Gingko Desktop Application

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Posted by Gianni
Nov 22, 2021 at 10:44 AM

Considering that version 2 of the desktop app for Windows was declared out of beta, and therefore billable, in December 2017, my question, in the month of November 2020, was:
Or is it a case of grab the money and run?
…
… Gingko potential is killed by the fact that there is no commitment on the part of Adriano, whose nice words do not correspond to the facts.
Frankly I would prefer it clearly stated if this software can still be counted on in the future.
I spent $ 45 to fund beta-stage software, and after a long time I see no willingness to develop.

Adriano reply was:
Gingko Desktop is under active development. It’s not showing up on the main branch, because what I’ve been focusing all my energy on lately is getting the web interface working for it.

In a further post, still in November 2020 Adriano said:
What that means is, it’s going to take me some time to bring all the changes I made back into the desktop version.

So, in January 2021, I asked:
Some time is a meaningless statement. Please, specify how much.

Adriano reply was:
Between 2 months and a year, is the smallest range estimate I can give you at this point. There are a lot of unknowns, so can’t be more precise.

Again, in July 2021 I asked:
Is there any news regarding Gingko Desktop development? Your replay will be highly appreciated.

Adriano reply was:
Still no additional news on when I’ll bring Desktop up to date with latest version.
There are many people asking for other things too, so I have to go by the overall priority (which isn’t always the same as any one person’s priority).
I’ll make a newsletter announcement when it’s updated.

And, finally, in November 2021, I brought the issue up again:
Hi Adriano,
the clock is ticking.
Even more so if you take into consideration the fact that my first email about this issue was from November 2020.
It is my opinion that a definitive word from you on this subject is due to those who, at one time, trusted you and trusted your promises.

I got this reply:
As far as I can tell, my only promise was “I’ll do my best”, and I’ve been clear about not having a definite timeline on this.
Since you’re clearly not happy with your purchase, would you like a refund? If so, email me.

To which I replied:
No, I don’t want a refund. I just want to be clear on the future of the desktop version, so I can make my own decisions.
From my point of view, saying you will do your best is an answer that cannot be accepted by a professional. Especially since your previous commitments said that development would resume within a year at the latest.
But that’s not the point.
What is due is a clear stance that says, for example, that the subscription-based Web version is more profitable than the desktop version, and that the desktop version will be discontinued. This is just an example, mind you, but if that were the case, the client who bought the desktop version, with the commitment that it would be brought up to the level of the Web version, could make an informed decision.
And without asking for a refund.

Not to my surprise, however, when I went to the community forum I realized that I have been unlisted.
Which, in itself, is a reply.

Posted by satis
Nov 22, 2021 at 02:49 PM

It’s a really nice concept for a writing space but I could never feel comfortable relying upon the app with my text given how raw the project has been over the years. Nulis popped up as a freeware clone but it quickly was abandoned (in a form almost as usable as Gingko).

Gingko has been out for at least eight years so if a stable, featured desktop app hasn’t materialized by now don’t expect it to. Based on Adriano’s sporadic updates, his other interests he was blogging about, and the pivot to webapp that then seemed to get immediately bogged down, it became clear a long time ago that this was a hobby app that was not supporting his one-man dev shop.

I paid for Gingko in January 2018 only to support the dev, knowing that the app was too bare bones to actually depend on. I’d hoped that early support when he started selling the app might spur development, bring on more coders, but no.

I’ve always written longer pieces in atomized, outline form, and while Gingko’s design has a lot going for it I’m still used to classic outlines, and with things like the Longform plugin for Obsidian ( https://github.com/kevboh/longform ) to better handle longform text, I think that’s a much more viable future for outliner-oriented writing.

Adriano popped up in the Obsidian forums to discuss recent additions to his app, but the attitude there was users basically saying, ‘Okay, how can we just adopt this into Obsidian.’

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/writing-in-tree-structure-the-solution-to-long-form-writing-gingko/

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