Let’s try it!
I send you an invitation as PN.
Pondering again how chat might or might not be useful for individual use case, maybe “chat” or later discussion could be the location of brainstorming or progress log for the working object. So it is possible to isolate side notes from the main content/object. Or even super quick note taking.
In this case, may I add complexity to the chat system (not again 
), I would like to be able to reference or have transclusion over chats and discussion as well. So I could record or compile them in journal object.
- Alternatively,
– Chat/ discussion can be object type too
– Or chat/discussion blocks are blocks as objects
– Or a multi-type object of journal type and chat/discussion type
– Or chat/discussion stored under Date object - Of course, I could copy-and-paste… but if Anytype is the everything app, I would hope everything / every function can be integrated smoothly.
Btw I always have an issue with chat program (multiplayer) - chat is always intended to serve present contact first. It is hard to trace back previous contents or dates, or chats on specific topics. So I am thinking for note taking purpose, maybe object-based discussions could be useful too?! (Instead of quoting blocks) So it is possible to trace back conversations on the project object. However, this type of chat might be too segregated if we lots of objects.
P.S. Still not my priority
Would be nice if you could give your feedback with real-world usecase. @mordan
there are a lot of dedicated chat apps / systems. Don’t need to “create a wheel”. Use the resources for unique Anytype features.
After watching the recording of the town hall I completely changed mind on the topic. Even though the chat might not be needed at all for many users, it is the first step to set other features like commenting and discussing objects.
Still, I guess, it will not replace messaging apps especially because of the complexity of building native apps on mobile, but it can indeed enhance the collaboration experience.
We all I think understand the team needs funding.
But…adding chat and AI to a beta for enterprise level audience makes no sense when you are missing some fundamental functionality!
At first I was very excited when I came across anyType. More I look at it though, I feel that what the team does this year will either make or break the app. And it will largely depend on their priorities.
Look at the ‘mood’ on the forums. I will sum it like so:
people are generally still understanding and hopeful…that the urgent, core and necessary missing features will be delivered…but people will not be patient forever. I see most users of large object sets very hesitant to transition. And that is a problem.
I LIKE what anyType is…and I LOVE what it CAN become
ReplyClose
I really wanted to understand the path that Anytype is focusing on.
Go to the Any Requests page, and see how many things are much more urgent and MUCH MORE REQUESTED by the community.
I also searched to see if anyone had requested this feature, and there was only one person in 2021 who asked for it and NO ONE gave it an upvote
On the other hand, for example, there are 328 upvotes asking for tabs, and it’s not even on the roadmap. Again, a feature request from 2021 with 328 upvotes and it’s not even being considered.
Totally agree with your summary of the mood on the forum.
I wonder if most of us that are active here in the community and/or Reddit are solo users. Which of course, we would have very different uses cases when compared to the features that get prioritized.
I also think they way folks discover Anytype affects their expectations of the app - is it just for note-taking, is it a mash-up of Notion & Obsidian, etc…
However, I can see more why chat is a priority after Zhanna, in the town hall, connected it to the app having documentation and communication all in one. After all, the team itself wants to use it’s own product and not a competitor’s messaging app.
I’d very much push anytype to little political organizations if file-wise it was stable, it had web publish and good price plans.
Notion but local first, with better ux, better ui and made by a coop/association in my same continent? Count me in.
In fact I’ve been bringing on new users and I’m not the only one that now relies completely on anytype. I also know other people that would happily leave Notion. (Some of them are already paying Anytype and others would do the same)
Tech wise I already listed what I’d need; feature wise doesn’t really matter ‘cause those would be more my personal preferences (except for anytype as CMS, that’s needed by everyone I know)…
“Politically” I think we all need some more transparency:
a lot of fossbros may want a cooler license but people from the tech political space, adopting tools for real use cases, need transparency about governance and funding.
Is anytype still a coop? An association? What was the deal with the VC if an association is technically no profit and a coop cannot have more than one vote per head? Why are pricing plans so weird? lol
P.S. for the “we don’t have a vision” (or something like that said in the town hall), you can contact one of the tech workers coalition (twc) european chapters to find people willing to help shaping the what-can-anytype-do-irl.
Sorry for the bad English, I did not edit myself enough 
All good points!
I’d like to share some thoughts about the discussion around chat and communication inside Anytype.
First, it’s important to recognize the nature of Anytype’s user base. The majority are solo users, with only a small subset being paying customers. And who are these paying users? Primarily, they’re people who value collaboration and rely on communication features. From the beginning, we anticipated this dynamic. That’s why we invested significant resources—both in terms of time and money—into developing our sync technology. This technology is at the core of what makes Anytype unique. While our UX might not yet be the most polished among comparable tools, our sync functionality is second to none.
That said, we are continuously improving the front-end UX. Progress might feel slow, but if you take a step back and reflect on what we’ve accomplished over the past year, it’s clear how far we’ve come.
Now, regarding our strategy: if we were to devote all our energy to only refining the existing features, we’d risk exhausting our resources before realizing our broader vision. Instead, we’ve taken a balanced approach by splitting our team into focused groups.
- One group is dedicated to polishing and enhancing basic functionality, ensuring we deliver on key feature requests. Many of the biggest ones are already planned for next year.
- Another team is advancing our core technology, keeping Anytype’s foundation robust and scalable.
- And finally, a third team is focused on building a communication experience. This is where we believe Anytype can truly shine.
By dividing our efforts in this way, we aim to meet customers expectations while also pursuing the dream.
Your feedback and thoughts are invaluable as we continue on this journey. Thank you for being a part of it!
Well said, @anton !
Then let me point out one feature that’s missed as well for solo users, but even more for users who value collaboration:
- Pictures should have backlinks to find the Objects that uses them!
Take a look in a Set for pictures!
Even a normal single user will find there lots of pics where he has no clue from there they came (of course from pasting some web content, that’s clear).
– It’s impossible to find the Object that uses them!
This is an even bigger problem if other Editors put more and more content into a shared Space (often without fully understanding what they do).
Actually I use Anytype for my study and want to share one of my Space with my fellow students.
But to be honest: I don’t dare to give them Editor rights!
Not because I don’t trust them. But they don’t know …
Using the history I could reverse a lot of their mistakes, but I have a well polished picture Set where each pic has a well chosen name, that I need for learning. And I don’t want that my fellows make it in a few days into a garbage place with over a thousand pics, where no one knows what these stuff is for.
I think it can’t be a big task to implement a backlink feature for pictures, or maybe I’m wrong?
Honestly, this would be better written as a Feature Request (and by first searching if another similar request wasn’t already filed)
The devs and founders and co-founders cannot answer all the minutia and all the comments spread across all posts on this forum…
Half yes half no.
I have already made a request for it. But I believe the team doesn’t have it fully one the radar how important it is - especially for collaboration.
My impression is, that the team leaders are at the moment mostly interested in any feedback about what the needs are for collaboration.
It may be a bit off topic in this thread, but I think it’s not so important in which thread they get the feedback they want.
Thank you Anton for chiming in.
What you say makes perfect sense.
Know that despite constructive criticism on the forums, many (including me) believe in this product.
You are correct, the sync, riding on IPFS and local-first approach is extremely unique and positions anyType well.
I will also say that I have spend last 2 months trying out to various degrees pretty much all the currently available tools that had some measure of local storage (I tried none which are solely cloud based like Tana, despite Tana’s many unique and desirable features). And let me tell you, in that category, your closest competitor is likely capacities. And despite their more polished look, they charge hefty $16 CAD/month and for that you get basically queries and limited AI everyone complains about. Their queries, similar to anyType’s sets have lots of bugs when you put them inline. And they also do not have parent-child relationships many of us have asked for (think inline set/collection of tasks uniquely linked to a project with the set/collection defined in a template). To say nothing of their limited offline use and them not believing in E2E.
What I am trying to say is that your closest competitor has a shinier UI (but not by much), charges a whole lot more and is primarily a cloud based product.
As for pricing, we are keen on seeing your new pricing tiers because I think quite a few folks here will participate in that. I know I will.
Cheers; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year