Plugin: support Excalidraw in joplin

OMG! The tool is awesome! But it seems doesn't work well if I use it within my notes, it is akin to being stuck at the loading process, but it's fine when I opened a blank note for it.

I really love this tool, as my suggestion, I think it better run on a new dialog window, and then save images at once to the notes. Joplin has 2 similar plugins that are worth reference Draw.io and Freehand Drawing.

Thank you again, you brought in a great tool! :clap: :clap: :clap:

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Thank you. I'll go and learn how to achieve relevant effects :grinning:

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Very promising! :trophy: :slight_smile:

I can confirm it works on Linux (on Github you said has not been tested on Linux).

Not yet quite usable, but if you manage to get it, as suggested by @Sinacs, in a separate dialogue it would be excellent. Good luck with it's development!

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One more question, is there any way to quit the excalidraw editor? Or something I missed?

As I try to remove the related syntax, it generates again automatically. If I want to completely remove it from my notes, I need to remove the syntax and then switch to other notes at once (before the syntax generates again), then it will work. But this is a bit tricky. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

:rofl: sorry, I forgot to consider this, I tried to fix it today

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v1.1.0

Slows the synchronization speed, making it easy to modify notes
Add switch button of the panel

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Thanks @artikell, the speed is now better than before, and the switch btn is helpful.

For a little more, if it can set the dark mode as the default start, it would be more comfortable to use. And then I will keep my mouth shut and look forward to all your great updates in the future! :love_you_gesture: :laughing:

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Hey surprise! It's me again :crazy_face: Right now, the auto generates code block without the closing syntax ```. Just want to let you know it.

This is true. It refers to other projects, but it should be a better way. I need to learn more about plugin API. :rofl:

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It can't open after updated to v1.1.1

Win11pro, Joplin v2.8.8

Google Photos

Google Photos

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Likewise on Linux (Joplin 2.9.4), the panel opens, but the drawing interface doesn't load.

Thanks for bringing Excalidraw to our attention, @artikell. I was already using drawio, which is excellent for diagrams, but I very much like Excalidraw and will use that more for quick sketches, and drawio for more complex charts.

In the meantime, my workaround is to draw directly using the Excaldraw site, save as svg, and then insert the image into the Joplin note that way.

Wish you good success developing the plugin, it will be very convenient to do it from inside Joplin.

Happy to test it here as you go along.

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v1.2.0
Support excalidraw dialog

It seems that the panels are not very easy to use, so excalidraw panel will be discarded.

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I was very happy to find an Excalidraw plugin for Joplin. I'm a big Excalidraw user on my Nextcloud instance. Thanks for creating it. :heart:

At the moment I've installed version 1.3.0 but it does not seem to be working on Joplin 2.9.17 (prod, darwin).

I see in the github repo an issue it's not working for others.

One question - is there anything (startup logs, etc) we can provide to help debug the problem? I'll have a look today myself to see if I can figure out what's goung wrong.

possible solution (worked for me):

  1. open Help-->Toggle development tools.
  2. look in the log for an error similar to the following one:
joplin.plugins: Uncaught exception in plugin "com.joplin.excalidraw": Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat '/var/folders/z8/6_9tvj2d6931fmn5q64r1xjm0000gn/T/joplin-excalidraw-plugin/'
  1. create the missing directory.
  2. restart Joplin.
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Hea @shikuz thanks very much for that. I didn't see that in the github issue thread, or anywhere else. I'm going to post that in the thread in case it helps people there.

@artikell are you interested in some usability and UI suggestions?

Welcome, I don't have a good idea at present. The current goal is to meet the needs.

Fascinating plugin. You made me discover this app. Thanks.
Just have a naive question to be sure. The excalidraw file, made with this plugin in Joplin is local and doesn't require internet, right?

Yes, you're right

I have been an excalidraw user and love the simplicity compared with say Miro canvas. Then I came across notion and obsidian about the same time. After hitting the block limit with Notion, I stayed with obsidian. I was searching for a better text presentation of the notes and I landed up here with Joplin. I am glad that I came across this product which seems to have a better notes document rather than plain vanilla markdown due to its rendering capabilities.

Excalidraw panels are very easy to use and are excellent for color pallet, sending layers back etc. Excalidraw is the most popular plugin for Obsidian, another note taking app. If you can implement full fledged excalidraw support without any changes that would be great. If any, supporting markdown links from Excalidraw back to the notes would be a great integration.

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This is a great plugin, and on Ubuntu 22.04, I got it to work after adding the missing directory with mkdir /tmp/joplin-excalidraw-plugin/ as the current user (not root).

The problem I am finding is that I have to do this every time I reboot my laptop, which is a shame. So something must be removing the directory, unless, I need to be using root and changing permissions.

Any help much appreciated.