Thursday, September 12, 2019

my-note, my first step into Open Source Development

What is my-note?

my-note is a client side note taking app that will save your notes in your browser's SQLite system. It has many features aside from that, such as:
  • A word counter
  • A save feature (with confirmation alert)
  • A download button with customized file name through FileSaverJS (txt format only)
  • A paper and pen style (provided with PaperCSS)

How does it work?

The my-note app uses the FilerJS Browser Filesystem Library to save whatever is written in the box in the middle of the page in your browser's SQLite database. It saves your work automatically every 2 seconds, however my-note also supplies a fully functional save feature. The save feature includes an alert that lets you know if you have saved successfully or not. There is also a download feature provided through FileSaverJS. FileSaverJS takes what is written in the center box and will export it as a "note.txt" document. The name of the ".txt" document can be customized by typing the name in the text box next to the download button. The word counter updates every .5 seconds. The style of the page is provided by my own CSS, as well as a CSS Framework called PaperCSS. This provides the pen and paper feel of the app.

My Experience

I have never worked on an HTML page this hard. It was an extremely fun experience, where I got to practice using git commands, HTML formatting, and adapting to external code (FileSaverJS and FilerJS). One of the challenges I came across while writing this was that I had a merge conflict, due to working on this at home and school. I had to resolve the conflict by finding the most recent version on GitHub and copying it into the version I was using. Although maybe not the best way to deal with it, I didn't lose much of my work and got back on track after a few minutes. Another issue I had was figuring out exactly how FilerJS stored my data. I had no idea it was stored in the browser until my professor mentioned it in class. I thought it might have been stored locally somewhere or in a hidden file. I spent a good hour trying to find it on my home PC before I gave up.

my-note is available at https://github.com/drwm-base/my-note 

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