Suggestions for development of cross-platform Linux Outliner Note-taking software

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 5, 2009 at 05:08 PM

First of all, let me say that I find it very interesting that a programmer contacts this forum for advice prior to commencing their software’s development. As far as I know this is the first time that such an approach has been taken. Mostly, developers appear in this forum when the core functionality has been produced; by then it is too late to suggest structural enhancements. So I consider this a great opportunity and I will happily take it. Find below a first round of suggestions:

- Development platform: Sometime ago I had written here that IMHO applications, if they are to compete in the contemporary environment, they will be soon expected to be (a) cross-platform, including mobile clients, and (b) web-aware, i.e. providing a web client / web backup or sync. I would suggest that you take a look at Nokia’s new QT platform or other IDE that can build applications with such functionalities.

- Core concept: There are some excellent Windows-only or Apple-only applications that are not available for other platforms and are not expected to anytime soon; a cross platform outliner with similar functionalities could well become quite popular. My own favourites (in Windows) include Surfulater, which you mentioned, UltraRecall and InfoQube/SQL notes. The core concept in these programs is similar and very powerful: information items are database objects and can be organised both on a hierarchical tree and independently through tags. This allows the user a lot of flexibility on how to go about structuring their information. An important functionality here is clones or virtual copies of info items, so that one can can include them in various folders of the tree simultaneously.

- Business model: I am a strong of the ‘freemium’ approach and am a paying user/subscriber of several applications following such an approach. Be aware that there’s a lot of competition and you’ll have to offer something quite advantageous to expect a noteworthy income. This should be especially true in the Linux world, where users are rather spoilt. I would expect a cross-platform program like that to be very valuable in businees, where you could also sell support contracts.

- Interconnectivity: one of the most important deciding factors for me is the ability to easily get data in and out an application. For getting it in: grab from the web, paste in various formats (text, image, RTF/HTML), monitoring the clipboard For getting it out: XML export along with related stylesheets (web export), access to the database, CSV export, export tree structure as folder structure with info items as files etc.

I (and most others I imagine) could go on for ages with desired features, but ultimately you should define your own vision and develop your program’s competitive advantages around that vision. What you will leave out is as important as what you’ll include. For example: a powerful editing environment is very important to many users, but providing it may mean significant development resources. Instead, you could opt for directly editing your content through freely available external editors such as Open Office.

Within this context, I’d like to add a suggestion for a functionality that I am surprised I’ve yet to see, given that SQL lies at the heart of many such programs: the ability to directly publish selected content through popular php/mySQL CMS platforms. This could be a powerful competitive advantage, as it means that one doesn’t need to use a web interface to re-organise already structured content. The closest I’ve seen to this is Evernote’s Shared Notebooks and The Journal’s Blog Publish feature.

That’s it for the moment; wishing you beforehand all the best in your venture.

Alexander