Has the UI become too complex?

[DMCK96]

So I've been a user of BoostNote for just over a year or so, and I've loved it. It's been so simple, so easy to use, it did exactly what I wanted and it was trimmed down to be fast but visually appealing too.

What I haven't been doing is regularly updating, so I'm coming to 0.22 from 0.10, so all the changes I'm seeing are very different.

Here is the UI from 0.10

and here is the UI from 0.22

The UI in 0.22 you can see it's more feature rich but in doing this it's turned the main UI into a convoluted mess, like a cross between a programming IDE and an email client.

At what point do you think we've moved away from being a simple application that does everything it needs really well, at what point do you add too many features and alienate some of your target audience?

Who needs to know what status their notes are at? In progress? Complete? They're notes... notes for a reason.

Personally I'll be sticking with 0.10 and I wont be updating any further.

[DMCK96]

For others wondering I have actually just found this repo https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote-Legacy which appears to be what I'm looking for. Hopefully this post leads others there too.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi,

I don't think it got more convoluted/complex, the screenshot from the latest app is from the cloud version of the app.

The local space is still pretty much the same as it was/is from your first screenshot from 0.10.0 version of the app,

Can you see if this suite you more: https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local

See examples of local space app:

If you want to use legacy, feel free to do so, if you want to use the local app, and have some feature requests or find some issues/improvements that could be done, let me know.

[DMCK96]

I still prefer 0.10 over BoostNote.next-local and the local version of the recent version.

The sidebar could do with more spacing like v0.10, having them so close together feels cluttered, especially when there's so much vertical space to play with.

I'd also rather have folders in the siderbar, and files to the right of that sidebar with the edit window. It was useful being able to see the small piece of text at the beginning of the file.

It seemed like you were inspired by a metro/flat look but then you've moved away from that in more recent versions for a 'sleeker' style.

As a collaborative tool I'm sure it works really well, but as a powered up notepad with markdown support, it's moved away from that.

So even with the newer versions, the next local, and the legacy version, I'd still much rather stick at 0.10

[Komediruzecki]

Ah, yeah, the note view mode was removed few versions back, this was when things were a bit complicated to maintain and everything was coupled with a cloud app, if you create an issue for it and it gains traction, I might be able to bring it back.

For the sidebar, do you mean spacing between the elements, something like zoom in/out? You can fit more items if you have smaller gaps but this is more of a subjective topic, I can consider changing the visual style, but not everybody will like everything, so I don't think there is a clear way to define such things.