2018/Baltimore/offlineposting

 Offline Posting  was a session at IndieWebCamp Baltimore 2018.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8ewm3BRH1I

Notes archived from: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/offlineposting

IndieWebCamp Baltimore 2018

Session: Offline Posting

When: 2018-01-20 13:15

Participants

 * (session facilitator)
 * Matt
 * Derekt
 * Darius
 * Darius

Session Overview

 * The session is about offline posting. Being able to write a post or notes offline and then post to a site/CMS when reconnected.
 * Could be his own site, or a method for posting to any site or CMS

Goals

 * Be able to open site that doesn't require connectivity and start typing notes
 * Ideal would be having an auto-save in this state
 * Could be used for offline collaboration
 * Could this be a service?
 * Connect a micropub service: Login, type offline into an interface such as Quill, and then it preserves it until you're connected
 * Does Quill have this?
 * Maybe a progressive web app?
 * Store in local storage in browser?
 * An inactive save feature could be useful
 * Focused primarily on mobile app/service for this
 * Be as plaintext as possible
 * Plaintext with tagging
 * Hierarchy of tags?
 * Don't want it to be cumbersome while capturing the content of the notes
 * Tags emerge when needed: default would be a 'blog' or a 'general' if not tagged, but then if needed could add a tag in to classify
 * Start simple and always iterate

Ideas/Resources

 * Progressive Web App with service workers to do this
 * Matt: Has tried lots of apps and tools for this process:
 * Early 2000s: Single page wiki (notes wrapped in an HTML file). --> TiddlyWiki
 * This gave lots of speed to populate content into categories and then it was a single file
 * This could be offline. When wanting to use collab features it got really tricky
 * Single tool features work well but when he starts integrating collaboration, it starts to fall apart
 * a current favorite in terms of an effortless UX - [Agile Tortoise Drafts](https://agiletortoise.com/drafts/) (not as capable as Taskpaper and various other tools, but has never failed me)
 * important for Matt has been that the notes themselves and all significant features are always wrapped up in plaintext-readable markup
 * Jonathan: I like the workflow of writing in Markdown locally when offline and then pushing to github OR CMS when live
 * Issue: Wouldl be nice to have this for mobile! Computer is cumbersome for this, but effective
 * And useful resource for ios text editors (fairly comprehensive, longterm project): Brett Terprstra (creator of [Marked](http://marked2app.com/) markdown preview tool) [iTextEditors chart]http://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors/)
 * Putting lots of work into a specific note that is a prelude for a later post * how does this relate to the later output
 * Should be able to always have a fresh note when you open something and then save it for later
 * Older notes would be preserved until deleted

Tools

 * Drafts: iOS, Android, Desktop.
 * Always starts with a new note, and when you close the app it auto saves and tucks it away
 * This has been useful for his lifestyle but has still found certain things lacking
 * Saves locally? Saves to cloud?
 * Nice interface for accessing drafts
 * Google Keep, works offline on mobile (maybe not on desktop)
 * Google Keep Chrome App: DOES save offline notes and should pull offline notes when connection is reestablished
 * Links notes to sites via Google account
 * Noter Live does a pretty good job of saving notes in the browser (local storage) in case the app crashes or problems occur prior to posting
 * SimpleNote: multi-platform software kind of like Evernote, Google Keep. Plaintext focused. Might be rewritten with offline capabilities (need to confirm)
 * Matt uses this - There is a way to sync with them but could also sync with other tools
 * update from review of https://simplenote.com/help/#syncing -- can write offline, and any action that creates, edits, deletes, or accesses the note when online potentially syncs it
 * I'll often use bookmarking tools and IFTTT workflows (PESOS) to trigger things quickly on the go that create drafts with timestamps that I can later update/publish when I'm back online.
 * Example: Diigo and Reading.am
 * Reading.am allows me to post via email and then IFTTT picks it up via RSS and posts a draft read post
 * Diigo also allows direct integration to IFTTT to pick up posts there to PESOS as bookmarks and or pick up annotations later.
 * WordPress has the ability to post via email, so one could draft a post in email and send it that way when later connected (pseudo-offline)
 * https://en.support.wordpress.com/post-by-email/
 * Day One:
 * Mac Tool (OS X, IOs) - Is there a way to syndicate this to a site, possibly via XML?
 * Start writing, and then it pulls info and preserves it for later
 * indieweb.org/offline
 * https://snarfed.org/posting-to-the-indieweb-from-your-phone
 * MarsEdit
 * Ulysses

TODO
Questions:
 * What can we do today that will allow us to build something specific tomorrow?? **
 * Does Quill have an offline writing feature?
 * it preserves drafts
 * Would be nice if one could draft something via email while offline and send it to Quill or another endpoint for processing and ultimate posting via micropub
 * Is context information important for the notes?
 * Title + Body for POC, possibly timestamp
 * Example: Gregor listening to a podcast while traveling and wanted way to preserve this for later reflective post/note online
 * How to save the datetime for the post? What should the datetime be? The drafting time or the ultimate posted later time?
 * Are we writing plaintext into the app or HTML?
 * Formatting: do we want sequential posts or is it a scratch/draft for later revision/reflection?
 * How many pieces would we be writing?
 * Gregor's usecase would be few times a year since he'd usually be connected (except during flights, travels)
 * If using hashtags to tag and classify, how to identify?
 * Fewer and more precise if for a specific project
 * Could be more general for blogging
 * Build ontop of Quill as starting point?
 * Extend the offline/draft features present in Quill -> Ability to save more than 1 draft note at a time
 * Does Quill populate hashtags as they're typed?
 * Email to Quill for processing/posting?
 * Does Etherpad also work offline?
 * no, it doesn't. one of the other similar projects might tho (e.g. hackpad)