I’m currently looking to develop an open source app that can help somebody. I’m currently out of ideas, so I’d like to heard if from you guys.

Sorry if it seems to lazy to ask for ideas like that, I just thought that I could do it since the result will be a free app.

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
    0·
    26 days ago

    I was going to write “a decent comic reader”, but I’ve recently discovered Kotatsu and it has literally changed my life.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    0·
    26 days ago

    Obsidian.

    Markor is a great open source markdown editor for android, but I wish we had some decent WYSIWYG options, like obsidian, typora, etc.

      • krash@lemmy.ml
        0·
        26 days ago

        I used Joplin extensively for ~2 years, but I was constantly put off by the desktop applications UI and how my notes was stored in SQLite. The move to obsidian felt natural and I felt more in ownership over my files in their existing structure. Granted, obsidian is closed source and could go rogue, but when that happens, I am prepared to jump ship without too much pain.

        • d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          26 days ago

          Exactly. Not a huge fan of notes apps storing the data in a db.otherwise there is a lot to like about joplin. With obsidian i open my notes in codium all the time to make mass edits or fill gaps that obsidians UI cant meet, which is not possible with joplin.

          Fortunately with obsidian as long as you keep the plugins on the lighter side and keep any non-markdown content in seperate files via linking, im not too worried about having to jump ship if it ever goes bad. Worst case if a plugin dies or i have to migrate, the actual loss of data is that some plugin used json or whatever and it’d have to be converted or replaced.

          I do have hope at least that if the company folds they’ll open source it, or turn a blind eye to a community reengineering effort. And what is unique about obsidian markdown and metadata will probably get community-built migration tools quickly if enough people jump ship en masse.

          But for the time being Obsidian is the best option for me and i dont feel that bad about it.

          • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
            0·
            26 days ago

            I don’t see the hate for storing data in a sqlite database. It’s still your data, you get to do with it as you please, and I’ve yet to see the data encrypted (let’s not give anyone any silly ideas here). You want to see your data outside of the program, just download any sqlite viewer. If you don’t mind CLI, then the tools provided by sqlite are more than good enough and are only a few MB in size.

            • d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              0·
              25 days ago

              Generally speaking I’m not opposed to sqlite. The case of a notes app is the one exception.

              If i need to make a big find and replace change, i dont need to rely on the app to have the capability or whip out a sql editor or cli tool. I just open my favorite text editor and do it. Or chain some cli tools built into the os.

              Its not even about data portability or export. Its about working with the data.

        • nix@midwest.socialEnglish
          0·
          25 days ago

          IMO Obsidian is already a little rogue, in the sense that it only supports their sync. I know you can glue something together by syncing the folder itself, but that’s not convenient or the point. For now I’ll stick with Joplin because it works with nextcloud nicely.

          • krash@lemmy.ml
            0·
            24 days ago

            There is at least plugins that enables sync by alternative ways. They’re not as elegant, but work.

            Since everything, including settings, is stored in the same root folder as the notes - you can sync your settings along your notes through other tools too.

        • Opisek@lemmy.world
          0·
          26 days ago

          I used Joplin for up to 8 hours daily for half a year (university) before switching to Obsidian, too. As far as I know, Joplin lets you store the notes as files, too, but you need to set it up that way from the start.

          Still, I found Obsidian to be much more pleasant and - ironically - easier to modify (by writing plugins) than Joplin.

    • 5ymm3trY@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      26 days ago

      I am not an excessive note-taking guy, but I am using Notesnook for some time now and it does everything I needed so far.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
        0·
        26 days ago

        Seems okay, but doesn’t allow editing of local files / folders, it wants you to use their paid sync service. Also its javascript / electron, not native android.

    • t0fr@lemmy.ca
      0·
      26 days ago

      Doesn’t have exactly the same.features but I’ve simply been using Logseq syncing my notes with Syncthing

  • 5ymm3trY@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    26 days ago

    File Explorer

    I haven’t checked in a while, but I am still using CX File Explorer because I didn’t find a FOSS alternative I like. Maybe it is just because I am used to it, but one thing I really like is the network feature that you can access local shares of a NAS.

    • TurboWafflz@lemmy.world
      0·
      26 days ago

      Honestly I feel like good mobile file managers are just like impossible with the small screen size. I just do everything from termux

    • kosmoz@lemm.ee
      0·
      26 days ago

      Have you tried Material Files (it’s on fdroid)? It’s genuinely great and it supports different remote protocols, although I haven’t personally tried this feature.

  • MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub
    0·
    26 days ago

    Something that comes up a lot but probably can’t be made open source is a wallet app. But if we ignore the payments part, Google wallet has some really nice features when dealing with plane tickets which I’d love to see in a standalone open source app.

  • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
    0·
    26 days ago

    If you’re interested in something that doesn’t even exist, and should be more-or-less straightforward:

    Music/podcast app that will accept VST plugins (there are many FOSS ones, as well as non-FOSS ones) so that we can compress/limit the sound range on podcasts while in the car. Or even a built-in compressor/limiter that’s based on FOSS compressors.

    I was listening to a hysterical podcast episode between three people, but one of mics was way louder than the other two. I had to take it into Pro Tools and fix it myself before listening to it.

    There are apps that allow EQ, but none that do actual compression, from what I can tell.

    • dion_starfire@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      25 days ago

      The ability to automatically detect commercials (via sound level / machine learning) and skip them would be amazing as well. There’s an app for iOS that does this, but nothing for Android.

        • flying_wotsit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          26 days ago

          ah, hopefully with the Digital Markets Act in the EU, reliable bridging to Matrix with E2EE intact will come quickly. You can already bridge (e.g. I run mautrix-whatsapp), but its not in an ideal state

          • delirious_owl@discuss.online
            0·
            26 days ago

            Even with a matrix bridge, you still have to run WhatsApp – the official closed source client. It doesn’t solve that problem

            I want a way to not have to run closed source software to communicate with users on WhatsApp

        • flying_wotsit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          26 days ago

          depends what you mean by closer – by features and ease of use, Matrix is the closest you can get to Whatsapp right now. XMPP is good, though!

          • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            26 days ago

            What I mean by closer is code-wise. On the backend, WhatsApp literally uses XMPP. The big difference is that WhatsApp also has a few proprietary plugins, and a singular client that uses these and hides away the fact that it’s all XMPP.

    • bazmatazable@reddthat.com
      0·
      26 days ago

      This and so many others that are irreplaceable because of the Network effect. Google Maps, Uber and so on…

      However if you are looking for a self contained app to bring into the Foss ecosystem then I would recommend making a game that you like?

      My first game that I bought on Google Play was Osmos making a version of this that is open source would make me happy…

              • delirious_owl@discuss.online
                0·
                25 days ago

                Yeah and not just once. Iirc if their proprietary, closed-source app doesnt call home to their mother ship at least every 2 weeks, then all your WhatsApp Web sessions get deauth’d.

                We really need a way to use WhatsApp without using the original spyware app.

                • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  25 days ago

                  Well even if someone creates it, it will still act like a web session. It will just be a frontend. You can’t create a separate app with authentication and everything because it’s proprietary (so you can’t see how authentication works) and messages are E2EE

    • abominable_panda@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      26 days ago

      Edit: someones already mentioned these below… nevermind!

      If youre in the EU then EU parliament forced whatsapp to start developing cross-app communications with Signal, telegram etc. (Source). This was in 2022 and was due to be released in March 2024. Im not sure where it got to though since i dont use whatsapp, though i might start asking some friends to see if its rolled out.

      Alternatively there are “matrix bridges”. Namely via Matrix which can link messaging apps through matrix accounts and send messages between

        • Vik@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          26 days ago

          I see, fair enough. I don’t know if you’ll have any luck with a FOSS third party client which does t violate their TOS. There was something on fdroid years ago, a wrapper that effectively allowed you to use WhatsApp Web on another phone (or perhaps even the same one), but it ultimately requried the use of the official clients

            • Vik@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              25 days ago

              Yes, I already aluded to this. Point being, I don’t think you’ll find a viable FOSS front end since it would violate their TOS.

                • Vik@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  25 days ago

                  It is to

                  A: the continuity of said project (DMCA) and B: to the individual end users.

                  You can use FOSS clients for things like Discord or the Google play store but you still run the risk of getting banned.

  • AlexCory21@lemmy.world
    0·
    26 days ago

    A nutrition tracker where you can enter what foods you eat into a small database. And then when you eat meals you can check those foods off in order to calculate all of the nutrition facts consumption per day. And it could be expanded even further by adding graphs and reports such as Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.

    Could track Calories, Vitamins, Minerals, and other specific nutrition stats. Most nutrition apps I’ve seen only track Calories… Or don’t have accurate nutrition applied to specific foods as it is generic. Letting the user add the food as a item in a small database would give the user more control of how the stats and reports are calculated.

    Could be helpful for some to see their intake and then figure out ways to change it to become healthier.

    • tinsmith@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      26 days ago

      Also, export the graphs/reports to PDF, or something easy to pass to a doctor.

      Maybe a dev can take inspiration from the Yuka app. To their credit, they have put together a great database for scanning foods and comparing ingredients, as well as offering understand of the possible risks of those ingredients.

    • Matt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      25 days ago

      Isn’t this literally what Waistline is for Android? You create your own local food database (which you can automatically fetch info from Open Food Facts or USDA if desired, but not required) which lets you put in as many nutriments to track as you wish, all with graphs and information with different timelines.

      No clue if there’s anything like this for desktop.

      • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        26 days ago

        Thx but it is not as fast as “markup” or huawei’s screenshot tool. You need multiple steps in order to crop a simple image.

    • mranderson17@infosec.pub
      0·
      26 days ago

      What android OS do you use? On stock Android 14 (GrapheneOS, but it’s not a GOS feature) this functionality is built into the stock screenshot tool.

      pwr+voldown -> tap screenshot that appears in the overlay after you take it -> tap the crop tool . I suppose step three could be removed but what if you want to do something that isn’t cropping? There are lots of other features so at some point you have to tell the tool what you want to do.

      • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        26 days ago

        Grapheneos. Do you mean “markup”? Look in the “apps” app for it. It’s a proprietary app by google

        • mranderson17@infosec.pub
          0·
          26 days ago

          No, I don’t have markup installed (it is there in apps but not installed from the mirror).

          I think in my case the screenshot functionality is built into AOSP and the editor you get when tapping the resulting preview overlay in the lower left corner of the screen is part of the “gallery” app since using the “edit” feature from gallery launches the same editor. Maybe GrapheneOS just sets that as the default editor, I’m not sure.

            • mranderson17@infosec.pub
              0·
              26 days ago

              AOSP gallery that comes with GrapheneOS. The app info says it’s called com.android.gallery3d. There’s some info here in the docs about the relationship between camera, edit functions, and the gallery app.

              • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
                0·
                26 days ago

                Thx.

                It currently opens an external editor activity for the edit action.

                I don’t have a dedicated gallery app or editor installed. I can’t find anything in apps either besides markup. Maybe my installation is too old.