The Tintero Writing App

Applications
21

Not being open source worries me. Where is this program headed? Will it be available in 10 years time?

1 Like
22

Itā€™s one of the few quality writing apps which ticks all the boxes for me.

  • Built-in revision control which is sane.
  • Take snapshots of documents, which is similar as rcs, but not quite.
  • Export to various formats.
  • A binder-like feature (same as scrivener or novelwriter).
  • A means to continue writing on various devices, which isnā€™t cumbersome (buggy right now, but the author is on top of things).
  • A sexy GUI. :slight_smile:

That the app isnā€™t open source bothers me as well, but which options are there which are open source and have the same feature set without being cumbersome?

3 Likes
23

Go to the nearest approximation that is open source, fork it and fix the deficiencies. That is how open source works.

1 Like
24

Iā€™ve got my reasons to never want to code again (iirc Iā€™ve explained a while ago on these forums). Itā€™s not that I hate it; I love it too much, to the point that itā€™ll destroy my life.

So, what about the next best option? pay somebody to do it? Well, Iā€™m not exactly drowning in funds. And how about the cloud save/restore option (so itā€™s convenient to work on multiple devices)?

Novelwriter is the best open source thing there currently is (which gets closest to my ideals in regards of FLOSS in the creative writing space), but as far as Iā€™m aware thereā€™s not going to be an Android version (something kind of important to me when writing on the go) of that program. Cloud integration is out of the question according to the maintainer. On top of that, she hasnā€™t got much time to work on NW.

Donā€™t get me wrong; I really like NW, but this is just much, much better. Yes, there are bugs. The author has shown commitment to fixing them.

3 Likes
25

Someone will do it. You may have to wait 10 years. Wherever there is an opensource coding opportunity, some developer will take it up. Coding is addictive, as you say.

1 Like
26

I am more likely to use this then any PWA. I have many Close source project i use daily , Obsidian, discord and many more. would i like a open source project yes but im not going to move to an app that doesnt have a desktop and phone app. that would mess my flow up

2 Likes
27

There is a FOSS app called Joplin where you can take notes and also sync (with dropbox or other methods) https://joplinapp.org/. It supports markdown input, images, as well as handwritten input if you want.

2 Likes
28

That and Mate gave me a very bad taste in my mouth. Ill stay with Obsidian. i wont go with what happen with me but with the Dev of Mate. but Wimpress and me are not friends. Joplin on the other hand lost my respect after i couldnt really get my work flowing

2 Likes
29

That may be simply a lack of practice.
Do some coding yourself, and you will find out how difficult it is to produce the perfect program.

2 Likes
30

Whatā€™s Wimpress?

1 Like
31

He one of the Devs that works on Mate IDE- he also works at ubuntu parent company. he use to be on Jupiter broadcasting - he was the main reason. I will never use Ubuntu or the MATE IDE. I rather not get into it

2 Likes
32

I am learning Java but i been debating on Rust.

1 Like
33

Learn one language , and learn it thoroughly. Use it to do some big programming projects.
Then you can branch out.

2 Likes
34

Java is mature and has an extensive ecosystem. You might find itā€™s IDEs too heavy. On the other hand, Rust is young and still misses some pieces, but is a robust language.

3 Likes
35

The Tintero app update fix a lot of things FYI and im be testing it more

1 Like
36

Honestly, Rust is usually overkill unless you really need extreme performance or something very specific like Tauri (and even then, youā€™ll still need JS). Java, on the other hand, forces discipline: strict typing, solid OOP principles, garbage collection, and a huge ecosystem with mature tooling. If itā€™s your first language, Iā€™d definitely go with Java. If youā€™re more into frontend stuff, TypeScript would make even more sense.

I completely understand the concern about long-term availability. If there comes a time I canā€™t actively support the app, Iā€™m committed to open sourcing rather than abandoning it. The community matters more than keeping the code private.

2 Likes
37

Thank you. That is good to hear.
You can actually ensure its survival better by open sourcing itā€¦ think about what Linus and GNU did. Old saying
ā€œThe best way to keep something is to give it awayā€

2 Likes
38

I think heā€™s looking to get an income out of it eventually. Now, Tintero itself is free, but the Tintero cloud will not be, as far as I understood. Now, Iā€™ve been made to understand itā€™ll support multiple cloud formats, but making something like this open source makes it exceedingly difficult to implement the stuff heā€™ll actually make money off.

FLOSS is difficult to make a living on, especially when itā€™s user software (as opposed to developer software), which doesnā€™t really require a specification and fairly little documentation to get to work with.

3 Likes