#joplinapp — Public Fediverse posts

@[email protected]

I am having one heck of a time trying to replace #Joplin with another note taking app that is #NoAI.

I didn't realize that #JoplinNotes had a proprietary file type. That's making things a lot trickier.

Joplin's backend is a sqlite database. Sqlite is FOSS, not proprietary.

Not sure, but in this context, you may find the links in the quoted post interesting.

@[email protected]

I am having one heck of a time trying to replace #Joplin with another note taking app that is #NoAI.

I didn't realize that #JoplinNotes had a proprietary file type. That's making things a lot trickier.

Joplin's backend is a sqlite database. Sqlite is FOSS, not proprietary. But yes, Joplin does not satisfy your "NoAI" criterion.

@[email protected] @[email protected]

Also, dear @joplinapp why the db ?

I can't speak for the Joplin team, but I remember their lead developer Laurent had answered this question in various replies in one of the threads on their Discourse forum. Found it just now, most of it is from April-May 2021. You can check out the thread itself, or maybe check out only these replies by Laurent (listed below in the order in which they appear in the thread).

1. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/8
2. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/21
3. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/22
4. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/24
5. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/26
6. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/34
7. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/42

The following posts in the same thread, by two other Joplin users, give some perspectives on why they prefer a database as Joplin's "source of truth" over a folder of plain text files.

a. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/64
b. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/why-im-leaving-joplin-for-now/17003/65

By the way: Joplin's built-in Backup plugin can be set up to periodically backup notes as markdown or as markdown+frontmatter (or as several other formats). It preserves filenames and the folder structure. That should mitigate concerns about your notes data being limited to Joplin's sqlite database. But yes, you cannot edit those files outside of Joplin and have Joplin automagically incorporate those changes in its internal database. If that's your requirement, then Joplin does not fit your needs.