Treedome 0.4 Released

tengkuizdihar@programming.dev to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 161 points –

Treedome is a local-first, encrypted, note taking application with tree-like structures, all written and saved in your computer

Currently you can only try it by building it yourself, instruction here. https://codeberg.org/solver-orgz/treedome/src/branch/master/docs/building.md But .deb and nixpkgs update is planned to follow suit though! You can also try an outdated one in https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/treedome-bin

Tell me what you think about it!

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Hi, I maintain the AUR package. Didn't know the repo got moved to codeberg! If you could let me know when the deb is released that would be great, I'll be able to update it then :)

Glad to know youre around! Sorry for the no contact, had no idea how to. You got email/matrix/codeberg user where i can contact?

My matrix should be on my lemmy user page and I've just stared your repo on codeberg. I'm gonna watch it and I should get notified whenever a new release happens

You should write a description of what it is in your post

Its “A local-first, encrypted, note taking application with tree-like structures, all written and saved in your computer”

Whoever took that screenshot needs a better spot for their passwords and shit. Those should not be mixed.

what do you mean my password and anime recommendation shouldnt be mixed in the same file?

Passwords should be stored in a password manager.

Also dont shit where you eat

If it's encrypted? Why not

because not all encryption is created equal.

Also password managers should lock after some seconds. You wouldn't want your note taking app to lock as frequently as your password manager.

The key to opsec is compartmentalizing.

This. Good password managers are careful with securely handling stuff like data caching, etc

Good password managers, but what if not every single person wants to use "good password managers"

I agree it's not perfect, but at the same time it's better than using some third party service, or using plaintext, or using the same password everywhere

If somebody wants to use some gocryptfs or veracrypt for storing passwords, why not, it's not the best, but still pretty nice

Good password managers can even check the current open browser tab domain and autofill securely. Your random note taking app won't detect a phishing site.

On desktop it's the matter of extensions, so following your idea keepass or pass won't make a good password manager without a third party browser addon

Keepassx comes with its own extension you can install

because not all encryption is created equal.

XChaCha20-Poly1305 is used by a lot of stuff, pretty solid thing

Also password managers should lock after some seconds. You wouldn't want your note taking app to lock as frequently as your password manager.

I would love my notes to lock in some time

The key to opsec is compartmentalizing.

It's more true for privacy and anonymity, but security doesn't really care about compartmentalizing your everyday notes from your everyday passwords.

And in general, some people might need some lighter approach for storing passwords, unless it's some google keep, or some other plaintext, I think it should be fine

Just for disclaimer, @Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works isnt me. I agree, even though the encryption used in treedome is pretty solid (imo), my note taking app is definitely not recommended for keeping your password. Use a dedicated password manager, open source one ofc. I think the lock time idea is good.

But I did put my password there, for when I can't access my other password manager. Backup of a backup of a backup.

How does this differ from Obsidian?

AFAIK, obisidian is:

  • Not open source, treedome is open source.
  • Uses a centralized server to sync your notes, treedome instead uses a single local file which you can sync, move around, however you want.
  • Uses graph, treedome is working with trees and tagging instead.
  • Uses plugins to add more feature to the notes, treedome doesn't plan to do this. We at least want a complete experience out of the box, with notes files that's fairly stable within a major version. I have to make it stable since the start because I'm already using it for work and personal.

With everything stored in a single file, does that mean you need to close Treedome on ComputerA before it can by synced to ComputerB?

If computerA makes an edit in one note while computer B makes an edit in another note, does that create a sync conflict? (Assuming syncing with Nextcloud, syncThing or similar)?

Yes, there will be conflict if you use it in two different computer, and those two different computer have different changes at the same time, and then sync it. For now to avoid any sync error:

  • use it one computer at a time
  • always sync it whenever you've made change in it

Thanks for the clarification.

Are there any plans for a built-in sync feature in the future?

I thought about it. But i really want to be agnostic of sync method, because local first and portable is what i had in mind.

That’s actually a big negative compared to Obsidian. It’s just a bunch of markdown files in a folder, so you can sync them using e.g. git and manage conflicts that way

True, but for me the non encrypted (they say its encrypted but i dont really trust it) and proprietary is a big turn off for me. I dont want my notes, which are a definite extension of my mind, to be owned/used/stored by someone else that have "profit first" in mind.

That’s only with Sync. But the notes are just markdown, so you can also just use GitHub or whatever to sync them. They never need to hit Obsidian’s servers, and that’s actually the default because you have to pay for Sync.

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On the second point, Obsidian's vaults are intentionally stored as a single folder that can be synced easily, including all settings. They do have a service for syncing, but with a bit of tech know-how it's still really easy to sync. Also, all notes are stored as plaintext markdown files, which is convenient since many programs can read markdown.

Rest is correct tho.

Is it stored in a single folder like joplin does? Can I move the folder around and easily open it after I did that?

Yes and yes. The folder is just a bunch of markdown documents, as well as a hidden folder containing configuration, plugins, etc (json, js, css, etc). The vault is entirely self-contained.

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Why are there like 34 Notes apps and none of them do what I want?

I just want a self-hosted Google Keep clone. One that doesn't have any features outside of checkboxes.

And I want notes that are automatically encrypted/decrypted via an external gpg/age client, and stored in a custom directory

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First party nixos support

👏👏👏

Keep it up guys, you're amazing

How's the search function? That's the one (not unimportant +___+) thing that really sucks with Joplin and would make me consider alternatives.

It has spotlight kind of search for titles and tags. Theres also full text search. All is listed in shortcut in help menu.

how this compare with silverbullet? it uses markdown?

Internally no, this uses tiptap's document structure, which is more complex than markdown but easier to expand with new feature, if any.

Does that mean TreeDome is the only program that can meaningfully open the notes file?

Is there a mobile client planned? Or do you know if any current mobile apps are able to read the TreeDome notes file?

Yes, treedome is the only program that can meaningfully open the notes file. This is because the content of the file is always encrypted and stored using sqlite (single file database library). I'm not that good with mobile and I still need to think about how it will be used in mobile. For example, the tree structure is definitely weird if used in mobile.

this looks awesome, thank you, id love to see a flatpak instead of a deb though

Why not CherryTree?

There's a list of reasons under Origin and Namesake

Although for me having everything stored in a single database-file is a negative, I much prefer a directory with individual files, accessible from any software. So I'll have a closer look at CherryTree, thanks for bringing it to my attention

I've used CherryTree extensively in the past, with the password protection on (encryption). The save time gets longer as the file gets larger, because it's encrypting the whole file (every single one of your notes) everytime. I dislike it and told myself to create a new one that solves it. Then, Treedome was born.

Hi OP, thanks for this. Looks interesting. Can you fix the web link in your post ? There is a dot at the very end.

nice, was thinking about this for a while but I hated writing the MD to whatever GUI framework i used, and a lot of the other stuff is either really outdated looking, or just unmaintained

This is like OneNote? I'll try it. I assume there's nothing stopping me from putting the file on a shared folder.

It is like onenote (which is the first serious note taking ive used actually), but it uses tree like structure and tags to organnize its notes. Im quite sure treedome isnt as featurefull tho.