Hello, I'm Kévin (@zecakeh), and I'm here to tell you about some of my recent contributions to EteSync Notes.

Here I was, back in December, still trying to find a good notes app. Those were my criteria:

• Open source
• Available on Android and Linux (or be compatible with other apps)
• Sync easily between my devices
• Nice look
• Have simple styling of notes
• Support simple to-do lists

And the extras:

• Self-hostable
• Encrypted
• A WYSIWYG editor
• Adapt to the screen size

I stumbled upon the brand new EteSync Notes app. After playing with it for a few minutes, I realized it didn't check all the boxes, but had a lot of potential: it was already fully functional and needed just a bit of polish. Since I was also looking into contributing to a community project at the time, I took a look at the repository and found out it was using React Native, which I was already familiar with, and I agreed with most of the feature requests in the issues. It was time to start my journey with the EteSync Notes project!

My first contribution

Since projects are not always very active, I decided to start with a small problem to see if help was welcome. It was something that was annoying me and was already mentioned in one of the issues: the FAB on the notes list would go over the dialog to create a new note when the keyboard was up. Working on an UI problem would allow me to do it quickly because I was already familiar with the framework and to familiarize myself with the code without having to dig too deeply. And here's the result:

I created a Pull Request and was amazed when it was reviewed and accepted one hour later! This motivated me even more!

Keeping it coming

Since then, I have kept going through the issues in the repository, or the ones I have encountered. That allowed me to have a better understanding of how the app worked little by little and to work on more complicated tasks. And when I had questions, I just needed to go to the IRC/Matrix Chat and ask.
Here are some notable improvements I have worked on:

What's coming next

A few things I might be working on next:

• Adaptive view on large screen with a split view
• Make the app feel more native on web with a pointer on links and visual change on hover
• Import/export notes
• Search notes
• Desktop versions?
• Improve integration with GNOME: GOA, GNOME Notes…
• Whatever you want…

I really want to thank Tom for being so approachable, available, helpful and patient with his reviews.

We are happy to announce the first version of EteSync Notes! 🎉🎉🎉

IMPORTANT: EteSync Notes requires an EteSync 2.0 account.

EteSync Notes is the first new app to use the EteSync 2.0 protocol. As we mentioned in a previous post, a big part of the motivation behind EteSync 2.0 is what it enables for the future of EteSync. EteSync Notes is the first fruit of that effort.

Getting started

EteSync Notes depends on the EteSync 2.0 protocol, as such, it requires an EteSync 2.0 account. EteSync 2.0 is still in beta, though it has been tested by many users over the last month and it's been working very well.

To get an EteSync 2.0 beta account, please refer to the beta announcement post.

Once you've migrated your account to EteSync 2.0 (or signed up for a new one), you can start using the notes app!

You can get it from:

• Google Play
• iOS App Store
• F-Droid
• Web client
• Source Code

What's next for EteSync Notes

While this is only the first release, it's already quite stable and feature complete (even includes a dark theme!). With that being said, we are aware that some features are missing, and that there may be some issues. So please, report issues as you find them.

There are a few things missing that we are aware of and plan on addressing soon, namely:

• Labels (tags) for organising the notes.
• File and image attachments.
• Improved markdown support (e.g. checkboxes).
• A rich text editor
• Improve the look and feel of the web client
• Show the revision history per note

Please open a ticket if we missed anything important.

A quick tour

EteSync notes uses Markdown for note formatting. Markdown is a rich formatting language that is easy to write by hand (cheatsheet). In the future we will have a nicer rich text editor that lets you editor Markdown files using the GUI, but until then, you can just use Markdown.

Like all EteSync apps, EteSync Notes support securely sharing notes between users. In order to share a note you need to create a new notebook and share that notebook with other users. After you do that, all the notes in that notebook will be encrypted and shared automatically.

The EteSync Notes app uses the same concepts you are already familiar with from EteSync. This includes a full change history for all of your notes! The change history is not currently visible in the app, but it's all kept behind the scenes.

Thank you NLnet and NGI0

EteSync Notes is based on EteSync 2.0, and the work on EteSync 2.0 is made possible with financial support from NLnet Foundation, courtesy of NGI0 Discovery and the European Commission DG CNECT's Next Generation Internet programme.

The NLnet foundation in general and the NGI0-PET in particular is funding projects to protect everyone's digital privacy, especially in the context of the "next generation" of the internet. It's an extremely important cause which we at EteSync are very much aligned with. Please help by spreading the word about them.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

We are happy to announce that EteSync 2.0 is now ready for testers! Are you interested in helping us with testing? Please read on! Not sure what is EteSync 2.0? Please read our previous post on the topic.

Introduction

We have been working on EteSync 2.0 for the last six months, though in a sense for a lot longer. It incorporates a lot of the feedback we got from you over the years, and the things we have learned in the three and a half years of running this service. As mentioned in our previous post, a lot of the changes are behind the scenes and will enable us to build on top of, though there are a few changes that are worth mentioning here again as they are important for testers.

1. EteSync 2.0 uses usernames for identification (rather than emails previously), so you will need to choose a new username. Usernames should be at least 6 characters long. Shorter usernames will probably be allowed in the future. Changing your email and username will both be possible later on.
2. EteSync 2.0 has just one password that's used for both the encryption, and the login. It uses a zero-knowledge proof to authenticate to the server making sure your password never leaves your device. Please make sure to keep it safe and don't lose it, as without it you won't be able to access your data!
3. The change log (previously change journal) used to show all of the changes in one long list. Changes are now grouped per item with only the latest changed shown. To show previous changes you need to click on an item and check the past revisions.
4. Invitations UI is a bit different, and there's now a special page for accepting or rejecting invitations, and it's now also easier to leave collections you've been invited for.
5. "Journal" has now been renamed to "Collection", which is a more accurate term and people find it less confusing.

In addition to the above, we also improved the clients while working on them. Especially the web UI which should now be faster and easier to use than ever. There may also be some other changes we forgot to mention.

How to start testing

As mentioned above, EteSync 2.0 uses usernames instead of emails and has a different authentication mechanism. This means that EteSync 2.0 accounts are internally new accounts that need to be created.

If you are new to EteSync and would like to give it a go, you can signup directly from the new web and Android clients (links below).

If you already use EteSync 1.0, there is a migration tool that automatically handles both the account creation and migrating your data over (including the full change history). It's currently only available for the web client, but will soon also be available for the Android and iOS clients.

There are migration tools available for migrating your account. The easiest is probably the web based migration tool which is available here: EteSync 2.0 migration tool. The Android app comes with its own migration tool. You can access it by clicking on the account you would like to migrate, then the top-right menu, and then "EteSync 2.0 Migration".

The migration tool only copies your data over, so if you change your mind, you can always go back to version 1.0. Just be aware that new changes made to 2.0 won't sync back to 1.0 and vice-versa, so you will have to copy them over manually if you change back to 1.0.

To make testing easier, billing is currently disabled for EteSync 2.0 accounts, they are all on infinite trials. We will however turn billing on for all EteSync 2.0 accounts in the next few weeks, and will automatically link your existing EteSync accounts to the EteSync 2.0 accounts using your email address so billing information will be transferred over automatically. Edit: billing is now turned on for EteSync 2.0.

Here are links for the EteSync 2.0 compatible apps:

• Android: available on the Play Store and F-Droid.
• Web
• EteSync-DAV (DAV Bridge) - Version 0.30.0 or newer
• iOS: available on the App Store
• GNOME (Evolution): ready
• KDE (Kontact and etc): ready
• External apps:
  • OpenTasks: works.
  • Tasks.org: works with the new OpenTasks-like integration.

What is there to test? Everything. A few of us already use EteSync 2.0 instead of EteSync 1.0 and it works very well, however we realise that there may be some bugs lying around. So please, report every issue you see. You can do it either in the respective bug trackers, by mail, or our chat (see links at the bottom of the post).

We are aware that not all of the strings have been updated (e.g. some dialogs still refer to 1.0 journals), and on Android we still haven't implemented restoring an item to a specific state or sending email invitations, and the signup flow needs some more work, but other than that, everything should work. So please, report every issue you encounter.

If you are self-hosting, the server is available here, though it doesn't yet have all of the easy-config stuff that EteSync 1.0 had that made self-hosting easier. We will port them over in the coming weeks.

What's coming soon

As said in the original post, EteSync 2.0 brings with it a lot of improvements, but in addition to the improvements to the existing EteSync apps, where it really shines is what it enables us to do next.

We aren't ready to get into details just yet, but we plan on bringing in some long-awaited features such as notes synchronization and secure location sharing. These, however, are just the tip of the iceberg. We have a lot more coming, so expect a few more announcements in the coming month or two which will make EteSync a more complete solution for your data syncing needs!

As for the EteSync 2.0 release itself, we don't have an exact date yet, but it's imminent. There are no major bugs that we are aware of, and everything seems to be working well. We would just like to have more people test it, so we can be extra sure that everything works as smoothly as it should.

Developers: using the EteSync protocol in your app

Over the years many developers have reached out to us about adding end-to-end encryption to their applications. Building end-to-end encrypted applications is both hard to get right, and very time consuming, so using an existing solution makes a lot of sense, especially since EteSync is versatile and isn't limited to contacts, calendars and tasks.

We are now also ready for developers. For more information, please take a look at the developer homepage (Etebase).

Thank you NLnet and NGI0

The work on EteSync 2.0 is made possible with financial support from NLnet Foundation, courtesy of NGI0 Discovery and the European Commission DG CNECT's Next Generation Internet programme.

The NLnet foundation in general and the NGI0-PET in particular is funding projects to protect everyone's digital privacy, especially in the context of the "next generation" of the internet. It's an extremely important cause which we at EteSync are very much aligned with. Please help by spreading the word about them.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

With all of the work on the iOS client and improving the EteSync DAV bridge, we forgot to mention some of the web clients improvements that got in recently. We have implemented a few long requested features, fixed a very annoying bug and some other smaller but still annoying ones.

One the biggest features that has been implemented recently is the Timezone support. Before this recent improvements it wasn't possible to edit event timezones, and it wasn't always clear what's going on when editing events that have a timezone. This has now been fixed and editing timezones works as expected!

Recurring events support was added to the web client almost from the beginning, though while you were always able to view them, you were not able to create them. This has changed recently when Tal Leibman took to the task and added the ability to edit an event's recurrence rule. Huge kudos, and thanks a lot from all of us who use recurring events. :)

As said above, there have been a myriad of bug fixes, to all areas of the web client. We fixed a bug creating causing issues when initiating new accounts, another bug with verifying files are not malformed when importing, and many other issues. Though the most annoying issue has to be with how we used to deal with "grouped vobject properties". You probably noticed it when some of your contact phone numbers weren't recognised as phone numbers, but were rather showing as auxiliary fields. We added a workaround to fix this, because this was not actually a bug in the web client, but rather a bug with ical.js, the library we use for vobject parsing.

In addition, we are happy to announce that we started working on significantly improving and redesigning the tasks management part of the web client. This has been a long requested feature echoed by quite a few people. The work, as currently planned, is based on the suggestions in this ticket, so please comment there and let us know if you have any thoughts regarding how this should look and what it should include. You can also follow the pull request live, as it progresses.

There is also another tasks related surprise we have planned that we hope to announce in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Oh and in case you missed it, we are now also on reddit, come and join us there!

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

Until next time!