Feedback about UX and UI, the real reason for not using Anytype

Talk
1

Continuing the discussion from What is your dealbreaker with Anytype? .

After 1 year and almost 2 months, I’ve just finished a full version of the Evernote to Anytype converter.
And now I’m migrating? No. Far from it.
So I’m updating this topic for myself.
It’s personal, the fruit of my current discouragement and anxiety.
I’m not in any way denigrating the work of the team, which I appreciate!

Batch publishing has arrived, which is so much appreciated, I need it to update the notes I import!
And then… well, no. It only works in certain cases, and requires several confirmations for each modification.
In practice, it took longer to edit the multi-select of my 56 notes in batch than to modify them one by one…
And when it came to suggestions on how to improve this, the responses were not positive at all. Basically, it’s a pain to use to overcome other problems, so too bad. Or it’s just not feasible. Notion, Evernote etc do it better, so much the worse for Anytype.
It’s probably just a V1. Like so many things. And I confess, it’s severely brought me down.

I remember a year ago, excited!
I tried to convert several people from Evernote to migrate, without success.
Then a few people from Notion, even worse.
I thought about my business, but it wasn’t compatible and it got worse, it will never be possible.
In retrospect, I totally understand this feedback.

Because I don’t use Anytype, although I try!
In the last few days…
… I’ve been managing a vacation base. I ended up doing it in Notion, as this tool has formulas and a more efficient interface.
… I wanted to set aside some images. But it was impossible to simply drag an image into an Anytype collection… I did it in Evernote.
… I made a comparison (for a photo bag), all I needed was a table displaying info and photos. I quickly stopped using Anytype and in 5 minutes I had a nice, easy-to-read table in Evernote!
… I worked on the Evernote notebook import. To check notes in Evernote, just click on the list on the side to open it. In Anytype, you have to reopen the list (collection) each time to click on the next note. A pain.
Complicated to integrate? Is it? Not at all: the sidebar already does it, and you can extend the list of favorites, for example, in the menu for easy navigation. It’s done, it’s developed, it’s functional. For a collection, it’s not activated.

I use Anytype :

  • for my role as a tester
  • and to test my Evernote imports (we’re talking about the new collection with EACH import, which is added to the 100 or so already in the favorites and which you have to painstakingly reconfigure each time just to see the notes?).
    That’s all.

Too many actions are impossible or painful to perform, whereas other tools do it simply and quickly. I don’t even compare Anytype to Notion anymore, there’s a gulf. Evernote seemed replaceable.

I open bugs but the team seems overwhelmed (yes, my account has been buggy for months and I’ve had no feedback, but there’s more to it than that, I totally understand).
Of the FRs I open, very few are answered. Even the most basic and easy-to-implement ones are left as they are. No idea why, it’s demotivating.

To be clear, I’m not complaining about the lack of functionality. Yes, formulas or real tables would be great and so useful. But what I find most distressing are the little things that make the interface pleasant to use and Anytype fluid in its use. That’s UX!
The difference with Notion is a lot of UX: using both in my day, I understand what an admirable job Notion has done.

Please note!
I’ve invested a lot in Anytype: translation, development, forum, debugging, conversion tool, …
That’s because I want to believe in it!
After all, it’s still in beta.
I’m looking forward to “Tags as object” and the evolution of the editing UX. But I’m afraid it’s still just “V1”: nice in concept, but tedious and unfinished in use.
And maybe that’s the rub: too much hope and too much impatience. Maybe I’ll step back (a little) and come back in a few months’ time to better appreciate the evolution.

What is my dealbreaker?
UX, UX for edition, UX for management and settings, UX for all functionnality,
UX! (and UI because they’re intimately linked)

Table, formula or web share forces me to use other applications that do this.
But in fact, it’s the UX that prevents me from using Anytype with what Anytype can already do.

2

No need to be absent for a year… but yeah, maybe take it easy and a step back and let things grow.

's

3

Only for the anniversary update of this post :slight_smile: .
I have my “Bug detective” work to do and I want to test next release even if I’m less optimistic than before

4

It was sad to read, @Shampra :smiling_face_with_tear:
Especially because … you’re right!

I love Anytype!
And I’m longing for each next update.
But the feeling is exactly as you wrote.

There are still so many unfinished, unpolished small things that nags each day.
A lot of them could be fixed in no time.
One often can’t understand why such things even exist. And why they not become fixed in no time.

And a lot basic things are still missed. For example math …
Not to speak about the simple (correct) sorting for Creation Date … :frowning:
Not to speak about widescreen on a smartphone … :frowning:

Anytype becomes better and better, step after step.
But the feeling I often have, is that one single programmer could have done all what we have in one single year, all alone.
OK, give him three years. And give him an assistant for some help here and there. But then it would be done.

I programmed a not less complex (really!) PC software for shop keepers all alone in three years. And I didn’t study informatics.
My software differs here and there from Anytype. It has no “spaces” and no syncing (other then to a cash register). But is has math! A lot!
And it has the best search function ever, where you can filter for all kinds of things in a clear and fast to use interface.
You can customize lots of things.
There are very nice printing functions, including also to a label printer.
And there is also an interactive help function.
It makes a full auto backup after each new or modified entry.
I did it all for a few thousand Euro (OK, it was much too less for three years work, but …)

Anytype, on the other hand, has a team of three dozen guys and some million Dollar in the back.
With that in mind it feels unbelievable that it still doesn’t rule the world!

I know a very good programmer. 50 times better then me. A true superman!
Give him two weeks and Anytype would look and feel polished like a brand new star!
These are no empty words, I know him and his work since more then 25 years.
I know very well and from different projects what he can do in two weeks, believe me.

I don’t want to affront our dev team, but something goes wrong here.
For example, It can’t be that Android still has no wide screen!
– Find someone who is able to implement it!
I’m sure it can be done in one or two days if the right guy does it, someone who knows how it works!

Also that it’s impossible to exit and restart Anytype on PC without shooting it from the task manager.
(By the way: I know the problem with remaining threads and also the solution in Python, but not in C).
With a team of three dozen and some millions in back it must be possible to solve such nagging small problems. in no time.

  • Find out how to end running threads in a clean way!
    Or simply ask an AI for the principle.

I believe all this it not nice to read for the team. :frowning:
I’m sorry for that, I really don’t want to hurt someone.
But this is the feeling I have - and many of us have.

We see and appreciate that the devs all the time do something.
Often they react fast and also on weekend or celebration days. Respect!
But there is also a discrepancy …
In the beginning (November 20023) I often thought, the devs clearly don’t use Anytype themselves.
Seems that impression was wrong, but that was my feeling.
Some weeks and two major updates later, I saw the progress. From then on I believed in Anytype and in the team behind it.

All the time I was thinking: “but with the next update it becomes really …”
… and it became better, yes. But not as good as hoped for.

As already said: This is not an affront. I simply describe the feeling, from a user’s point of view (and with some own programming experience in background).

Using Anytype feels like being in love with a nice young lady, but her feet are a bit stinky and she nearly never cleans her teeth.
You love her, but …
… But nevertheless you love her …
But …
(You simply can’t understand why she seemingly never does something against this and that and …)

We love Anytype, our girl.
And we celebrate it if she sometimes brushes this and that single tooth.
But we also have an idea how to proper use a toothbrush and how to clean the mouth completely.

This is the feeling we have.
It may look unfair, I know.
But this is our feeling; sorry if I speak it out.

I’m thankful for all what the devs have done - some things even especially for me, as I was peeving again and again.
Thank you very much!

The fact that the devs often hear what we users wish and then do it, is exactly the thing that holds me here.
But also I often have not this feeling …
Sometimes they do even great things fast, but sometimes even small tasks remain forever, although they would be fast to fix or to implement and although they nag us every day.
– This is what we can’t understand!

Dear team, please see all what I wrote here as a honest, constructive feedback.
Honesty can hurt sometimes, although I don’t want to hurt anyone.

And it my be that our feelings I describe here are all completely wrong and unfair and so on.
– Yes, it may be.
But it is our feeling. - That counts.

Major new features are always great, off course.
But what nags us every day are the many little things.
Spent more effort for polishing, then for building completely new constructions.
Otherwise you’ll have one bad polished construction more in that no one can live happy.

5

I kind of get what you mean. My gripe is that these new functions come out that I’ve been looking forward to but then because they aren’t finished, I can’t really use them.

For example, the web clipper, it’s great that it exists but because it’s missing so much functionality, it’s basically useless for me. Same with multiplayer. Actually, I came to Anytype in 2023 from Capacities, specifically because of the promised multiplayer, and I waited for months for it but now it’s released, they offer the option for users and viewers to download all of my data at the moment they have their access revoked - it’s crazy! I simply cannot use software with my team with such a ridiculous idea as that.

I still use Capacities sometimes as a lot of my data is still in it (importing is another thing that doesn’t work properly), and they are improving at about the same speed as Anytype, but to a much more polished level - and they only have a handful of guys doing it. I think there are about 4 of them.

And there are even some things that Capacities is ahead of Anytype on. For instance they have released the API so you can use it with other apps, they have a fantastic integration with Raycast, they have AI in the app too. It really is great.

Anytype is good too, of course, but I definitely think Code-Jack and Shampra have a point.

6

This is working properly in the 0.40.xxx versions, at least in Linux. Exiting the app works and clicking on the launcher while the app is minimized, will bring the existing window up.

As for the rest of the topic, I stopped reading at the “like being in love with a young lady” and all that craziness.

I am not of the Anytype Team, but as a programmer myself, I am annoyed and disappointed with such comment.

You can complain that Anytype decided to go with sync + encryption + real time collaboration before finishing completely the apps. That is a valid complaint. All the rest is crap. If your 50 programmer (really ?? 50… I know the so called 10x programmers… but 50 is godlike) is so good, why don’t you pay him 6 months and get all those millions bling bling $$$ from notion?

Why don’t you ask why obsidian does not do RTC? why dont you ask why Notion is web only? A cunning idea that slow and unavailable is great? why dont you ask why Logseq is 2 years doing something similar to types + RTC … and lets see if its only 2 years.

As a programmer, I really get annoyed at “I could do a combo box in win32 in 5 minutes, why don’t you do it in typescript desktop + kotlin in android + swift in apple + server in go + encryption + sorta ipfs + RTC + etc in 5 minutes too? while battling with the great arch nemesis of programming: cache and sync!”

EDIT: removed mentioning other applications, its unnecessary and not correct to do.

Let the Anytype team cook. If you can help to file bug reports, great. If you find Anytype just so bad and found something better for your needs, just use that other app. But apart from maybe Obsidian, which is post 1.0 and should be stable and faily feature complete (specially with plugins), every PKM/Notes/etc apps out there are very “unfinished”, and have things missing or working badly.

7

But not in Windows.
Not in the brand new v0.40.27-beta (nor in any older version I’ve ever used).

Yes, this is clearly the thing here - you didn’t read my post.
– At least you didn’t try to understand my meanings and examples.

I don’t like to argue, it’s not my style. But because you’ve used the strong word “crazyness” - sorry to say it, but I find your post full of “crazyness” this time.
(And I say it with no bad emotion at all.)
You have got everything I wrote totally wrong. As if you speak about something else then my post.

And regarding the programmer I mentioned, who is “50 times better then me”:
Yes, he is in deed 50 times better then me.
That doesn’t mean he is 50 times better then Razor or so.
Only 50 times better then me …

– What did I mean with such a statement?
I meant with that, that I’m NOT a very good programmer!
Nevertheless I wrote a beefy and complex software for supermarkets all alone in three years. It is in use in about 25 grocery stores and small supermarkets.
It was my first project in Visual Basic years ago. I’ve had to learn the language nearby, while doing it.

With that in mind you may can imagine what a real good programmer (someone who really has mastered his art) could do in one or two years!
He is 50 times better then me! - Because he is really really good and I’m not good.

But if I’m not so good, how is it possible that I was able to write such a and huge and mighty software in three years?
– That’s not the point! It proves only that even a not so good developer can do such things.
The true point is: why is Anytype, after five years, with such a big team, with 13 Million in back in back, not able to do some basic stuff?
I appreciate all the fancy things it can do, no question.
But I beg you: all these problems with really basic stuff like Creation Date! And no math at all! No true Relations! A search function that still lack features. And so on.

As often said: I’m in love with Anytype. - But …
– Yes, “but …”

– Now calm down, then read my post again.
There are more then enough excuses built in, so that anyone should be able to understand that I didn’t want to make a big fuss.
I spoke about how it feels.

Also please hold in mind that I could discuss very much better in my mother language then in English, where i need to think a lot about every line, often not being able to find good words to come over in a good diplomatic manner.

8

First of all, I want to address this, because text is not a great way to convey meaning, and we both writing in English, which is not our native language, can create misunderstandings.

But… to me the “crazyness” is the Anytype being a love that don’t wash their teeth. I hope the anytype team washes their teeth, but I don’t really care if they don’t. Anytype is a project, a company, a service. I also don’t care if anyone loves or hates Anytype, the product. I myself am hopeful that after these big developments (Multiplayer and or Discussions), the polishing will begin, and the MVP developments will be turned into fully fleshed out features. If they don’t, and things continue for more 2025 or 2026, then yeah, probably going to stop use Anytype by then. But still, will have huge respect for the team, the people, working on all this, because its just not “another markdown editor with wiki links”, but a big bold risk on doing something new and different.

My “crazyness” was about programming, and its difficulties. And no, you can’t compare the development speed of doing stuff on Visual Basic versus typescript + swift + kotlin + golang, and encryption and p2p sync (like if normal sync and cache wasn’t enough) and RTC. But then again, Visual Basic can’t do or isn’t proper to do that :slight_smile:

If that was so, (don’t take it personally, but I don’t know you), then that was an awesome thing and truly remarkable. But that does not mean anything, as each project is different.

My understanding is that it isn’t really 5 years, since the first years were kinda “complicated”. But I guess that is for the Anytype team to say.

9

It depends from what you do with Anytype. Or what you have in mind to do.
I want to use it not only for private things. I want to use it in my business, for knowledge management, for managing business contacts and much more.
For 10 years I used OneNote excessively (beside other programs off course), but it never fulfilled my needs.
Therefore I was looking for an Alternative.

One after one, all the possible alternatives flew out of the contest. Often because of cloud and privacy issues.
Anytype was the winner in some key points from importance.

It was hyped in some videos, so I looked deep, full of hope.
But testing it, I wasn’t so happy. This was in the beginning of November 2003.
Many things was cumbersome. Many other things was buggy. The use concept for hard to grasp in the first weeks.

The use concept was clear after 4-6 weeks (a bit long, compared to other software). Also some bugs was fixed in meantime and new features came.
BUT:
Anytype is till today still not ready for a use in business!
– No, it isn’t. No way around it.
Not even with a lot compromises.

Nevertheless I often write: “I’m in love with Anytype”.
In Germany that’s a normal phrase. “Ich liebe Anytype!”
But if I use such a strong word as “love”, then I can’t ignore that it doesn’t fulfill my needs.
There are long lasting bugs like the thing with Creation Date. And there are missing basic features.

A private person may can live with it as it is, hoping for updates.
But for business uses you simply can’t live with it. See my post here.
The bad thing is, that there is no light in sight. There even was no reaction from the devs to my thread about solving the problem with Creation Date since five months!

This thread here is about “What’s your dealbreaker with Anytype”.
Although I use it every day, I say what one can call a “dealbreaker”:
Something like this. And the other points I mentioned.

I stay with Anytype because I love it. It is somehow addicting.
But I can’t use it in my business for the things I was looking for.
If someone is not “in love” or “addicted”, he wouldn’t spend as many words as I do.
He would simply deinstal it … and use anything else. :frowning:

But I stay.
Still hoping. Although I can’t see light on the tunnel’s end.

This is why I wrote that my program differs.
It’s complexity is comparable. But it has no sync (expect with a cash register).
But it has a lot features Anytype hasn’t.
And by the way: I use encryption in my software, for communication with a POS scale.
Made by hand in Visual Basic. It is possible, if you do it by hand.
You can write “Visual Basic isn’t proper to do that”. But if you do things by hand (even bitbanging if necessary) you can do everything. There even is a small routine in Assembler included, for more speed.

I have had programming experience since years as I started the project, but it was my first project in Visual Basic.
If I was able to do such a huge project all alone, then a real software engineer could clearly do much more in three years! Not to speak what a team could do.
Therefore I can’t grasp why some basic things are still missing.

They sometimes say it was five years.
If I remember correct, it was even mentioned in the software history.
I’me here for more then half a year. In this time has happen a lot! Great steps forward!
But the nagging, really needed, basic things are persisting.
No matter how importend they are, the team prefers all kind of other stuff.
– That’s what I call a dealbreker.
– And this is why I wrote: “a nice young lady, but her feet are a bit stinky and she nearly never cleans her teeth.”

This thread is for feedback.
I do nothing more than speaking out what the dealbreakers are.
And I hope my parables get to the heart of the matter.
All bedding and bringing arguments for this and that feature did seemingly not get to the heart of the matter. Therefore my parables.

10

All issues with the app not being closed properly, or not opening after being closed should be resolved in the latest beta.
If you are still having issues, please post here:

@Shampra Hey, I would like create a new topic for this recent discussion. Would you prefer if I leave your part here? Ideally I would use your post as the main topic since that’s the one that sparked the discussions in the first place.

12

Good question.
In fact, it’s a real subject in its own right, and deserves its own dedicated post.
But it’s also my dealbreaker… I can always put a summary back on the main topic.

13

I’ve moved the discussion to this topic while still leaving the original in the other one. It would actually be great if you could create a new topic yourself again, just because the current one has me as the poster, and I’ll move everything there again.

15

Since this topic is about UX improvements, I want to share a strange approach the Anytype team took in the app. I always find this makes the navigation a bit chaotic.

And It’s the “click count” throughout the app in general, and it’s the number of clicks it takes to perform certain actions. I always find it’s annoying to navigate through 4 pop-ups/windows to do something like creating a new relation like in the following image:

image
image1118×664 47.6 KB

This isn’t just about creating new relations. I always find this aspect present in everything throughout Anytype, including filters. I understand this approach is intended to make something like filters to look cleaner by hiding everything in drawers within other drawers, but it makes them harder to reach. I can think of a better way to present these elements without making them look cluttered.

16

Do it :slight_smile: Not saying this as in a challenging way, but you seem to be amazing at creating mockups and great UX design!

17

Please write this as a separate FR since it will be much easier for me to share it with our design team that way.

18

good luck

19

Notion :

  • Click “+” to add a relation (property)
    -Name it
  • If text type is ok for you, it’s always done (if not, 2 more click to change)

Anytype :

  • Click “+” to add a relation (property)
  • Click Add Relation
  • Name it
  • Click Create relation
  • Click Create
  • If text type is ok for you, it’s done (if not, 2 more click to change)

An error in the relationship type? You’ll need few minutes of navigation to delete it and create a new one in Anytype.
2 click on Notion.

Finally, you didn’t want it?
You’ll have to delete it, then go to librairie to really delete it… that’ll keep you busy!
Under Notion? Take a guess… (and lost, it was 3 clicks this time :grin:)

I made a base for a follow-up project today. Under Notion of course, it was quick and I know that the day I don’t need it anymore it will be quick to fire. Even if it lacks functionality.
That’s what I want from Anytype, that you want to use it because you can build, change and delete as you like, quickly and easily.

PS : I’m not a fan of Notion, other tools must do the same, even if they are strong on this point.

20

@sturdily Hopefully, I can make enough time to design a better UX since I’m busy. :sweat_smile:
If I have the time, I will make a separate post about it. Hopefully, I will not forget about it.

21

My feeling is that @Razor is alone for the tip of the iceberg (but so important) that is UI and UX :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:.

And even though it seems to be working all the time, it’s unbalanced. Some dev firms have balanced BACK, FRONT and DESIGN teams on the same project, is this the case here?

So even if the team does a lot of work on the functionalities, until they’re fully exploitable… well, we don’t use them.
I remember an option in a menu that was removed because it wasn’t used much, and I was disappointed because I was interested in it (but yes, I wasn’t using it for the reasons given above).

I really hope that the team will quickly finalize the core application and then focus on the UX, with a real interface team with real UX skills (it’s a job!). But keep a team working on functionalities too of course!
Before these shortcomings scare off too many people…

edit : With the open-source spirit of the project, calling on the community should be exploited, as with the post on publishing UX. Even if there’s already a mass of FR that should be exploited.

22

Well, if you are busy, its completely understandable. I just said that, because it would be super interesting to see, as was your previous mockups and designs.

I actually suspect it is… I recently tried something in another tool and compared it to Anytype, and Anytype showed a tremendous attention to detail. Something normal in the other tool, looked absolutely gorgeous in Anytype.

Looking also at the commit rate and work of the middleware, seems to be also very high.

But maybe, because its P2P sync, and there are 3 different apps, means that beside just the coding and direct development work, there must be tremendous sync between the teams.

See explanation of what i mean → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ

But then again… what do I know, this is just my opinion from looking from outside!

Absolutely… would love to help on anything, if I can.