Are there plans for an iPhone app?

[ocean-haiyang]

Really considering moving away from trilium because of the lack of offline mobile support sadly.

[ktibr0]

hi
found an advice how to send notes via Apple shortcurt
https://trilium.rocks/g9gor5m0X15a

[kotlasu]

Hi,

the lack of native iOS app support was a turn-off for me at first BUT “PWA” home screen shortcut to a (locally hosted) Trilium Next instance works pretty well now.

I’ve modded a theme to my liking/to maximize space and visibility and don’t even remember than’s not a native app (mobile view lacks some of the features but you can switch to desktop view with a 2 clicks).

I don’t expect a dedicated iOS app cause (AFAIK) it cost money to get a Apple Dev account and to release your app in the App Store (there is a slim chance we’ll see more free/open-source apps on iOS thanks to the Delta Store).

TL/DR: Consider giving a home screen shortcut a try.

[briandraper]

I definitely understand the need for offline support (which isn't solved with a shortcut). It's the single biggest issue for me, as well. That being said, while it's not perfect, it's possible to cache local copies of notes on an iPhone. It doesn't do anything for live syncing, and you can't make updates to replicate later, but there are certain notes I want/need to have offline. You do it by using iPhone's forward/send icon in Safari, and then click "Add to Reading List", and it will cache a local copy. To access it, hit the little book icon and select the "eyeglasses" tab to see things you've saved to your reader. You might get a couple of transient error messages, when opening, but actually works pretty well if you just need some static notes available offline.

Not ideal, but better than nothing.

[LorenAmelang]

I just moved to TriliumNext 0.92.6 on my tiny iPhone SE2020, and the minimum zoom level is now huge! I used to be able to zoom out and see an entire note or all of the screen that would show on a desktop computer, but now I can't see even half the width of a short note name. In Vivaldi or Safari there is even less space than in the direct shortcut. My Linux install still shows a zoom control, but nothing shows in the web versions.

Is there some way to restore the extreme zoom out?

[eliandoran]

@LorenAmelang , could you provide a screenshot?

[LorenAmelang]

The most I can zoom out in the TN desktop shortcut, in desktop view:

In mobile view - note the "Paragraph" control line is always there, even if nothing is selected. Covering most of the note name. If I try enough times I can hit the visible bottom half of the Close 'x' and it works. To see the tree, I have to drag that bottom ">..." line to the right to find the '<' button.

Safari in desktop mode:

My 12.9" iPad shows a normal computer screen view - but also can't zoom out from it.

Seems I don't have any screenshots from before this change, but I could zoom out until all of the content was tiny with lots of blank space between items.

[eliandoran]

@LorenAmelang , for the mobile phone you should be using exclusively the mobile view (e.g. Switch to mobile).

In mobile view - note the "Paragraph" control line is always there, even if nothing is selected. Covering most of the note name. > If I try enough times I can hit the visible bottom half of the Close 'x' and it works

The formatting toolbar should be fixed in the latest stable release.

To see the tree, I have to drag that bottom ">..." line to the right to find the '<' button.

You can access the note tree by pressing button, you don't have to use the bottom bar.

Unfortunately I don't have an iPhone SE to test with, only a relatively large iPhone 11 Pro Max.

For the tablet, desktop view on landscape should work quite good. I haven't tested either desktop or mobile view on portrait mode, but feel free to open some issues and I'll take a look.

[LorenAmelang]

Wow - thanks for the quick resonse! Here's why I've always avoided mobile mode even on the iPhone:

All the text descenders get cut off, and the note icons are partly hidden. That was true even when I could zoom way out, things got smaller but note lines were still overlaid. I suppose it is because nobody tests things on the tiny iPhone SE. Lots of apps have space problems - but it fits in my pockets!

Supposedly trilium.cc will have your latest release tomorrow.

[eliandoran]

@LorenAmelang , can you show me your font and theme configuration in Options -> Appearance?

[LorenAmelang]

This seems to be the only relevant part - exactly inherited from my Linux install:

Are there other font options?

I guess Word Wrapping only affects parts of text notes intentionally formatted as code blocks? Wow - there's tons of options for code notes...

[LorenAmelang]

So I tried clicking "Override theme fonts" - checkmark appeared, but nothing changed. Tried various other things, and went back to Appearance, thinking I'd uncheck it since it didn't work. But now there are font options! Never seen those before! Unchecking the checkbox didn't hide them...

I tried setting the tree to 80%, and it almost fixed the overlaid test.

Maybe that's the solution? Do you have recommendations? So far it has not affected my local Linux install, only the iPhone on Trilium.cc.

[LorenAmelang]

More details... I had to set the tree zoom down to 50% to allow the descenders like g and y to show. Now the targets are so tiny my lousy vision and hand tremor can't hit them reliably. I keep getting this:

I also get that if I try to zoom, so I suspect it is triggered by sliding my finger (which tremor does uncontrollably).

Is there a proper way to escape that popup? If I keep randomly tapping I eventually hit the burger menu and leave the tree view. Maybe a way to make it smaller so I can tap outside it?

[eliandoran]

@LorenAmelang , first, it appears you are using a theme called "official dark" (which surprisingly or not, is not an official TriliumNext theme). Is it a custom theme you are using or is something trilium.cc uses by default (@sigaloid ?). Is there a TriliumNext theme that you can try switching to?

Here's how it should look like with an iPhone SE:

I'll see what I can do about the popup, but probably the only solution for now is to make the items taller via custom CSS.

You can try creating a CSS note with the appCss label with the following content:

.fancytree-node {
  height: 56px;
}

I've only tested this on the TriliumNext theme.

[sigaloid]

I don't apply any default themes or any customization at all, simply the default docker image. Perhaps caused by upgrading from Trilium to TriliumNext - an old theme installed there?

[LorenAmelang]

I tried the TriliumNext Beta (Dark) theme. Unfortunately it is a fashionable soft grays theme, not the high contrast I need for my lousy vision. I don't remember where the Official Dark theme came from, probably from original Trilium ages ago. I'd love it if you could make a new high contrast pure white on pure black theme!

Your theme does space the tree entries much farther apart:

Does this icon in a web view mean the Trilium.cc server still doesn't have your latest version?

But the web version knows the new version exists... So it must have been updated. Does it somehow know my local Linux version that syncs to it has not been updated yet? Is there an explanation somewhere?

[LorenAmelang]

Updated local Linux to .7 then logged out of the cc web version, logged back in, it still shows .6:

Do I need to do something else?

[eliandoran]

I'd love it if you could make a new high contrast pure white on pure black theme!

Unfortunately we don't have the bandwidth for developing another theme in parallel.

Updated local Linux to .7 then logged out of the cc web version, logged back in, it still shows .6:

I believe there's nothing you can do in your side, you'd just have to wait for the next version.

[sigaloid]

When looking on my side, it is from the :latest tag. Might be a weird caching issue (or you caught it on the tail end of the regular update check).

[ocean-haiyang]

What does any of that have to do with this question...?

[DrSpaldo]

Totally agree @ocean-haiyang, your question has been hijacked by something that isn't relevant to your question. I agree with you that I can't keep the app without offline support.

[eliandoran]

Yeah, my bad that I didn't split it off into a separate thread.

Regarding your original question, we plan to implement a proof of concept to see if it's feasible to port the server in such a way that it'll run on a mobile application. Unfortunately, it will take a long time. Having a dedicated iOS or Android application is a no-go due to the high maintenance and development costs required.

Trilium is generally used as a knowledge base and not a general note-taking application, which is why personally I haven't felt such a big need to have it running on mobile (although of course, it would be nice). If that's reason enough to move away from it, feel free, everyone is entitled to their own choices.

[eliandoran]

Closing the thread for now as I've clarified my position on the subject.