framelesshelper VS notes

Overall, I love Qt. I started studying QML 2 weeks ago to implement a Kanban view based on the underlined Markdown styled todo items in the text editor, and it's been really great so far. Property bindings, signals & slots, integration with C++, it all makes so much sense, much more than other declarative languages/frameworks (looking at you, React) imo.

Qt has been around for years, the documentation is extensive and the community is large and supportive. With QML I faced many problems, especially half-assed examples/documentation, Qt Creator's intellisense doesn't work well with QML sometimes, etc... But the tradeoff is worth it. I'm getting things done in a much faster pace with QML.

A problem that is common both in Qt and other cross-platform frameworks is that you end up writing some custom code for each operating system to make the look and feel more native. But I think it's getting better with awesome open-source projects taking care of beautiful native window decorations[1].

[1] https://github.com/wangwenx190/framelesshelper

Love what I see here. This could possibly work perfectly together with FramelessHelper (github.com/wangwenx190/framelesshelper) which I use in my own application.

I evaluated first because I wanted to achieve a true frameless window styling which is way harder to do in widgets than in QML. I stumbled upon FramelessHelper (https://github.com/wangwenx190/framelesshelper) then (which is also available for QML) and I started in widgets. It fully depends on what you like more. I am still not a fan of writing JavaScript for desktop applications (except extensions) and since I've started with Qt I always used Widgets. I just feel more home on this side.

Plume is actually based on my open source note-taking app Notes[1]. You can already get it on Flathub, Snap Store etc. Notes uses just a simple plain text editor while Plume has a completely revamped block editor that I built from scratch. That parts of Notes used in Plume will remain open source (per the MPL license) but the rest of the code will be closed source. At least for the time being.

[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes

Plume is built on top of my open source note-taking app Notes[1]. Since Plume is based on Notes, I'll of course comply with the MPL license and release all existing files that were changed (and must stay MPL licensed).

But I recently discussed my reasoning to go close-source with Plume[2]. I've been working night and day (every day) converting 4 cups of coffee into code for the last 4.5 months to create Plume. I don't want to risk not being rewarded sufficiently for it. But, I'm 99% sure that I'll either open source the core block editor or the entire app in the future.

[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584960

2. Each note is just a simple plaintext in the underlying data (although currently stored in a database, but in a future update we'll convert the database to an arbitrary folder).

So you can create beautiful and advanced notes, easy. In a non-proprietary format (when that future update arrives). All while using a resource efficient and fast software that is cross-platform.

[1] https://www.get-plume.com/

[2] https://www.get-notes.com/

My Noets app[1] editor is built on top of the Markdown syntax of QOwnNotes.

My new app Plume[2] is built on top of Notes but features an advanced block editor and a new design.

[1] https://www.get-notes.com/

[2] https://www.get-plume.com/

Indeed, I want this feature badly myself to create wikis and such. There's an open issue[1]. We'll definitely implement that some day.

[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/issues/431

I mostly disagree. Like you said, Qt is the best native GUI toolkit available today. And that is a hard achievement. There are many tradeoffs (some you pointed out) but the open source community seems to find a way around those limitations. There are thousands of open source libraries you can plug-in into your Qt app to overcome many of its limitations (although some remain, like how can't we still not easily change caret/cursor color of QTextEdit??).

Unlike you, I like the direction where Qt is taking. I think QML and Qt Quick are great. I just implemented a feature in my note-taking app that turns Markdown text into Kanban board using QML and the experience has been great (https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/pull/574). I'm planning to continue transition from QWidgets to QML/Qt Quick.

I do worry of the continuous friction with open source development and hate the online installers as well. I can recommend this useful tool https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall that allows you to easily download prebuilt Qt binaries. I hope they can revert their approach on that.

I beg to differ, QML is great. I'm implementing a feature that converts all tasks in Markdown editor to a Kanban view (written in QML) and it's been so easy to do. Work in progress GIF here: https://imgur.com/a/sZNHnp6

And it's even crazier that most of it compiles to C++. It's so fast to develop with it, and runs so fast.

BTW, source code here: https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/pull/574

Thanks! Even more awesome features and improvements are coming soon (:

We're on Github here btw: https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes