HelixNotes - Obsidian, Joplin, and Notesnook Alternative

Lounge Linux lounge
1

This is a follow-up to the following post in What application have you recently discovered?

As @YKaramian, the developer of HelixNotes, joined the forum, maybe he can use this as a bug report/feature request list and comment if he wishes.

Here, I make mention of HelixNotes and my views on it. View below:

So I confirmed a few things:

  • The minor “Tauri App” issue persists in KDE as well (as expected).
  • The “Open in New Window” action, when in KDE, still removes native window decorations.
    • And for the main app window, the native window decorations are in addition to the app’s internal window decorations, which means you have two title bars with close, maximize, and minimize. See image below.
      • So the request here would be to merge the icons into the actual interface and removing the internal window actions buttons, like Obsidian gives you the option of doing. See the second image.
  • Deleting a vault on Linux also doesn’t have a confirmation dialog box.
  • Opening/Creating a new vault is more straightforward/obvious on Android, as you find it in General Settings. On Linux, there is only a little “Switch Vault” button that looks like a folder icon, and a user may never find this button.
    • I am not sure why the option isn’t also in General Settings, and/or the reverse - making the icon visible on Android. Also, the placement of the icon on Linux isn’t intuitive since it is only visible next to other icons that are specific to the current file being viewed or edited. Also visible in the image below.

image
image476×272 58.7 KB

Remove internal window decorations (example):

image
image602×166 70 KB

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Update: Using HelixNotes With Firejail Fails

From what I’ve read, the issue below is due to permissions when packaging the AppImage.
And it can be “easily” fixed by the user. However, that means it can also be easily fixed by the developer for the next release.

The Firejail command:

firejail --net=none --appimage /path/to/HelixNotes_1.3.5_amd64.AppImage

The Error:

firejail version 0.9.80

Parent pid 218881, child pid 218882

** Warning: dropping all Linux capabilities and setting NO_NEW_PRIVS prctl **

Warning: NVIDIA card detected, nogroups command ignored
Mounting appimage type 2
Base filesystem installed in 1.03 ms
Warning: NVIDIA card detected, nogroups command ignored
Child process initialized in 67.06 ms
/run/firejail/appimage/AppRun: line 12: /run/firejail/appimage/AppRun.wrapped: Permission denied

Parent is shutting down, bye...
AppImage detached

After setting permissions like below and using appimagetool to repackage the app, all is good now. It runs without internet access.

chmod a+x AppRun AppRun.wrapped
chmod a+x AppRun AppRun #--> May not be necessary

AppImageTool Command (there’s an AUR package if you prefer):

curl -L -o appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage \
                            https://github.com/AppImage/appimagetool/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage
                      chmod +x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

Then:

./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage squashfs-root/

And in case anyone wants it, here’s the full command I use through a keyboard shortcut to launch the app without internet access, while also renaming the app window. It can be used in any X11 DE I believe.

firejail --net=none --appimage /path/to/HelixNotes-x86_64.AppImage & for i in $(seq 1 20); do wmctrl -r "Tauri App" -T "HelixNotes" 2>/dev/null && break; sleep 0.5; done

Note: Increase sleep 0.5 to a higher number if the app takes a while to launch.
Example: sleep 3 or sleep 5

3

(+) The interface goes blank after a few minutes of inactivity and is unrecoverable, forcing me to close the app (with the regular window manager close button).

Edit: This was the issue.

Changed to --noprofile --protocol=unix and the issue doesn’t reoccur.

4

Does it have other themes only one with black background?

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Yes, but you should really just download it and test it out.
You can see a list of themes by perusing this file:

https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes/-/blob/b2d0c7175e4774070633f5bd02895b79471b26f3/src/app.css

It has all the usual suspects, I think, with accent colors. And as you can see, they are CSS themes, which means you can create your own easily if you know CSS.

Just follow what I did with firejail and you don’t have to work about your data. You can use NetGuard on Android for the same thing.

6

Added my list of feature requests to the project:

I definitely want this project to succeed, as it’s the only cross-platform open-source project that currently matches the Obsidian way - local directory-based vaults.

Will even put my money where my mouth is depending on its progress between now and the end of the year.

7

HelixNotes app’s integration with KDE/QT is abysmal.

It lacks spell check/dictionary support.

It memory consumption is low, not less compared to KDE GhostWriter or KDE Marknote. When it starts it takes about 500+ MiB. Which falls to about 270-315 MiB. This is without any GIT or any cloud service integration ernabled. It would be ideal if HelixNotes memory usage is about 100 MiB and goes upto 250 MiB.

8

Seeing as it is using WebKitGTK for rendering the UI, treat it the way you treat a web browser - it will not match your system theme accurately unless you install the exact theme it uses. Or write a CSS theme for it that matches your system theme.

As far as the double title bar is concerned, and based on all the Tauri apps I’ve tested in the last few weeks, the title bar will never be native unless the app was built with a setting to turn off CSD. But, the double title bar can be fixed since only HelixNotes has displayed this behaviour.

The developer hasn’t included spellchecking, but he seems to be working on it.
See here: https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes/-/work_items/264

9

Just sharing a first feeling here: I am a 2 year user of Notesnook, but I installed HelixNotes 2 days ago on my EOS desktop and Android phone, sync the notes with Syncthing, and imported all my +200 Notesnook notes…
So far… I am VERY pleased. I will share more after one or two weeks, but it seems to be a real game changer in the notes field. :clap:

10

You will find bugs based on your usage, but for the most part, it’s doing the things I need it to do.

Looking forward to your mini review. Include all the bugs you find and feature requests, I’ll see if I can replicate them then report them on your behalf if you don’t have a GitLab account.

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I wanted to upvote on the bugs and give my comments related to HelixNotes in GitLab but it is asking for my cell as part of registration without any alternate recourse. Dont want to giving my details out blindly.

I hope the devs of HelixNotes are watching this post. If they are they need to get QT/KDE integration done properly. Get the apps memory consumption down. If No network is required then kill the Network process. And finally get a spell checker incorporated. Ideally depending on the linux’s installed spell checker. Not like Firefox which bundles it along with the application.

12

Were you using a VPN when signing up? I signed up with only email and password. Also, were you using a mobile device? I notice that some websites will give different sign-up options on mobile.

In any case, I just pretended to sign up from a private window in Firefox on desktop, and email was the first option.

If you are talking about the double title bar, again the only way for them to fix this is to have the application request that the window manager doesn’t display its native title bar. Another option is to redesign the app’s header so the minimise/maximise/close buttons are not baked into the header.

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Not the double title bar. I get it that it is using Tauri Framework (a good thing) and the double title bar might be cost of living with it. Doesnt bother me so much.

I am talking about integrating with the QT/KDE themes, colour schemes, etc.

The biggest bug bear is offcourse the lack of spell check. It should be possible to integrate with the existing packages, like aspell, hunspell, etc. Again not sure how much importance do the devs of HelixNotes provide it.

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Again, themes for apps like these should be treated like a web browser - they generally don’t integrate well, regardless of the chromium switch, which I actually don’t like the implementation of anyway. And being that themes are subjective, they are technically unimportant so long as the provided themes aren’t horrible.

But I agree with the spellcheck, and I’ve already submitted a feature request for it. So now we just have to wait to see what happens. I’m now seeing that someone voted against it; I’m guessing the same person who mentioned that it was working on mobile and did not want it several bug reports ago.

15

Thank you for working with the project to write separate bugs. Helps allot that you comb through the product. in Fact I am now running Helixnote to play around with it as it matures. Spell check is essential for me. Definitely nicer looking then my Obsidian setup.

16

Glad you appreciate it.

If it were on GitHub, I would’ve not been so enthusiastic about helping it get better. Though, I would probably still use it.

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It takes a certain level of discipline to take the time to re-test, write and then work with the development resource to find a solution. Sometimes the most people will do is add a comment to the bug that they are experiencing it. I hope more people will make the effort even half as much as you. That is how we get quality products.

If you need help re-testing some of your bugs, feel free to message me.