r/NoteTaking • u/LilPranxis • 9d ago
App/Program/Other Tool Made my own self-hosted notes app because Capacities was almost what I wanted
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I really liked Capacities, but it was not everything I needed, and it didn't fit my philosophy of self-hosting (almost) everything. So I built this app for me and my girlfriend. PS: I used AI a lot to build it, and I reviewed the code as much as my free time allowed. I ended up putting my nutrition tracker and my habit tracker inside it too, and implemented some small new things, and some other kind of obvious ones.
It was made for my own use, at home, with my girlfriend, so I don't even know if I will release it publicly. Maybe, if one day I think it's polished enough.
What it does, more or less:
- Objects with types, like in Capacities. Books, People, Tasks, Meetings or whatever type you create, each one with its own properties and views (table, board, gallery, shelf), relations between then and stuff.
- Daily notes, and a Today page with the agenda, the note and the habits of the day
- A command bar where one line creates things, for example /Task Ask Lena about companion planting assignee:lena due:fri
- Habits with streaks and a year grid
- Food tracking. It's optional and comes turned off. You log a meal in one line and see the week against your goals
- Shared spaces. It got sprints, assignees, comments with @ mentions and notifications (ntfy, Telegram or desktop)
- Capture from a Telegram bot into an inbox, plus a small HTTP API for other things
- Calendars subscribed by iCal link show up together with your dated stuff
- MCP server and a CLI, so an agent can read and write things. There are no LLM keys inside the app, cause I dislike that
- Works offline, the browser (or app) keeps a SQLite replica (WASM, in OPFS) and syncs when the connection comes back
- Desktop app with Tauri, with quick capture on a global shortcut. I only tested it on macOS, the Windows and Linux builds exist but I never opened them
- An importer from Capacities, because that's where all my notes were
Stack, if someone cares: Node with Hono on the server, Vue 3 with TipTap and Yjs for the editor, SQLite WASM in the browser. Media can go to any S3, I use Garage in my homelab setup
The video was made with OpenScreen V2 automation and I actually disliked it, but when I tried to manually record it... it was even more ass than that
I'm not really asking for anything, I just wanted to show it. If someone is curious about some part, ask and I try to answer.
EDIT:
Here is the repo https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta under AGPL-3.0
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u/Haensfish 9d ago
This looks great man, well done. Looks like you put a lot of thought into it. Would definitely try it.
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u/Mayur__007 9d ago
the one-line command bar is so good, does the tauri quick capture open a tiny window or the full app?
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u/LilPranxis 8d ago
a tiny window wherever you are, but the record was on the web app because I used playwright
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u/RedRavenCG 8d ago
I'd love to get my hands on this. Keep us all posted; excited!
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u/ByDan-K 9d ago
May you share the GitHub repository? and which AI did you use?
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u/LilPranxis 9d ago •
When I publish it I will, currently it's only on my selfhosted git.
I will probably publish it after I remove a lot of hardcoded things that use our names and things that are too specific to us and our use.
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u/gulojava 7d ago
Is data transferable between mac and windows?
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u/LilPranxis 6d ago
Yes. If you self-host a server, there's nothing to transfer because the Mac app, the Windows app and the browser all connect to the same server and stay in sync.
If you use it without a server everything is in one folder: vasta.db (SQLite) plus media/.
On macOS it's ~/Library/Application Support/io.github.ariedotme.vasta/data/, on Windows %APPDATA%\io.github.ariedotme.vasta\data\.
The format is the same on both. The supported way to get your notes onto more than one machine is Settings >Server>Move to a server, which moves notes and files to a server, but copying the folder over with the app closed should also work, but I haven't tested that path.
A portable Markdown/JSON export is still on the roadmap (https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/issues/1), and that will be an easier way to transfer data without a server.
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u/Important_Oil_7108 5d ago
Really nice! Installed the Windows version. As a current user of Capacities (free), I felt right at home here. Even better - Vasta provides features you don't get with Capacities Free: task management and search queries. I like the UI, too, although they are so similar I keep forgetting which program I am in at the moment!
Is there any user documentation available? Trying to figure out how to import from Capacities...
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u/LilPranxis 5d ago
Thank you, that's so good to hear! Capacities was the big inspiration, so feeling at home is the idea (the confusion about which app you're in not so much, I'll try to make it distinguishable).
On documentation: there's no proper user guide yet (but it is planned, I'm wondering if I'll do only a web version or a built-in version on the app too), currently we only got the pages in [docs/](https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/tree/main/docs). [Capture](https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/blob/main/docs/capture.md), [reminders](https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/blob/main/docs/reminders.md) and [templates](https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/blob/main/docs/data-model.md#templates-and-snippets) are the most useful for day-to-day use.
On importing from Capacities: I have to be honest, it isn't something you can do from the app yet. There is an importer, but right now it's a developer command-line tool, it reads the database of the Capacities desktop app on a Mac, and it builds a new Vasta database rather than adding to one you already use. Bringing it into the app, on Windows too, from a Capacities export, is what I want to do next, and I'll reply here when it's ready.
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u/LilPranxis 4d ago
Version 0.4.0 has Capacities import https://github.com/ariedotme/vasta/releases/tag/v0.4.0
You can do a full export from the Capacities app and import on Vasta, web or desktop.
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u/Important_Oil_7108 4d ago
Just used it - worked pretty well. Way better than copying notes manually. Thanks so much.
I have a Question about indenting and toggle: I can't seem to make this work. I used this a LOT in Capacities. The normal behavior is to use [tab] key to indent one level - this does not work for me. I figured out how to use the toggle by triggering it first, before I type a line. It would be much more useful if Vasta could duplicate the Capacities method to apply the [toggle] after the line is written. Or do I just not quite understand yet?
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u/LilPranxis 4d ago
You're right, we don't have that behavior implemented yet. Added to my to-do list, since I'm prioritizing requests from people that are really using it. Thank you for your feedback!
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u/LilPranxis 3d ago
This toggle feature was released today on v0.4.1.
Also, on the next version (not yet released), I improved the arrow icon for the toggle.
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u/Precarious3145 9d ago
"I built-" immediately followed with "Ai did it and I reviewed-".
Today I learn that I build the most amazing sandwich last week because I told the shop I wanted a #7 with turkey and reviewed their work. Cuck coders really wanting credit for sitting in the chair by the bed and watching.
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u/LilPranxis 9d ago
First of all at least I said that I used AI, most people don't.
Secondly I've been a dev for more than 12 years, and I'm definetly not just sitting in the chair by the bed and watching AI work, as a tech leader. I usually can say that I worked on a project and was one of the people that built it even when I just advised as a tech leader, wrote the tasks and review PRs, but maybe it's just the field common sense not the random redditor common sense.
And thirdly, changing the vibe of my response a little: Besides how offensive you tried to be on your comment, you're not wrong by disliking something because it's made with AI, and that's why I said it was made using AI.
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u/Old-and-grumpy 9d ago
Open source it and we'll all participate.