It works very well for TextMate and Notion… but it’s Bear that I’m using
Sometimes I have very long notes, sometimes I collect many articles that I regroup in folders.
My needs are to: From a single note:
Make summary from variable lengths
Highlight main ideas
Generate a single sentence that teases the note
From many notes:
Make general summaries
Highlight main ideas
Find answers from questions from those notes (the RAG feature from AI)
This integration with ChatGPT app would be very (very) helpful for me, and I believe from other users.
I don’t know how it works with OpenAI, but would it be possible for your to implement this connection?
What is your full list of supported apps?
Apple Notes
Notion
TextEdit
Quip
Xcode
Script Editor
VS Code (including Code, Code Insiders, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf)
@crumbletop I agree. It has been asked for this or that application to integrate with Bear and if they do 1 people will want more and more to integrate and that just isn’t sustainable.
Indeed, I am asking the Bear team to send the request to OpenAI… and maybe to prepare Bear to be searchable by ChatGPT, as I don’t know the prerequisite.
If you read the page referenced in my initial post, you’ll find that “To set this up, you’ll need to add the desired app and grant the necessary permissions or install any required extensions.”
So there is nothing worry.
As far as I can see, ChatGPT uses macOS accessibility privileges to access TextViews as other Text-replacing apps such as Grammarly. This means we can’t do much to interface with them, and it’s up to them “understanding” how Bear and Markdown work. We also don’t want to use third-party APIs we don’t have control of in Bear.
MacOS accessibility privileges are potentially problematic on a privacy/security level but required for some kinds of apps. It’s up to you, users, to decide what to trust and what not, but disabling the Enable Work with Apps option in ChatGPT and not granting the accessibility is enough to be sure your data is not accessed by.
Make sense. Curious the call back url scheme doesnt lend itself to working with the MCP protocol. Do you see yourself providing a Swift API or library that you control to access notes? I am building my own swift app to access through the MCP protocol but because of the call back it wont work. Curious to get your take.
I don’t. Honestly, I perceive openAI (and similar) as a privacy hole I don’t feel comfortable pushing Bear’s users into. However, I know some people have set up mcp servers by accessing Bear’s sqlite db.
Over the years, I have come to respect Bear’s clear lines around what you stand for. So thanks for responding. As a user, the only concern I have is the ability to use my Bear notes data & not be locked in. Apple’s MLX is already opening up on device models so I am hoping over the next couple of weeks we will see more opportunities that are privacy friendly. Hope to keep the conversation going! And thanks for engaging!
Thank you sharing your concerns, it’s very appreciable.
Maybe can you find a suitable cursor, that satisfies all users?
For my side, I have thousands notes that are already tidied. However, I know that a search function like: “what is the definition of the term X proposed by the authors Y and Z” would help me a lot.
I’m not requesting a stupid AI function like what Notion did (very cheap, 20€/month), but to find ways with existing AI tools (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic etc.) so that they query Bear.
Maybe something like what we have on the iOS devices for the photo library, to allow none, part or the full photo library?
And as already stated, I say no to this. If you want integration ask the AI folks and open up access to your notes on your own… I do not want Bear to actively support it. I appreciate @trix180 's reply and stance.
