Kosshi is a new database-backed outlining.
https://kosshi.app

I write about it here:
Kosshi Is Database-Backed Outlining
https://bicycleforyourmind.com/kosshi-is-database-backed-outlining
#macOS

macosxguru

It looks great, and $25 for Mac/iOS/iPadOS seems very reasonable. Dev answered a couple of questions about it on Product Hunt.

https://www.producthunt.com/products/kosshi

Since text and images are saved into its internal database I wonder how it handles sync changes - if treated as a monolithic database file you're transferring a _lot_ of data with every small change.

And time will demonstrate the robustness and reliability of the database. I use a few cross-platform writing apps that use databases but they have proven themselves over years; even so, even longstanding apps have experienced issues with their databases and syncing so I'm wary of this approach with new apps.

Nice review on your website, macosguru.

Thank you Stephen.

macosxguru

Hi all, I'm Junichi, the developer of Kosshi. Thanks, macosxguru, for sharing it. This is my first post here.

satis, that's a fair question.

On sync: Kosshi uses Apple's CloudKit, so the data is stored in the user's own iCloud account.

The local SQLite database and the records sent to CloudKit are separate things. In CloudKit, each outline row is stored as its own record, and normal editing sends only the records for the rows that changed. Images and other attachments are stored as separate records rather than embedded in the document. The SQLite file itself is not transferred, so a single keystroke does not upload the whole document or database file.

On the long-term reliability of database-backed apps, your wariness is reasonable since time has not yet proven this approach for Kosshi. I rely on Kosshi for my own important notes, so to avoid a one-way door, the data is kept in a few layers:

- Per-row records are kept in iCloud, so the data can be re-downloaded from iCloud via sync.
- Automatic backups are generated regularly. A pre-sync backup is also attempted before applying remote row changes, with reasonable spacing between backups, so recent state is usually recoverable if something unexpected comes down.

On scale, since the review touches on million-row support: basic editing works even at fairly large outlines. I recently noticed that search and filter on large documents still feel heavy, and I'm working on improvements.

I'm rather impressed – especially by the developer's careful explanation of his decisions (reminiscent of Jesse!).

I'm having a play, despite no longer using iOS...

Erm, where is your website? Sorry, sorry, appears at the top of this thread... d'oh!

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Nice review on your website, macosguru.

Based on the review and trial, I bought a license for Kosshi and am super impressed. It does everything that I loved in Dynalist and Workflowy but on my own computer and syncing over iCloud, non-subscription. The first import of my huge outline required a little bit of time, but subsequent updates are very very fast, so I don't think it retransfers the whole database each time there's a change. For outlines where I need multiple columns or calculations or to use scripting, I'll continue with OmniOutliner, but for my mass of notes, this is great.

I bought Kosshi without hesitation, and enjoy it on macOS quite a bit. It needs to be better adapted for iOS though -- the app is very keyboard centric on macOS but most of those keyboard actions are not possible on iOS.

Oh, I'm so tempted, even though it doesn't (and probably won't ever) run on Android. It's really very nice, and I love the integration with Calendar/Reminders. But no, I'm not getting an iPhone just so I can play with Kosshi on iOS... that would be one CRIMPstep too far!

Paul Korm wrote:

I bought Kosshi without hesitation, and enjoy it on macOS quite a bit. It needs to be better adapted for iOS though -- the app is very keyboard centric on macOS but most of those keyboard actions are not possible on iOS.

One of the nicest things about Kosshi – and yes, it's a tiny thing – is that when you zoom in or out (it responds to the standard Mac Cmd+ - / Cmd + + keyboard shortcuts), it actually changes the font setting, rather than zooming in/out by a percentage. Since you can keep the Settings dialog box open while you're doing this, it gives you very precise control. For example, I use a couple of monitors on either side of my MacBook: they run at a slightly higher display resolution, so it's very convenient to put Kosshi in one of the side windows with a slightly larger font size. I can do the same thing with other PKM apps, of course, like UpNote or Obsidian, but both of those change the entire interface by percentages if you zoom in/out, whereas in Kosshi I can run the main editor font at 16px in a side window, or 15px on my main MacBook display.

Okay, okay – I did say it was a tiny thing :-D

... the other tiny thing that's really imaginative is "Prose" mode, meaning you can right-click any line to transform it into a simple paragraph without a bullet point – suitable, as the developer says, for long-form writing. What a small but sensible idea!

Super impressive first major version!

Did anyone happen to see if there is true daily notes support feature, or anything along those lines?

I feel once again stuck between apps, and it’s compounded by being stuck with windows at work, and simultaneously not necessarily wanting to dig myself deeper into the apple ecosystem. This and Notesgarden have got me thinking though.

I know what Kosshi reminds me of – Outlinely, a truly impressive MacOS and iOS outliner that was discontinued some years ago (2018) but does still run on modern Macs. I used it a lot – it was immensely powerful and had some great features, but Glam Software was never very communicative and after a few years the app just faded away... not entirely unlike another very good piece of software, Quiver (the "programmer's notebook").

In Outlinely, each document was in fact a complete outline, so you could manage a huge amount of information in it. It could also split documents between iCloud and your local hard drive, as well as shared folders. Ah, those were the golden days... heh heh.

As it happens, both Outlinely and Quiver are still on my MacBook. Though, they will possibly die in a year or so when Apple stops support for Rosetta. Kosshi is more feature-rich than Outlinely, especially with the calendar and reminders integration.

The developer of Kosshi writes a blog and mentioned the role the this forum (see @ macosxguru) plays in reaching beyond Japanese users. :)
https://shirokumamake.com/blog/not-the-spread-phase

Much to be said for the Sqlite approach – standard well-tested tech, and you can grab the data flexibly, for example with sqlite3's -json switch, and a flat SQL incantation like:
```sql
SELECT
id,
parentID,
content,
prose,
sortKey
FROM outlineRow
ORDER BY sortKey ASC;
```
following up, to regain tree (actually forest) structure with a standard tool like jq (or the excellent jaq clone) and some definition of the nested JSON representation you prefer – perhaps along the lines of:

```jq
def build_node($pid):
($tree_index[$pid] // []) | map(
[
{
content: .content,
prose: (.prose == 1)
},
build_node(.id)
]
);

reduce .[] as $x (
{};
($x.parentID // "ROOT") as $pid |
.[$pid] += [$x]
) as $tree_index |

build_node("ROOT")
```

At the intersection of iCloud sync and single data file, however, an understandable choke-point does appear at scale.

I found that I could paste in Moby Dick – at the macOS end – without encountering complaint,
and searches worked well at that scale (impressive), but this seemed to (perhaps inevitably) create some (sync-time) challenge at the iOS end. For a while the iOS app (battling with an arriving whale) simply vanished every time I tried to scroll. Later it settled down, but it was clear that this approach was not designed to grapple with Moby Dick, which I deleted.

Kosshi could provide a good approach to to capturing basic outlines on a phone, and then making macOS use of them. Given that sense of overstretch at whale scale, and the vagaries of iCloud, I might not be a vessel (or design) in which I would "put my life".

Turning from scale to detail, perhaps not quite enough in the way of outline node attributes for more flexible writing purposes – two booleans: `prose` and `bookmarked` – but that seems quite enough for iPhone capture of basic outline structure.

I think my personal workflow with it might be:

1. iPhone capture of nested thoughts on the fly,
2. harvesting from the sqlite at the macOS end for use elsewhere, and
3. pruning out most of the harvested outlines from the Kosshi sqlite, for better speed and lower risk in sync.

A couple of scripts here for preserving as much formatting, and as many row-type distinctions as possible when sharing outlines between Bike and Kosshi.

Kosshi's syncing to iOS makes it a good vehicle for iOS or iPadOS work in outlines which mainly live in Bike's slightly richer and more scriptable data model.

https://support.hogbaysoftware.com/t/bike-outlines-on-ios-ipados-an-interim-hack/6410

I've emailed dev a couple of time , and he is pretty responsive. App works fine on both iOS and Mac. This is a clear version 1 as many version 1 features are missing , which from Dev seems confident will add.

But I did try to import a 1,000,000 markdown file and it worked fine with some formatting issues which the developer says will fix.

I am confident about sqlite , it can easily handle multiple million rows , so it falls on dev to scale up other features.

Another article on Kosshi.

Kosshi Improves
https://bicycleforyourmind.com/kosshi-improves
#macOS

macosxguru

The developer of Kosshi is based in Japan and has noted on his blog the global interest sparked in large part from the blog post of @macosxguru. You can read about this on the developer's blog (originally in Japanese but available in English through the use of online translation):
https://shirokumamake.com/blog/not-the-spread-phase

Reminds me of the software many years ago called Opal, which was also developed in Japan. I discovered that Opal is now updated and available at the following website for free:
https://a-sharp.com/opal/opal.html

I don't know how the website a-shape managed to get the rights to make the app available. The Japanese developer was uncontactable. However, I am grateful a-shape has made the app free for us. :)

I don't know about the Japanese origins of Opal.

Opal is a rewrite of an old outliner called Acta, also developed by a-sharp. Opal is their app.

a-sharp is run by David Dunham and it is based in Seattle.

macosxguru

I stand corrected. Apologies to the developer and all for my error. Thank you @macosxguru for correcting my mistake. The developer is indeed David Dunham of a-sharp. Here is David's initial post in 2006.
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/44

Just to document for historical purposes, when I downloaded Opal many years ago, the interface was in Japanese. I downloaded it from a Japanese website, and the support was Japan-based email, so I assumed that the developer was Japan-based. When I tried to contact what I assumed to be the developer at the email listed on the website, I never heard back. I just discovered the a-sharp website yesterday, and saw the section on the website in Japanese directing purchases and support in Japanese to the following site: https://www.stands.jp/opal/Opal/Opal.html
If you click on the link, you are taken to a notice that the Stands Cram School is ceasing operations on 31 July 2026. Stands is a cram school for elementary through junior high school students based in the Aichi Prefecture (where most of the Toyota cars are manufactured). I know nothing of the relationship that a-sharp has with Stands. But a-sharp has made Opal free now, and the interface appears in Japanese automatically if you are using the Japanese interface of macOS.

macosxguru wrote:

I don't know about the Japanese origins of Opal.

Opal is a rewrite of an old outliner called Acta, also developed by a-sharp. Opal is their app.

a-sharp is run by David Dunham and it is based in Seattle.

macosxguru

I didn't know the background. So thank you for the input.

Stands Cram School

Sounds painful.

macosxguru

Darren McDonald2 wrote:

when I downloaded Opal many years ago, the interface was in Japanese.

Stands.jp was simply A-Sharp's Japanese distributor which localized and marketed the app.

I bought Acta in 1986, then in 1993 Dunham sold it to Portfolio Software where it was renamed Dyno NotePad and added additional features like audio attachments. I bought that, then in 2006 I migrated to Opal after David Dunham bought back Acta/Dyno Notepad from Portfolio and released the current lookalike successor, which was recoded using Apple's Cocoa framework so it could run in modern Mac OS X versions.

By 2006 time I'd moved on to other outlining methods, dabbling with Takashi Hamada's TAO and its successor NeO (one of the few outliners offering cloned items a la MORE), but settled in with OmniOutliner (which I rely on to this day). I got Opal to make sure I could still access my oldest Acta outlines. (Unfortunately Dunham jettisoned additional features from Dyno Notepad like audio attachments, which I subsequently lost access to.)