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jw_cook commented on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use   ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/11/... · Posted by u/rpgbr
mxuribe · 2 months ago
I know this post is more about nextcloud...but can i just say this one feature from Vikunja "...export task summaries and comments..." sounds great!!! One of the features i seek out when i look for a task, project management software is the ability to easily and comprehensivelt provide for nice exports, and that said exports *include comments*!!

Either apps lack such an export, or its very minimal, or it includes lots of things, except comments...Sometimes an app might have a REST api, and I'd need to build something non-trivial to start pulling out the comments, etc. I feel like its silly in this day and age.

My desire for comments to be included in exports is for local search...but also because i use comments for sort of thinking aloud, sort of like an inline task journaling...and when comments are lacking, it sucks!

In fact, when i hear folks suggest to simply stop using such apps and merely embrace the text file todo approach, they cite their having full access to comments as a feature...and, i can't dispute their claim! But barely any non-text-based apps highlight the inclusion of comments. So, i have to ask: is it just me (who doesn't use a text-based todo workflow), and then all other folks who *do use* a text-based tdo flow, who actually care about access to comments!?!

<rant over>

jw_cook · 2 months ago
Yeah, I hear you. I almost started using a purely text-based todo workflow for those same reasons, but it was hard to give up some web UI features, like easily switching between list and kanban-style views.

My use case looks roughly like this: for a given project (as in hobby/DIY/learning, not professional work), I typically have general planning/reference notes in a markdown file synced across my devices via Nextcloud. Separately, for some individual tasks I might have comments about the initial problem, stuff I researched along the way, and the solution I ended up with. Or just thinking out loud, like you mentioned. Sometimes I'll take the effort to edit that info into my main project doc, but for the way I think, it's sometimes more convenient for me to have that kind of info associated with a specific task. When referring to it later, though, it's really handy to be able to use ripgrep (or other search tools) to search everything at once.

To clarify, though, Vikunja doesn't have a built-in feature that exports all task info including comments, just a REST API. It did take a little work to pull all that info together using multiple endpoints (in this case: projects, tasks, views, comments, labels). Here's a small tool I made for that, although it's fairly specific to my own workflow: https://github.com/JWCook/scripts/tree/main/vikunja-export

jw_cook commented on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use   ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/11/... · Posted by u/rpgbr
cbondurant · 2 months ago
I've used nextcloud for close to I think 8 years now as a replacement for google drive.

However my need for something like google drive has reduced massively, and nextcloud continues to be a massive maintenance pain due to its frustratingly fast release cadence.

I don't want to have to log into my admin account and baby it through a new release and migration every four months! Why aren't there any LTS branches? The amount of admin work that nextcloud requires only makes sense for when you legitimately have a whole group of people with accounts that are all utilizing it regularly.

This is honestly the kick in the pants I need to find a solution that actually fits my current use-case. (I just need to sync my fuckin keepass vault to my phone, man.) Syncthing looks promising with significantly less hassle...

jw_cook · 2 months ago
The linuxserver.io image for Nextcloud requires considerably less babysitting for upgrades: https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-nextcloud

As long as you only upgrade one major version at a time, it doesn't require putting the server in maintenance mode or using the occ cli.

jw_cook commented on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use   ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/11/... · Posted by u/rpgbr
jw_cook · 2 months ago
"You're absolutely right!"
jw_cook commented on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use   ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/11/... · Posted by u/rpgbr
zeppelin101 · 2 months ago
The major shortcoming of NextCloud, in my opinion, is that that it's not able to do sync over LAN. Imagine wanting to synchronize 1TB+ of data and not being able to do so over a 1 Gbps+ local connection, when another local device has all the necessary data. There is some workaround involving "split DNS", but I haven't gotten around to it. Other than that, I thought NC was absolutely fantastic.
jw_cook · 2 months ago
Check if your router has an option to add custom DNS entries. If you're using OpenWRT, for example, it's already running dnsmasq, which can do split DNS relatively easily: https://blog.entek.org.uk/notes/2021/01/05/split-dns-with-dn...

If not, and you don't want to set up dnsmasq just for Nextcloud over LAN, then DNS-based adblock software like AdGuard Home would be a good option (as in, it would give you more benefit for the amount of time/effort required). With AdGuard, you just add a line under Filters -> DNS rewrites. PiHole can do this as well (it's been awhile since I've used it, but I believe there's a Local DNS settings page).

Otherwise, if you only have a small handful of devices, you could add an entry to /etc/hosts (or equivalent) on each device. Not pretty, but it works.

jw_cook commented on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use   ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/11/... · Posted by u/rpgbr
jw_cook · 2 months ago
The article mentions Vikunja as an alternative to Nextcloud Tasks, and I can give it a solid recommendation as well. I wanted a self-hosted task management app with some lightweight features for organizing tasks into projects, ideally with a kanban view, but without a full-blown PM feature set. I tried just about every task management app out there, and Vikunja was the only one that ticked all the boxes for me.

Some specific things I like about it:

  * Basic todo app features are compatible with CalDAV clients like tasks.org
  * Several ways of organizing tasks: subtasks, tags, projects, subprojects, and custom filters
  * list, table, and kanban views
  * A reasonably clean and performant frontend that isn't cluttered with stuff I don't need (i.e., not Jira)
And some other things that weren't hard requirements, but have been useful for me:

  * A REST API, which I use to export task summaries and comments to markdown files (to make them searchable along with my other plaintext notes)
  * A 3rd party CLI tool: https://gitlab.com/ce72/vja
  * OIDC integration (currently using it with Keycloak)
  * Easily deployable with docker compose

jw_cook commented on My first contribution to Linux   vkoskiv.com/first-linux-p... · Posted by u/vkoskiv
jw_cook · 2 months ago
This was a fun read, and well written. Thanks for sharing! Adding/improving support for some niche piece of hardware sounds like an ideal way to get started with kernel development, and something I'd like to try myself sometime.
jw_cook commented on Overengineered Anchor Links   thirty-five.com/overengin... · Posted by u/matser
noahjk · 9 months ago
Once I got over my fear of clicking their links, which I assumed would open a new page (but instead just expanded a pane in-line), I really enjoyed it. I’m very wary of opening new pages. (Also, I first tried to hold-click on the link to open in new tab, but it just behaved like regular text and highlighted, which led to a momentary confusion. I would have preferred a more obvious indication of what would happen when clicking, like a down chevron or something.)
jw_cook · 9 months ago
I also assumed those were going to be links, but after a second of confusion I really liked the side pane with animations. It adds a lot to the article and it's more pleasant than the usual alternatives (lightbox on top of the text, or opening a bunch of tabs).

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how else you'd visually communicate "this bit is interactive on click/hover but isn't a link." Maybe a different text color (without underline), background color, outline (replaced by the colored highlight bar on hover), or a slightly larger and more distinct icon to replace the generic 'image' icon?

jw_cook commented on Anti-Schelling points and waiting for my barista-made coffee   interconnected.org/home/2... · Posted by u/Tomte
dave4420 · 9 months ago
What’s with all the flags hovering round the page? Very distracting, worse than most adverts.
jw_cook · 9 months ago
Other readers' cursors. You can turn that off with the 'quiet mode' toggle in the upper right.
jw_cook commented on The Muppet Christmas Carol Is the Best Adaptation of a Christmas Carol   brightwalldarkroom.com/20... · Posted by u/fanf2
jw_cook · a year ago
This was such a delightful read, and I thoroughly agree with it.

Favorite quote:

"attempting to apply its childlike logic to realistic dynamics can only lead to cognitive dissonance even more mind-melting than hearing Goofy ah-hyuck his way through a discussion of his own atrocities."

jw_cook commented on The slow evaporation of the free/open source surplus   baldurbjarnason.com/2024/... · Posted by u/zzzeek
cxr · a year ago
A test to try out whenever these blog posts show up describing the burnout that is purportedly endemic to "open source":

If you ignore GitHub, how many of the problems described go away (and of the ones that remain, how potent are they)?

The problems are not intrinsic to "open source". Conflating GitHub culture with open source is like conflating being on Twitter with using the Internet.

jw_cook · a year ago
Could you elaborate a bit? Do you think said "GitHub culture" is just because it's the largest platform, or more intrinsic qualities of the platform? Anecdotally I see many of the same problems elsewhere (GitLab, and even independent/self-hosted), but some things I can think of that might be more unique to GitHub are:

* The larger presence of commercial OSS projects setting a tone of "projects here are products to be marketed"

* Social media-like features encouraging popularity contests, curating a personal brand, etc.

* Both of the above leading to more users acting like you owe them something ("you're competing for my attention, right?")

I'm not 100% convinced that those or other GitHub-specific factors are primary causes of maintainer burnout, but I think it's certainly possible.

u/jw_cook

KarmaCake day124November 21, 2022
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