Anytype is a beautiful tool, and a beautiful concept. As many will agree it is incredibly important for us to begin rethinking the way we use electronics; and Anytype is a great example of that. As a student, and a developer, Anytype has many tools I can use which help me in my daily life; but, I believe that Anytype has a lot of room for innovation and improvement in the development sector.
As a software developer, there is an incredible lack of tools which are modern, and also full of features in terms of keeping track of code, as well as taking notes on mathematical/computer science related topics. For people who are of the older generation (or interested younger age people like me) tools like VIM or Emacs (Org Mode is beautiful), with a large suite of added plugins has been the go to. With increase in more modern tools like Jupyter Notebooks, Obsidian (integrated code w/ syntax highlighting), and many others I am likely missing; the concept of programming, and keeping track of programming is changing.
As a developer who has been testing/using Anytype; the ideas are there, but there is room for improvement in the execution. Anytype has boasted “Open-Source”, “Accessible” software; which I agree, it has generally held up on, but in the end there is still an incredible lack of clarity on the project as well as the code which is still closed source.
As a user of Anytype for almost 6 months, it’s amazing to see the new Beta program rolling out, but at the same time; the room for growth is still immense. A large amount of developers are looking for a tool like Anytype, and many people are incredibly willing to spend time to cultivate a working productivity system for their own specific needs.
Furthermore, by opening up the code, and the platform for more developer-oriented input (i.e releasing API’s, having more technical meetings etc.) the growth of Anytype will also increase at an amazing rate.
As a person who has worked on a lot of different productivity tools, one thing that I enjoy is many of them have methods (loopholes) by which a developer is able to maximize the usage of the program. Obsidian allows for many different configuration options, but also has many things open which developers can access in order to experiment with the code.
Something like embedding VIM keybindings into the tool sounds complicated, but if something like the AXManualAccessibility electron flag is turned on, allows for developers to do it themselves.
Overall I love the Anytype tool, and it has lots of promise. But until it is expanded to be upgraded/experimented on by developers and other keeners, the growth of the project is dependent entirely on the Dev team.
I believe it is crucial for something like Anytype to open up some options for people in order to see the possibilities of new features; and gain advice from external users as well 