I built a Native iOS Trilium Client

[StephenArg]

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trinote/id6761228249

Hey everyone, I recently built a native iOS Trilium client.

The application is open source on github, so feel free to take a look, add requests for new features or bug fixes, etc.

Disclaimer: I used Claude model with cursor to help build out this project. If that is something important to you, then feel free to not use it or insult me in the comments. I mainly built this tool because I want it to exist. I have over 6+ years as a developer so I know what I'm doing for the most part. I did not just mindlessly tell the ai to build an application. There was a great effort on my part to ensure the app is secure, efficient, and functional.

I still have some adjustments and small bug fixes I plan to do, so it's still a bit of a work in progress. Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

[CobriMediaJulien]

ty for sharing your work!

[browneyedsoul]

What a amazing work.. You are a hero!

[StephenArg]

If anyone has any feedback I’d appreciate it. I know the save/edit icons could seem janky. I know I want those icons to disappear sometimes since they kinda block the editor/reader, but I’m not sure what would feel best.

Also, there are many features hidden behind long presses of note rows on the tree view. If you haven’t already, be should to play around with it.

[StephenArg]

@eliandoran Could I maybe demo the mobile app for you? Then you can decide if it works well enough to put in the README (like TriliumDroid)?
I've gotten some pretty useful feedback recently and made a few extra updates and I think it's in a pretty good state atm.

[eliandoran]

@StephenArg , I've already tested it since I do a 2019-ish iPhone around it it is quite nice.

Let's wait one or two releases before marketing it to see how we handle changes in between versions.

We did the same for TriliumDroid, since I believe there were some quirks that affected us due to the sync: blob changes causing weird behaviours when creating empty notes.

[StephenArg]

Ok that sounds good to me. Thanks!

Any idea when we could be expecting the next release? Maybe I can prime the next version for that so there wouldn’t have to be any downtime in functionality for the app.

I remember this last update or two breaking the initial way I was dealing with auth, but it didn’t take too long to fix that, so I’m optimistic about future api changes.

[eliandoran]

@StephenArg , that would be a pretty good idea.
Every major release comes every 2 months or so. So you should still have time til the end of April.

Here's the release draft for now:

💡 Key highlights

• A long-awaited note type is now supported: Spreadsheets, allowing for a familiar (Excel-like) editing experience with formulas, powered by Univer Sheets.
  • Support for it is considered beta and it might face some changes along the way.
  • See the documentation for important aspects to consider when using spreadsheets.
  • Note that the sync version has been increased, so both the client and the server need to be updated.
• Built-in OCR support for images, but also PDF and Office (Word, PowerPoint, Spreadsheet) text extraction which integrates with the search function. See the Media page in Options for configuration.
• Custom dictionary is now synchronized across instances

Breaking changes

• Back-end scripting:
  • api.axios has been removed. It has already been marked as deprecated for more than two years now and give the recent security compromise and the fact that it's not actually used in the Trilium code base we took the decision to remove it completely. Please update your scripts to use the built-in fetch() instead.
  • api.cheerio has been marked as deprecated, but not removed. As an alternative we provide node-html-parser which has a more DOM-oriented syntax.

Mobile improvements and fixes

🐞 Bugfixes

• Save indicator not showing in quick edit popup.
• Grid of child notes does not clear floats.
• Open tabs would load in the background, causing a slight performance impact.
• New layout:
  • Save indicator would not disappear if reduced motion was activated.
  • Table of contents would not refresh on formatting changes and sometimes it missed some updates.
• Missing empty icon from the default icon pack.
• Board collection:
  • Scrolling horizontally was clipped.
  • Add button not snappable to on mobile.
• Invalid canvas note crashes full-text search
• Protecting or unprotecting notes does not refresh the state of the tree.
• Collections will show the note list even if a protected session is not available.
• Notes created from within a collection don't respect the protected state.
• Long-standing issue with CSRF errors on mobile, which required a refresh.
• Setup text in DarkMode is hardly legible
• Share: Browsing to "/share" on uninitialized setup causes crash
• Large Equations Render over editor using Latex align environment in Display Mode
• New layout: attribute detail modal not visible
• The first attribute value fails to pop up the label details window correctly
• Thumbnail images in version v0.102.1 are too small
• PDF previews can fail between software updates due to caching issues
• Can't print or export to PDF on Linux Wayland
• Browsing to "/share" on uninitialized setup causes crash by @argusagent
• Refresh content for SPAs with "query string" in hash by @contributor
• Import file with Chinese char in file name cause random char in file name after import
• Share: Webviews occupy too little height, making them hard to see
• Events in calendar show as light even when dark theme is selected
• Scripting: Preact's useContext is exported, but createContext isn't
• Share Function - Translation not being used
• Changing the note icon does not change the icon in the tab
• Cannot open quick search results in new tab
• Server & desktop not running properly if placed in a hidden directory (e.g. ~/.local/share).
• Collections:
  • Not reacting to changes in note reordering.
  • Clicking on a URL promoted attribute in board will also open quick edit.
• Performance issues when typing caused by saving the document too many times (addresses Significant input lag and UI freezing during continuous drawing/writing (Mouse & Pen) but also other note types as well)
• Unnecessary attribute setting when editing a note in a calendar's quick edi.

✨ Improvements

• Videos & audio files imported in Trilium now have a new default icon and the extension will be trimmed.
• Improved the design of the video and audio player and added additional functionality such as easy seeking, rotation, picture-in-picture.
• Mermaid:
  • Added a list of example diagrams that are shown when Mermaid notes are empty, for getting started quickly. All the supported diagrams types were added.
  • As a result of the previous change, new Mermaid diagrams start out as empty instead of a generic flowchart diagram.
  • Updated the version of Mermaid which brings in two new diagram types: Venn and Ishikawa.
• Space mobile launcher container evenly by @Mystler
• PDF: Inline toolbar with highlight and comment by @contributor
• Add Catppuccin theme to both code notes and code blocks by @giuxtaposition
• Added four more themes to code notes: High Contrast Dark, High Contrast Light, Material Ocean, and Synthwave '84
• Relation map: Add more options to open notes in the context menu
• Improve database performance by adding new indices (by @perfectra1n).
• CKEditor was updated to v48 with the most notable change of being able to change the alignment of tables with or without text wrapping (see #5791).
• Mermaid diagrams were updated which brings in two new diagram types: TreeView and Wardley Maps.
• Inline mermaid diagrams use a more modern approach to rendering, which should reduce flicker.
• Relation map: rename relations through context menu
• Share: Render dates on the client to match their locale.
• Backend script: add an API to execute other backend scripts.
• Download button for backups by @Lorinc936

🌍 Internationalization

• Czech support by @Kureii

📖 Documentation

• How spell check works, including custom dictionary.

🛠️ Technical updates

• Remove Knockout from setup page by @JYC333
• Many dependency updates.

🔒️ Security fixes

[StephenArg]

@eliandoran Hey, how is the release coming along?

[eliandoran]

@eliandoran Hey, how is the release coming along?

Hi,

Probably this weekend. Signing should be functional again.

[StephenArg]

@eliandoran
Great, thank you! This is useful.
I think aside from implementing the spreadsheet note, everything else should still work fine.

Is there a place where dev work for Trilium is discussed more rapidly or is it mainly being done through github discussions and issues?

[eliandoran]

There is also the Matrix, but I don't check it daily.

[StephenArg]

Are many people actually using the matrix chat? Any objection to making a discord or zulip?
If not I understand, it can possibly be a disadvantage to spread out the development discussion to too many places.

[eliandoran]

@StephenArg , there are a few active users, but not that many.
There were discussions to switch to something else, but it would indeed fragment communication too much.
I don't use Discord or Zulip myself.

[StephenArg]

Hmm, ok. No problem! I'd be interested in maybe join that matrix server if possible.

In the mean time, I made a discord server to discuss any Trinote related developement.
https://discord.gg/ghjJG56EUS
I'll leave this link here for those who are interested.

[CobriMediaJulien]

There is even a discord but there is no envolvment. Matrix / Elements Server ist far more active.

[geekuality]

This is amazing! Thank you so much for doing this and especially making it free in App Store (at least for now).

I created two feature requests and two bug reports as issues to your repo, but overall this app is already really nice. 🤩 💯

[StephenArg]

Just released a pretty big update with a bunch of new features. Check it out!

[eliandoran]

@StephenArg , feel free to open a PR to mention the iOS app in the README.
See #9609 for reference.

[StephenArg]

Thank you! I'll do that now