Timeline](https://i.imgur.com/C2OBqVJ.png) --- Just hoping to get some ideas of key things I may have missed that would be fit for a journaling application :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BetterNotLouder · 2023-10-31 16:41 I use [Joplin](https://joplinapp.org/) for note-taking and journaling and I am pretty satisfied. As it is open source you could create your own plug-ins for data import, so that you don't have to start from scratch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OppositeFisherman89 · 2023-10-31 16:45 I think it looks great. I would include editing past entries. I don't think there's any harm in letting your users make the choice to edit or not. Personally, I would stop using a journal if I couldn't edit past mistakes, especially something like a mistype or clerical error. I would also add images. "A picture is worth a 1000 words" for a reason. I add images all the time to my journal and I'd assume a decent amount of your potential user base would too. Regarding the UX, I really like the overall style. The Timeline header is way too big, but nothing else really stood out. Currently I use Trillium for note taking and journaling, if you wanted to look at the features they include. Although journaling isn't its main development focus. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zoredache · 2023-10-31 19:27 The first feature I look for in almost every self-hosted application is a good export/import. A good export lets me know that I can easily get my data out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XxNerdAtHeartxX · 2023-10-31 19:47 Definitely agree - I meant to have it in the 'planned' but it slipped my mind. Its the same reason I embed all my media with the proper tags, and store all other metadata locally with the media files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The_Nexus_of_Evil · 2023-10-31 21:44 I would like a UI that works on desktop and mobile. Mobile is good as I like to write down my dreams the moment i wake up and phones are more convenient. As for the ability to edit past journal entries. I think the option should be there, and its up to the user if they want to use it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- draxter815 · 2023-10-31 21:59 A feature where AI comments on your journal entries as if it was your counselor/therapist offering advice. This could easily be done by allowing users to input their ChatGPT API key. This would be an awesome feature which would truly set this app apart from others. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plane_Resolution7133 · 2023-10-31 22:14 Maybe generate *tag cloud* from the entries? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OpieDontPlayThat · 2023-10-31 22:25 I've thought of doing something similar and creating my own tool. Sadly, there are too many projects. One feature that may be nice is a rating scale for various parts of one's life. For example, professional, personal, family, and perspective on the day. Scale would be something like very bad, bad, meh, good, great. Then allow filtering entries with defined scale value. Another feature that would be nice is defining goals and whether they were accomplished. For me, I would like the journal to help find patterns that led to my perspective on various parts of my life and then become more disciplined to address items that made it more negative. Thanks for taking this on! I look forward to using it when available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- adamshand · 2023-11-01 06:10 haha!