Intro:
I compared various note-taking apps and Joplin turned out to be my favorite by far, even tho' it's lacking features, being open source and able to add them myself was what made Joplin win the competition. (although it was hard to find somehow, it does not appear on the different mobile stores or on google when searching for note-taking apps)
What?
I was missing the ability to write excel-like sheets in Joplin.
So I create the JSheets plugin which you can find in the Joplin plugins repository and on GitHub.
How?
I found that there is a cool library that does this in javascript called Luckysheet.
So I spend the last days quickly building a plugin that uses lucky sheets to allow creating sheets in Joplin with all the great features already available in Joplin like Sync and Encryption etc.
This first iteration is a most viable product (MVP) but seems to work reliably in my private Joplin and do the job. Currently, it will open on a note with a special keyword (see GitHub readme), and once set-up sync all changes every 2 seconds to the markdown note as text, from where it is stored and will get picket up (parsed) on the next open.
From the “coder point of view”: A big hand for that.
To be honest: I tested it on Windows (works!) but I can not really see the need or advantage of it. Therefore, I uninstalled it after the test.
In my very personal opinion, is it squaring the circle to store code as Markdown in a note and run it, to achieve in an additional window some excel functionality. This contradicts to the basic idea of Markdown, doesn't it?
For me, Joplin offers a perfect solution for this requirement: I embedded a true xls/odt/… file that opens on click the natively designed program for it, giving me all features without any hassle.
I know. Deadly boring, but straight forward to use.
Please, do not read this as a criticism of the performance or capabilities of the plugin. I just want to object that “because it can be done” not necessarily leads to something necessarily required. But I am aware, that there may be people out there, may have been waiting for that.
It is a remarkable contribution to the diversity of uses of Joplin – that alone deserves great respect.
I checked the plugin, the settings dialog, the command menus and your homepage. It seems to me that you assume that use of the plugin is obvious, but to me it isn't. So let's take an example. Joplin -> empty note just created -> I want to add a few lines, followed by a mini excel sheet (which does not yet exist). Let's say 4 x 6 table which looks like excel.
Where do I start ? (minimal user guide)
A few simple templates would help (e.g. on your homepage), ready for copy and paste ... For example
I do not see any menu commands to make changes to the table), so I assume it has to be written in markdown, or copied into markdown ? This limits the plugins usability to the ordinary user.
In short, ... that is why I asked for "more" ....
But it is possible that I simply miss something.
Went one step further, installed the plugin again, created a new note (empty), added JSheets to it, and then copied a few cells (3 x 4) from a real XCEL table into the note. The text from the notes is added to the note, but nothing else happens. This is certainly not what I expected.
This is the kind of snags a guy can run into, if there are no guidelines.
ah I see no that is not possible, the plugin will turn the whole Note into an excel-like sheet. Not just a part of it.
The idea of an inline sheet is pretty nice actually that would be awesome but technically quite difficult. Could be a nice feature request for future versions
The example on the home page (a row of GIFs I think) is really hard to read or copy. Could you post the example's markdown (text ?) on the homepage for easy copy / paste ?
Now I understand (after watching your GIFs in slow motion). Jsheets is only coming to life after typing '''JSheets''' into the note, switching to another note, and back. Very simple, but impossible to figure out of the blue. My question was related to the believe that one had to type some markdown text into the note to create .... it.
Do you see a way to show nothing but the sidebar, the notes list, and the JSheets sheet, in other words a way to NOT show the note which contains the JSheet. I know I can move the divider between the later two to the left - but this ain't a really useful solution, and it's anyway temporary only.
