Opinion after some months

[Rafael]

Hey everyone, I’ve returned to share some of my impressions after some months of use.

I’ve been using anytype alongside some other markdown editors to capture some notes and had a great time with it, but so far I’ve had a hard time making it my “main” app.

The good stuff is that I can access my notes offline and the sync has worked flawlessly between pc, android and ipadOS (great job on adapting the app for tablets, by the way). Those features together are game changers for me and so far are not present in neither of the other apps I use. I’ve got the hang of the templates and relations and although it’s still not as powerfull as Notion and Obsidian’s plugins, it’s on the right path, there is quite a learning curve, but it’s not the “hardest” software to get used to.

The main issue with anytype (for me,at least) is the UI, I’ve listed some stuff that other md editors still do better:

Folder View

I miss being able to open a folder view and organizing my notes as I want to. I’ve been mocking a system like this with a note which I marked as a “favourite”, but I still get “missing” notes that I have to fetch from the “recent” tab (which is still a chore depending on how many files, types, objects and relations I went into). The sidebar was a welcome addition, but it’s just a transposition of the same unchangeable home screen menu, so for me it’s not very useful.

Some automation

This may sound lazy, but I got used to “macros” on Obsidian md, if there is a way to add a header, a task and a new note with a given template (for example) with only one click/custom command I’d be using it a lot. Also, when choosing dates, why can I choose “today” and “tomorrow” but not next week, month or “in 5 days”?

Inlines and views

Those are on the roadmap, but I will still leave here, Notion has a really good “database” system with sets, tables, calendars and kan-ban views, I was able to replicate this experience (to a certain degree) with Obsidian plugins, I’m looking forward to doing it on AnyType too. There are some great “home screen” notes that just can’t be created without these features.

Preset/Default Objects and relations

There are just too many of those. I get it that they are examples, but if I could delete them and use just the ones I created it would be great. Especially the relations, I couldn’t find a way to delete even the ones I created myself, resulting on a lot of “test” relations which are piling on the screen every time I go to edit one.

Finally, just as a disclaimer, I do not intend to ask for anytype to become one of the other markdown editors, you have a great system going on there, I just wish it was a little easier to navigate, for now. Also, don’t take that topic as a complaint, I myself became a junior dev last year, and I know how hard and it is to develop good quality software. There might also be some things here that I may not have learned yet, rather than are missing, if that’s the case, let me know please.

Thanks for reading

[sambouwer]

Hi @Rafael, welcome back and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts after working with Anytype for a bit longer.

@Rafael

I miss being able to open a folder view and organizing my notes as I want to

And you are not alone!

Add Folders, nesting, more traditional structured organizational options (Organizational Structure for Writers)

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Please add traditional "tree" for navigating page structure

@Pandry Interesting. I don’t know the code base either, but my intuition doesn’t necessarily agree with yours. If they don’t have the concept/code for “pinning” a page at all, i.e. a sidebar, then they at least have to create that. The data model for page linking already exists. Visualizing that may or may not be fairly trivial. In your concept would the tree have to be created and maintained manually by the user? If not, aren’t you describing basically the same thing, just using some ex…

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@Rafael

Some automation

Automations can definitely improve our efficiency in Anytype. For me it sometimes feels a bit clunky or “heavy” to create new content in Anytype. Adding a new task in a task tracker should be easy once the tracker is set up, but basic interactions like selecting the right Object in a Relation or filling text Relations is cumbersome when you have many.

I think there are many “small” feature requests for automations, but it might be nice to have an overarching topic to discuss how automations should have a place in Anytype. Do you want to share the things you like about Obsidian’s macros?

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@Rafael

Also, when choosing dates, why can I choose “today” and “tomorrow” but not next week, month or “in 5 days”?

These kinds of improvements are being implemented slowly. For example, filtering on date Relations now works a lot better and is very flexible:

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@Rafael

Inlines and views

I agree with all your remarks. Unfortunately, we still have to wait for inline sets and views to be implemented and released.

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@Rafael

Preset/Default Objects and relations

There are just too many of those. I

I couldn’t find back the topics, but I believe there are quite some users that agree that there are too many (sometimes duplicate or nonsensical) Object Types built into Anytype. See Larger Discussion on Built in Object Types - General Discussion & Q+A - Anytype Community (posted in response to this topic )