My dealbreaker is (a) the missing big picture (b) the sub-par editor.
search needs improvement:
creating collections provides most options needed, but how do I do an “ad-hoc” search (CMD+S) for all documents with a certain tag or type?
In addition I’d like to be able to do a search and skim through the results. This is not possible: you either see the search results or a note. Then the note did not contain what you were looking for, you have to open search again. Then, the search results may appear in a different order, making it impossible to know which note you’ve already checked.
Attachments (Management of Images/Files/Bookmarks)
It is impossible to avoid/find duplicates. I’d definitely prefer having inline images/files stored with the note instead of a large, hard to manage image library.
During an import, anytype sometimes creates bookmarks, sometimes just a link. There is no obvious pattern.
Editor
Performance: it feels soooo slow. It lags as if typing remotely (on a MacBook Pro with M1 Max)
Keyboard support: Adding a row to a table via mouse is painful. Way too many clicks needed
non-standard behaviour: cursor up/down should move like in any other app. In Anytype, cursor down moves the caret down or to the end of a block. Cursor up moves up or to the start of a block. There are designated keys (Pos1/End) for that.
Bugs. Especially disappearing text during entry.
opening multiple notes at once: I only found a way to open two anytype windows (Shift + CMD + N) but that feels clumsy.
Sometimes, you have to use the mouse to insert a block, because it is impossible to do so with the keyboard.
As others have mentioned: storing data in a blob leads to various fears. Data ownership; what if anytype does not start or the company goes south? How do I access my data? Some users experienced data loss. I create (manual) Markdown and Anyblock backups every day to be prepared… that should not be necessary.
The option for self hosted backup is way too hard to set up.
there is no way to (manually) structure notes (like in a tree of folders in a filesystem or using hierarchical tags). Notes are just there. The equivalent of a (probably large) pile of paper sitting on a desk.
Code on github is important, but who will step up to maintain it and how long does it take to understand it and to produce new releases? How do I access my information in the meantime?
It may be a stretch, but maybe Anytype also suddenly refuses to start due to an OS update or something else. (I experienced something similar last week with a completely different software stack.)
If I can read the files using an editor, my information is available to me. If it’s just a blob, I will be lost. Additionally, the same ASCII (UTF-8) files can be processed with different tools without the export/import hassle. If you’re using markdown files, why not also access them with Obsidian and DevonThink? ASCII files can also be batch processed in various ways (i.e. search and replace using regular expressions).
Currently, Anytype does not seem to support Spotlight on macOS (file search). If it would use ASCII files (and if I could define the storage location), it would just work.
its coming, should come this year, according to some dev posts on this forum.
good, as the way it should be. Logseq does this way. Obsidian has a huge thread to “lets remove folders”. graph and linking is a much better solution. I would hope filesystems worked this way.
I think you are confusing ASCII files with encryption. As long as you know the encryption key, Anytype does not have any “proprietary” code that only they can read. The “blobs” are protobufs, which is a google tech, probably the most used for “blobs”
And I for one, will never blame Anytype for doing encryption. At least there will be something that Microsoft and Google will not know. Funny, on logseq there is a huge thread also, because Logseq “escapes” the text of the notes in the index cache files, allowing a security risk. Exactly what Anytype fixes properly.
If anything happens to Anytype company, code is always available, and someone will step up. There are lots of people here that already build their applications from source. There is already an unofficial docker image for self hosting from the community. Building Anytype is less than 5 minutes and actually very easy.
Probably, Anytype should have a “local automated backup”. With that, there will not ever need to be worries about losing data. And even without backups and Anytype company goes south, you still have your files in your devices. (you can test, like I did, just disconnect the internet before using Anytype).
At most, there will be the need to migrate to other tools (obsidian or logseq or notion or whatever). But that, like other things, can happen no any software.
The only real danger of losing the data is missing the key phrase!
I strongly disagree on “graph and linking is a much better solution”. (Hierarchical) tagging could be a solution, but still not for everyone.
Different people have different needs and there is no “one size fits all”. Why not have a “folder view” plugin, a “graph view” plugin and a “tag view” plugin? I’d be surprised if Obsidian would drop that.
Certainly not. But I am on the “ASCII is your friend” team. I just want to be able to read and process my files with the tools I choose. How do I do that without having Anytype installed?
I do not blame Anytype for encryption. I am not sure whether it is a good idea to keep files encrypted on my machine. I think end to end encryption when sending files somewhere is enough. Everything else will not be stored on a networked device.
My local SSD already is encrypted. I guess most SSDs are. My sensitive data is stored in additionally encrypted disk images or containers which I control.
Regarding Microsoft, Google (and probably also Apple and several three-letter agencies) reading my notes: If their software is on my machine, they can start the Anytype App which will happily decrypt all notes. So that does not add extra protection, just a small inconvenience for them.
Local encryption as implemented by Anytype has serious drawbacks, as outlined before (additional backup required, no processing with other tools possible, …)
Great to hear that.
Yes. Encrypted, or local encryption of the Anytype database is rendered useless. Decryptable with standard tools.
Would it feel “safer” if Anytype did an external tool (windows/mac/linux), either command line or graphical, and completely external of the main Anytype app, that would, as long as you had the encryption passphrase, turn everything in your profile folder into ASCII?
@ThatGuy - I totally agree that the team needs to be careful about not trying to make Anytype have all the features of other apps - making it bloated; however, I do think it is wise to look carefully at how and why people use the features of other apps and to pick and choose the features that can enhance AnyType while not making it bloated.
So I installed Brave - tried the regular browser with no luck. I also tried to connect with the TOR option but the Brave Tor window keeps saying “Disconnected” in RED at the tope left corner. I also tried logging in using a different network and using my phone - all with no luck. I am quite certain the issue must have to do with my account? Not sure - kind of frustrating as I really like the software and would love to be able to better interact with the community to learn more and share what I have found like for instance the following bug:
The bug report I am trying to report happens when trying to click the Plus Sign that is inside a circle to Install a Type or Relation from the Anytype Library. For instance when I click the plus sign to install the Alternative Relation nothing happens. But when I try to install any of the types, for instance Contact, I get an error in DEV TOOLS that says “WorkspaceObjectAdd code: 1 description: failed to add object”.
Here is the Tech Info:
OS version: win32 x64 10.0.22621
App version: 0.39.0
Build number: build on 2024-03-05 15:37:42 +0000 UTC at #a7986fffadcc2031b1eb3372265db5dda05f4c6d (dirty)
Library version: v0.32.1
Anytype Identity: A5moNiL4a29HdkVKCJRimCTwTS8E3XmV4qR4smdSJmNycpKs
Analytics ID: f9c13406-e017-4e6f-be4e-f139a8891c8c
Device ID: 12D3KooWF6fTYhGudLQMPaEFQhxvf8NcFHJY3EX3kRU81tu87HqB
I will also say this is a Local-Only installation on a local network. I should also mention - I have multiple spaces in my AnyType install. One of them is a “Working” space and from that space I intentionally deleted all of the non “Locked” types and relations. And this is the same space I was using when getting the bugs. I did however try the install on my other spaces. On three of the four spaces I get the error/bug.
Lack of @remind (being able to receive an email with the content of the line the @remind is on is a big part of my “brain dump” workflow)
Can’t publish a page to share with client (I share lots of documents ie. estimates with clients)
Desktop app has no tabs (I usually have a few documents opened so having multiple windows is very cumbersome)
Inline databases don’t work on mobile
Hope I can start contributing and implement some of these myself as I’m in dire need of them. I understand that #2 and #3 need a server to serve html and send emails so I wonder how this would get implemented as having users set up their own 3rd party accounts for handling these might be seen as too “technical”.
Publish-to-web is on the roadmap, just backlogged. So maybe not in 2024, but maybe we’ll be getting a nice surprise.
I like to think that once multiplayer rolls out this will be re-evaluated. Either way, once the API is made available (Q4) this could be handled independently with a plugin to export markdown, translate to HTML, and copy to a web server.
There’s a feature request for Notification system that begs your vote, and same goes for Tabs
You’ve got my upvotes! Glad to see so many votes for these features already
I’ve seen Publish-to-web on the roadmap, I’m pretty happy about that. Like you said it wouldn’t be too hard to get something up. I already use Netlify, Github and Gitlab to host static pages so it wouldn’t be too hard to export to HTML and host there. Only downside would be the lack of sync when a change is made on a page since we’d need to re-push the HTML static page to the server. Still, we’ll get there I’m sure.
More and more people are waking up to the downsides of having a non offline / non privacy focused application. The 3 hours downtime that happened to Notion two days ago woke up a lot of people (I’ve seen a lot of questions about alternatives and Anytype in particular popping up on X and Reddit) and is what finally pushed me to transfer lots of my data to Anytype (I’ve had the app for almost a year but never dedicated myself to it YET)
I’ve been paying for years for Notion and only got bad service, bad customer support, bugs that have not been assessed for years in favor of more “enterprise” features and integrations. I’ve had enough with it. I will invest my time to migrate to Anytype, will invest time to help with development and will also help fund the project when memberships become available.
@Angelo - One question - in the badges there is listed a “Certified” badge that when you read the description it says, “This badge is granted upon successful completion of the interactive new user tutorial.” I have never seen any link to the tutorial yet I see new people earning that badge. Can you help me find that interactive new user tutorial? I know I have read the AnyType Docs almost completely and either I missed it or it wasn’t there.
If you haven’t already done so, it would be helpful to submit a proper bug report about this, otherwise the mods might not see it buried in this thread
