Looking for feedback on an ADHD-friendly notetaking software idea, long
None of the note-taking software I've seen has worked for me despite a ton of research (please don't recommend me existing things, I've probably already evaluated them!), so I've been thinking about building my own note-taking software.
And I'd like to ask y'all neurodiverse folks for your feedback of the ideas I have - particularly if you are also otherwise marginalized, and/or experience your neurodiversity as (partly) a disability. I'm curious whether this would also work for you.
(Feel free to reply also if you're not sure whether you fit into that category; if your instance isn't fediblocked here, chances are your feedback would be welcome)
Upfront disclaimers, before I get to the actual idea:
- I will be literally dependent on this software for my personal ability to function and I have very limited spoons, and so I won't run this as a community project, but instead make decisions by myself. I will however make it as easy to fork as I can, and make as many pieces as possible independently reusable. Community-run forks would be very much welcome.
- I may not reply to all feedback due to lack of available spoons, but I promise that I'll *read* all of it and take it into consideration.
- For all the same reasons, I don't even have a rough estimate of when this will be publicly usable, "it's done when it's done"
Alright, so, to get the boring-but-important bits out of the way first: it'll be FOSS (no open-core bullshit), perpetually non-commercial, and designed to run locally on desktop systems, primarily (but not exclusively) Linux. No magical cloud services.
So here's the idea:
- By default, adding a note involves nothing more than hitting a key combo, entering some text, hitting enter, and the window disappears again. Fire and forget, it's saved.
- All metadata (tagging etc., more detail below) will be handled through /slash commands; they can be placed anywhere in the note. Your input is entirely linear, no need to leave the keyboard or navigate UIs, and it works in the "fire and forget" process.
- Importantly, your input is live-interpreted and shown below the input box in a more 'graphical' format, so that you have immediate visual confirmation of what you've entered, without needing to mentally parse your own input commands.
Example inputs:
"feed cat /todo /time 18:00"
"/todo /project game // convert sprites"
- There's (fuzzy) full-text search through all notes, even the completely untagged ones, so that you can find them later even if you weren't in a good headspace at the moment of writing them. Likewise, /slash commands for search parameters exist.
- Notes can be tagged (eg. "project" or "todo"), have attributes added (eg. "deadline date" or "reference number" or whatever else), and they can have attachments.
- Attachments are not limited to files; they can be URLs (a local copy of the page will be made for HTTP URLs), references to e-mails, geo coordinates, whatever external thing is being referenced. This will be handled through plugins.
- Rich/formatted text will also be a (searchable) attachment, the main note text would then serve as a subject line of sorts.
- When adding an attachment, entering text yourself is optional. So you totally could just schedule a referenced e-mail for a deadline of 21:00 tomorrow without further input.
- Conversely, there will be plugins for several applications (browser, e-mail client, calendar application, etc.) that are basically "send to note pile", and that'll spawn the note-adding window with whatever you sent there prefilled as an attachment (and then you can add text or tags or whatever).
- Notes can also be attached to other notes, for cases where you need a hierarchical or wiki-like organization of notes.
- There will be some kind of not-yet-defined way to have alarms/lists based on deadlines/times/tags etc. that you've entered, to get an immediate idea of what needs to be done when.
Thoughts?
neurodiversity, capitalism, rant
I am really uncomfortable with the increasing amount of "ADHD coach"-type accounts on Twitter that continuously post "relatable" tweets seemingly just to advertise their courses or whatever, rather than out of any genuine desire to provide support to neurodiverse folks
I'm even more uncomfortable about these accounts seemingly often being run by actual neurodiverse folks, perpetuating harmful models of interaction to do a capitalism (ie. beyond "putting bread on the table"), instead of actually providing helpful advice directly
And I'm *really* not happy that I'm starting to see some of this stuff crop up on fedi as well
BREAKING: Disney warns that while piracy is safe, and it is convenient, and it does allow people to access high quality versions of music, movies, and TV shows for vastly reduced costs, that the hypothetical lost revenue may also impact their share price, and limit the capital on hand for political lobbying.
Remember: if you get Wikipedia "pls give us money" begging, give to the Internet Archive instead.
The internet archive is perpetually underfunded, whereas Wikipedia has enough cash on hand to continue operating at twice its capacity for about 3 decades.
Editors strongly opposed the wording of the recent beg banner:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statistics
Once again I am begging the void to produce an activitypub fediverse answer to bandcamp.
Labels, orgs, groups of punks host instances.
Bands create profiles. Can upload their music, organized by release with lyrics, art, metadata. Numerous download formats available. I don't really care about payment for music, but probably some integration with external payment platform (librepay?) for PWYC downloads goes here.
Profile is viewable by anyone. So far this is a self-hosted bandcamp clone (that also does not really exist as far as I know).
You can follow profiles from elsewhere on the fediverse and you'll get posts when the band publishes new songs/releases (with embedded player linking back to the media hosted on instance?) or posts other updates (tour dates! etc). (It should have RSS too)
We know a lot of nasties are also creeping on the fediblock tag looking for people to harass and abuse.
So if that ever makes you feel unsafe posting a fediblock toot, let me know in a DM along with receipts and I'll do it on your behalf, so you're not exposed to the creeps but that information to still make it out there to help others.
I'm happy to try to take some of the pressure off x
My objection to "progressive" does not come from a right-wing place, obviously, and I can ally and be friends with progressives since our goals frequently align. I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that human history progresses out of oppression and destruction. This is empirically false, and even normatively questionable given the fundamentally racist and Eurocentric conception of "progress" which has been used to justify genocide, the carceral state, ableist violence and more.
De Fokke & Sukke voor morgen. Ik plaats hem hier omdat ik wil experimenteren met Alt-Text.
Does this work for you, @oedipusnj ? @labellaragassa
politics-adjacent, infrastructure
A (paraphrased) description by someone I know, of the "fallacy of the factory", which describes a serious risk of centralized manufacturing:
You build a factory to manufacture something that people need. That requires a big investment, that the factory now needs to make back in some way, but the legitimate need isn't big enough to do so.
So now the manufacturer starts inducing demand, by lobbying, advertising the product, whatever is necessary to make back that investment. Eventually the demand exceeds production capacity, and the factory needs to expand, again requiring significant investment - plus surrounding infrastructure *also* needs to expand.
This cycle repeats until your small "factory with a legitimate purpose" has turned into a self-serving sprawling system that keeps expanding unsustainably, regardless of what exact economic system it exists under.
A quick reminder regarding the fediblock tag, we know a lot of the nasties are also creeping on that tag looking for people to bother. If you ever feel unsafe posting a fediblock toot let me know in a DM along with receipts and I'll do it on your behalf so you're not exposed to them in order for that information to still make it out there to help others.
I'm one of the least visibly marginalised people in the room here so it's a way to show support and take some of the pressure off x
Heads up for fans of the #Metatext #Mastodon app
- its lead developer @metabolist has stopped updating it, for health reasons.
If someone else would like to help out, please email them at info@metabolist.org
https://mastodon.social/@metabolist/109422457953717612
@actuallyautistic Does anyone have any helpful tips on the rage that comes up as you realize exactly how much ableism you've faced throughout your life? I'm generally very comfortable with anger and processing it but this is..........deep, lolsob.
ranting about hive social
who could have ever predicted a student coding project with three people working on it and over 2 million users would have multiple critical vulnerabilities?
"The issues we reported allow any attacker to access all data, including private posts, private messages, shared media and even deleted direct messages. This also includes private email addresses and phone numbers entered during login." https://zerforschung.org/posts/hive-en/
ranting about hive social
Hive is adding ~500k users daily, passing the 1 million user mark on Monday and then 2 million users earlier today. They're supported only by the 24-year-old founder, two employees, and zero moderators.
It's completely irresponsible for them to have unlimited signups when they can't possibly handle abuse, harassment, scams, spam, disinformation, or illegal content. https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-competitor-hive-social-run-by-24-year-old-founder-2022-11
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
- No alt text (request) = no boost.
- Boosts OK for all boostable posts.
- DMs are open.
- Flirting welcome, but be explicit if you want something out of it!
- The devil doesn't need an advocate; no combative arguing in my mentions.
Sometimes horny on main (behind CW), very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.