Nope, we haven't. Part of that is we are trying to help you save content from many places and be able to provide great search for you as well, which means we need to be able to index the content server side. We do encrypt the content server side, making the content inaccessible to anyone at Journal without explicitly accessing the decryption keys, for which we have an audit trail. Also makes it harder for someone to access your content if for some reason we got hacked.
You don’t need to make it server side, but it certainly is easier. But client side is totally doable. You can compress word embeddings and search them with great accuracy.
I'm not sure how foolproof the encryption is if I can know every word you have typed in each note. Sure I can't make sense of the full structure but I'll know exactly what you've written about, so I'm not sure that's any more effective.
The way I see it, if you want your notes to be encrypted while also cloud synced and searchable, there are only two options I can think of:
1. Store your notes in an encrypted file (sqlite) on the cloud and sync the entire file locally every time you login (and push updates somehow). Roam does this but wirhout encryption and it sucks so bad (opening the site takes tens of seconds if not more) because of that.
2. The product promises to store everything encrypted; data is instantly written to an encrypted personal sqlite db on the cloud (you alone have the decryption key, it's not saved in the server). Much more seamless experience.
Im _also_ trying to create my own notes app, because I'm convinced I can create an app that can support a thousand users for the same cloud cost as a single roam research subscription. Current immediate plan is not to encrypt the notes, but my eventual plan is to try 2. If there are any other workflows that don't degrade user experience that can still encrypt everything client side, I'm interested to know more!
> The product promises to store everything encrypted; data is instantly written to an encrypted personal sqlite db on the cloud (you alone have the decryption key, it's not saved in the server)
It's not really clear where does the encryption/decryption happen in this scenario (client/server).
Any way, in my app (https://github.com/zadam/trilium), I encrypt on the client (not the whole database, on a per-note basis), sync with the server already encrypted data when internet is available (fine granularity so small and fast sync) and search happens completely on the client (which has full offline database and decryption key).
As a self hosted app encryption protects against a bit different threats so encryption is done only on request for particular notes (since it implies annoying "enter password").
We actually do use this technique in our search (nearest neighbors on document embeddings). Collaboration is a big part of what we want to do as well, so client side encryption gets even hairier. It might be doable, but I think the effort to get that to work properly may not be the best use of time for a small company trying to build a valuable product first :).
Look up tf-idf. We used this technique to build a similar product (now open sourced[0]) to Journal actually, building off an improved version of tf-idf called CoSaL[1].
Orbit is actually an insanely ambitious take on this problem space. The CoSaL algorithm is in there, it even runs using a forked version of Spotify’s C optimized algorithm.
We currently integrate with Evernote making your Evernote notes searchable and viewable from Journal, but we intend to make that a converter into Journal very soon.
Are there other tools you'd like us to support import from?
Currently, you can't, but great suggestion! My background is in Machine Learning and I'd love to have that myself. What would be your preferred way to get math notation into notes? What do you think about a LaTeX formula inserter like http://mathquill.com/
Hey, great questions:
- We do support markdown as you're typing (they're turned into the appropriate element as you type). Currently, pasting markdown has some bugs, but we definitely intend to fix those soon.
- Right now, you export a single note as a PDF. I figure you're asking, "can I export all my notes and take them with me". The answer to that is currently no, but we fully intend to support that. And if you need that in the meantime, we'll definitely do a one-time export for you.
- Yes, you can create checkboxes in markdown, and we also have simple checklists ala Google Keep as objects. However, we don't have complex todo features such as due dates, assignees, dependencies, etc.
Thanks, very nice to hear =). Looking forward to your feedback!
1. Thanks for letting us know! I'll definitely look into that to see if we can submit to Microsoft.
2. On the bottom right of the app, there's a support button that opens a menu. Click Share Feedback and send us a message there. Thanks!
Great point, definitely need to add the pricing to our website!
And no, we're not an open source app. In terms of pricing, we have a Free tier and a $10/month "Journal Plus" tier.
Currently the differences between Free vs. Journal Plus are:
1. number of app integrations (2 vs. unlimited)
2. amount of data synchronized from those apps (last 14 days vs. years)
3. file size upload limit (10MB vs. unlimited)
One commitment I can make is that we'll never monetize off of your data or by dumping algorithmic ads on you. So, to do that, we're creating a subscription scheme that allows us to provide some powerful but expensive features, but also provide a very useful free tier.
Honestly, we're so early we don't have a take out process yet. But we definitely want to support that when people ask, and it also means that since we don't have a process yet, the first few people get to tell us how they want things exported and we'll make it work :).
That's definitely a bug. Sorry for that experience! If you're on the desktop app, please hit create account before trying to sign in. That message is leftover from when we were an invite only product, and only shows up if you try to sign in without signing up. Sorry once again, and we'll have that fixed immediately!
As a side-note, I think that mastering a musical instrument is a good thing to do for some of the same reasons: it teaches discipline and focus. I've found that playing the guitar is a good foil to programming because it engages a completely different part of my brain that hasn't been engaged during the working day, and it also lets the analytical part of me relax.
I say that because I'm a big fan of all your recommendations, and also think you recommended them in a way that doesn't come off as patronising or condescending. Idk what your preferred method of communication is, but if you can do Twitter, please drop me a message on Twitter @samiur1204.
