Hi! I’m a software developer working on a suite of collaborative self-hostable apps to replace proprietary services I couldn’t find a good replacement for.

I am writing this post to seek opinions and ideas now that I am still in the early prototyping phase, before it’s too late to change track.

My idea is to develop a collection of simple single-purpose apps that do one and only one thing. The first app will be called Simple Notes (mirror), a replacement for Google Keep. Every operation is encrypted locally on the client, and the server never sees plaintext data. I am investigating federations models to let users connect to other instances and work collaboratively, much like Lemmy.

So, my goals in order of priority are:

  • No compromises on privacy and security
  • Completely FOSS
  • Real-time collaboration between users
  • Asynchronous collaboration (work offline, sync when back online)
  • One account to operate on all apps in this suite
  • Web UI / desktop UI / mobile UI
  • Minimal interface which my grandma can use, no feature-bloat
  • No anti-features such as advertisements, tracking, etc…
  • Self-hosting
  • Federation

After Simple Notes, I plan to keep developing other simple apps, some ideas on my list:

  • Simple Notes - Replacement for Google Keep
  • Simple Split - Replacement for SplitWise
  • Simple Chat - Replacement for WhatsApp/Slack/Meet/Teams
  • Simple Docs - Replacement for Google Docs
  • Simple Draw - Collaborative drawing app
  • Simple Calendar - Replacement for Google Calendar
  • Simple Contacts - Replacement for Google Contacts (suggested by @[email protected])

Initially I started writing my own protocol (mirror), operating quite differently from Lemmy’s, but then I realized that someone else already has developed a protocol for this purpose: Matrix. It is (optionally) E2EE, it’s FOSS, and it’s federated. So yeah, it sounds like the perfect choice to me. Also, if I pick Matrix, Simple Chat will just be a reskin of Element, so development cost is almost zero.

So, a questions for the developers on the Lemmy Selfhosted community: do you think piggybacking the Matrix protocol would be a good choice? Do you know any alternative that might be more suited for this purpose?

And a question for all Lemmy Selfhosted users: is there a simple app that you would like me to add to the list?

Bonus question: do you know of any Lemmy community where I could repost?

Thank you very much for the time you spent reading my post!

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Link to source code on my server and GitHub mirror.

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EDIT: I might have been a bit unclear on my objective. My intention is not to just build a replacement for Google Keep, that’s just the first step of the idea I had. My objective is to build a template from which it should be possible to build all sorts of apps to collaboratively work on documents of various types. Simple Notes (Google Keep) would be for text documents, Simple Split (SplitWise) for expenses (because a list of expenses is a document after all), Simple Chat (WhatsApp) for chats (oh yes, I would say that a list of messages is also just a document), Simple Docs (Google Docs) for… well… text documents, Simple Draw for canvas documents, and finally Simple Calendar (Google Calendar) for a calendar (which, why not, is also document!).

So yeah, I don’t want to just find/build an alternative for Google Keep, I want to find/build a tool to build all sort of simple collaborative apps on top of.

What I am looking for is not the recommendation of an app to simply replace Google Keep, I am looking for a template or even just a protocol on top of which it’s possible to build collaborative document-editing apps.

  • sugar_in_your_teaEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Simple Notes - Replacement for Google Keep

    Yes please!

    My use case is a shopping list for my SO and I. I want to be able to add stuff throughout the day, and cross them off once I grab them from the shelf, and separately be able to clear completed tasks.

    Do that and I’ll try selling my SO on it.

    Simple Chat - Replacement for WhatsApp/Slack/Meet/Teams

    Why not just use one of the other Matrix clients?

    Simple Docs - Replacement for Google Docs

    This seems overly ambitious. The thing I like about Google Docs is all the rendering features and whatnot, I don’t really use the collaborative editing part. If you really want the collaborative bits, those exist.

    do you think piggybacking the Matrix protocol would be a good choice?

    No. Matrix is designed for chat, not data, and self-hosting it requires a fair amount of resources.

    For something this simple, I don’t think there’s an “out of the box” solution here, nor do I think there needs to be one. The main things you need to handle are:

    • state changes - same as a non-collaborative app, but you also need to pick who wins
    • users and their locations in a document - can even send unsaved snippets as well

    I’d personally just DIY it since it’s really not a ton of logic, no reason to bring a whole protocol into this.

    But hey, maybe it’ll work out great. Having more options is generally a good thing.

    • aksdb@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Regarding your requirement, you might want to take a look at KitchenOwl.

      If you prefer freestyle notes/lists, Joplin can share and sync note collections as well.

      • sugar_in_your_teaEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        KitchenOwl

        Nice! You sir or madame are a wonderful person. This does far more than we need, but honestly, those features look like something we should use anyway (esp. recipes and meal planning).