KleverNotes, KDE’s Markdown note-taking and management application using Kirigami, is ready for its first release!
KleverNotes lets you create and preview Markdown notes while giving you the freedom to customize the preview from settings or using a CSS theme.
You can organize your notes however you want with a combination of categories and groups, which will be directly reflected on your system in the hierarchy of your KleverNotes storage folders.
Simply choose your storage location and you’re ready to write!
You can print your notes, add small sketches and even create specific tasks for each of them, all from the application!
Notes are saved as Markdown files in your KleverNotes storage for easy access. They support the entire CommonMark specification with extensive syntax. KleverNotes also introduces a small collection of opt-in “plugins” to extend basic markdown functionality, such as: code highlighting, note linking, quick emoji, PUML.
Special thanks
I would like to thank Carl Schwan who helped me through the incubator process, has set up the repository and the various KDE related things, fixed my code, and answered my many questions. The project would not be where it is without him.
History
I started KleverNotes as a small personnal project to learn QML and C++ and motivate myself to take notes in class. After posting a few screenshots of my progress on Reddit, people seemed pretty interested, which inspired me to continue and redouble my efforts. Once it was added to KDE, my motivation grew even more, my final goal is now to be able to offer a simple alternative to QOwnNotes using Kirigami. (I actively use KleverNotes in each of my classes now btw 😬)
Final note
This release doesn’t add anything special compared to my last update, just UI tweaks from Carl, which makes the app better looking. I just wanted to get things moving in order to officially push more updates in the future. A big one is in the works and should arrive soon once my exams are finished.
As always, I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions, discuss potential features, or hear your point of view 😉
Link to the repo: https://invent.kde.org/office/klevernotes
Mirrorlist: https://download.kde.org/stable/klevernotes/1.0.0/klevernotes-1.0.0.tar.xz.mirrorlist
I’m not against one more md note taking app and I like KDE, but do we really need one more?
Are there major differences planned compared to Joplin?
Joplin’s storage model made me stop using it.
Managing plain text notes should not be this convoluted.
directly reflected on your system in the hierarchy of your KleverNotes storage folders.
This is a big deal. Joplin is great, but its database structure is horrible for interoperability.
Hopefully Klevernotes will also be more snappy and “native feeling”. Joplin being Electron can be a bit sluggish sometimes ( which is mildly infuriating given that the database structure was chosen over plain files due to “performance”).
That said, it be nice if Klevernotes was a WYSIWIG editor. There really are a lot of dual-view markdown editors with a preview. For generel notes / productivity I find the dual view distracting, but need the preview for images etc
“WYSIWYG like” editor is the next step
Not full richtext mode, but something similar to Marktext
*Happy noises* :)
And I see there’s a plugin for cross-linking between documents! More happy noises :)
And a nightly flatpak build :) Thanks for making it so easy to try out!
I thought we already had a note taking app for plasma?
Not from KDE
I tried it before creating Klevernotes, and it was just to much for me. I would like to make an alternative that look and feel simpler, while keeping the power.
But if QOwnNote is good for you, that’s cool
Maybe an edge case, but playing around with this I notice that if I create an ordered list at the same level directly after an unordered list, the preview displays it as an unordered list. This doesn’t seem to happen if there is a separator between the two or if the ordered list is indented. Is this expected behavior or is it worthy of an issue?
Just to be sure
Create an issue with the list sample so I can try it out by myself, it will be easier to debug ;-)
In the future, if you plan to add sync, consider reimplementing Joplin sync algorithm
That would give you tens of thousands of passionate users, dedicated FOSS server as well as webdav/s3/dropbox/onedrive client sync ability, webclipper and a lot of support to navigate future issues/roadmap
If you ever decide to do that, there’s even a plan to repackage the algorithm as a standalone library
My first plan is to add NextCloud Note sync
But if the two are compatible let’s go for it ! Thanks for sharing this
Yeah, I’m using Joplin over Nextcloud and it would absolutely be compatible, the Markdown syntax is the same after all.
I’m not to much worried about the syntax, KleverNotes follows Common Mark, so as long as the other app follows it too (which it should) this part is okay
I’m more worried about directory structure and things like that, but I’ll have to read more about both API before I can really say anything concrete on this subject
By the way, if you have something in Joplin that you really can’t live without, let me know, I’m always looking for pottential features :)
Anyone familiar with obsidian and have also used this? Any comparisons you can make?
Does it support inline editing?
Sure. I would like to know if this app allows to edit inside the rendered view. E.g. you click on a table cell and you get a caret to manipulate tect inside that cell. Something akin to a richtext editor.
No, there’s currently nothing similar to richtext editing.
You edit your text inside the editor and it is renderer in the preview. You can toggle on/off one or the other.
I tried to make things easier with the editor toolbar. You can easily create table from it through a dialog similar to the one from richtext editor such as LibreOffice writter
