Whoa. My head’s buzzing after coding all the weekend (and the past one, and before that, but there was nothing to show, until now).
Cortex is finally taking on some shape. Lots more work to do before anything minimally usable though. While it might seem that everything is already on Github, most of it is proof-of-concept quality, at best. Have to write it yourself!
Now, to whet your appetite, here’s a screenshot :) Nothing fancy, but it means a lot of internal plumbing works!
For a bit of history, this would be Cortex 6.
The first one was started around 2005, by hacking on TiddlyWiki.
Then, in 2009, version 3 was born, with multi-user support and rudimentary synchronization over CouchDB. Sadly, can’t find any screenshots from that time.
Version 4, where the Cortex name originates, was the most successful, with tables, queries, backlinks and end2end encryption. Deployed in 3 companies, still used by one. It was also the first version featuring CRDT indexes which enabled a basic issue tracker, where you could create tasks, categorize, and comment them — without any servers.
Forget security or cloud lock-in fears, it was just too convenient to be able to go outside anytime, open your laptops and sync your notes and comments, while breathing real fresh air. Same goes for the flaky airport wifi. Never tried in-flight collab though :)
These days, you can edit your Google Doc on your phone, sure. But working together still requires Internet connection. And Microsoft, to much outrage, announced OneNote is going to lose that capability, too (did you knew it was possible to sync OneNote over the network share until 2018? It seems MS was really caught by surprise that someone really needs to work offline — to hold exams, to revisit stuff while riding the subway, etc etc)
Version 5 was supposed to be the first public release, but then… life happened. Also, I was doubtful if the bidirectional links are really that important, as they weren’t really understood or appreciated by people I was talking to at the time.
Then, I discovered Roam, with all the #roamcult around it. At first I was a bit envious, of course. But after seeing Roam lagging and losing my data, I realized that “whatever man has done, man may do” and it’s time to revive Cortex again.
Next time, I’ll draft… goals? priorities? dunno. Things I find important for this project.
Stay tuned :)