Comment by taminka
2 years ago
i've been following anytype since 2019, when the initial public release plan was for autumn of 2020 (lol), and since then it has transitioned from being a libp2p based google docs alternative into something more complicated, with relationships, sets, etc, and tbh i just never use it, because it's become too complicated
every time i open the app, which uses electron btw ;(, i catch myself looking at the explainer videos sent out, explaining all the concepts, it's a tool that (for me personally) gets in the way of actually doing anything a lot; maybe there are people for whom this is an optimal setup, but if you're looking for a privacy-friendly google doc alternative, this is not it imo
It really is amazing how little competition Google docs has with free or open tools. I just want something that lets me write a never ending river of rich text documents. I don't want to write markdown source (by default), I don't want a "preview" as I type, etc.--I want WYSIWYG. I don't want to micromanage folders and hierarchies and classifications and tags and whatnot, I don't even want to think about storage or files. Just an app that instantly starts, lets me capture rich text, and search through documents. I've never found anything close to that outside Google docs and it's frustrating.
Would you need to manage page settings, like margins and tab stops, or are those things more than you need?
If it really is just a local-first, rich text editor with syncing, searchable documents that you need, there might be something on the horizon. But if you need a full blown document editor, that's a bit of a different story.
Anything more than formatted text and inline images changes the scope in pretty exponential ways.
Google Docs being free probably has a lot to do with the lack of competition.
real
a libp2p based wysiwyg or even a plaintext app with p2p sync + works offline + encrypted + cross device sync + collaboration with other users would be invaluable
It's not unusual to need several hours of use to understand if a tool is right for you. I use Logseq and Obsidian, and without going to the forums and watching how the features are supposed to be used, I would have continued to use it like Notepad++, becuase out of the box, that's all it looks like it does.
true, i guess i phrased it a little bit wrong
i do understand it now, it's more like i don't have a use case for a graph structure to my documents/files, and since i sort of went exploring anytype while retaining the initial positioning of the app (p2p google documents), i was somewhat disappointed