Inkdrop is amazing!

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1

Hi there, I found a link to Inkdrop in a Hacker News thread. I couldn’t be more happier with it!
I love many of the technologies that it’s created in and work with them every day, so the extensibility and customization options are right up my alley!

What I did is created my own CouchDB database and synced it with Inkdrop. Then I created some replication rules so only notes with the tag public are published. Then I created a simple React app to display all of it in a browser! :tada: a simple blogging platform based on the amazing Inkdrop without back-end code! Here you can check out the source code: https://github.com/are1000/blog.iama.re (you can view the app in action here: https://blog.iama.re).

I want to just throw in few feature requests and ideas that I would pay even more for (or appreciate with some help in implementing them in plugins):

  • custom fields - it would be amazing if I could create a design document with some custom fields defined and then be able to edit those fields for every note in Inkdrop. I guess this is possible to do with a plugin, but it’s very hard to dive into the internals without documentation or source code,
  • saving plugins in the database - I’m not sure if this is a good idea, but it would be great if Inkdrop could automatically save plugin list with versions and download them on new install so I don’t have to setup every Inkdrop instance myself,
  • UI flexibility - I know this is highly requested, but I would love to be able to hide one or both of the left panes, save some screen estate and declutter the space so I can focus only on writing,
  • MDX support - I have managed to run mdx in my app, so I think it would be totally possible to do this in Inkdrop - it would be sooo cool if I could design and create a React component in (maybe special) Inkdrop note and then use it in other Inkdrop notes. This may cause some problems with mobile version of the app but it’s going to be a second class citizen anyways because of the lack of plugins.

Thank you again for this amazing app! If you will ever need some help, or plan in open-sourcing parts of the app, please let me know at me@iama.re and I will be happy to help non-profit.

Best regards!

1 Like
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Hi @anon85559932,

You did a great work! Having an own CouchDB gives you many possibilities as you made a blog with it.
I was actually considering to make a plugin utilizing pouchdb-server so you can access your whole data from external apps without having a CouchDB setup.
For example, it makes possible to build a gatsby plugin for Inkdrop so you can write a blog with flexible customizations.
This idea will be discussed once I finished the current roadmap!

Thank you for the suggestions. Here are my answers:

custom fields

Yes it’s possible in principle. You could add x-foobar field to notes via plugin. I will document it.

saving plugins in the database

Plugins are not guaranteed to work on every platform (like vibrant-dark-ui), and some people may want a different setup. So it would be nice to have but I would like to work on other features instead.

UI flexibility

Yeah you can do that by making a plugin or having the init file that tweaks the app layout. I’ll document it.

MDX support

It’s cool but then it is now not a note but a web application.
I would like to focus on building it as a note-taking app in order to keep it simple and clean.
So I’m afraid to say no.

Thanks again for letting me know your thoughts!