The further development of panda as standalone app

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Hi there all! :slight_smile:

Since i am here in the forum i read many requests which make sense for special scenarios. The devs gave comprehesible justification why it can’t be implemented without affecting the approach of bear app.

Since the devs mentioned that panda will be released as standalone app i am eager to hear if it is intended to leave it as simple editor as it is now or to build further features around it that will follow a slightly different approach.

As far as i have understood it correctly panda will remain a filebased editor. That leads directly to the request to have a sidepane where you can organize all the notes in folders and subfolders (f.e. placed under the “all notes”-node). Clicking one of that folders would show all the notes in the second pane between sidepane and editor. For sure the #tags will remain useful but they will loose their function to organize the notes. Rather than that they just would link different notes together by selfdefined criterions.

If i had one wish free i would desire that panda goes into the direction of obsidian: a tool for longform writing, research and linking thoughts together. In some regard you already can do that in bear but it is not specialised on that approach so that it is not a convenient tool in that regard. As the devs and moderators say: bear is not for everyone for everything. As well panda wouldn’t be for everyone. I definetely would be pleased to pay for both apps since i would use them for different purposes.

What do i consider as necessary for panda to compete with obsidian on its playground. here a quick and dirty list:

  • A fourth pane integrated in the ui rather than an information panel. Ulysses shows how you can manage with elegance an layout that consists of more than 3 panes

  • The fourth pane is tabbed and contains following:

  1. a tab for toc (that will exist in bear but in a popup-window)

  2. a tab for backlinks WITH previews of the block or paragraph where the backlik appears. The power of backlinks is indeed not only the listing of the links but also the opportunity to show the context in which it appears (see roam research) (that will exist in bear but in a popup-window and without the preview of the content)

  3. List item
    a tab with outgoing links and tags just of the open note

  4. a tab where you can place a collection of foldable notes for the purpose of viewing two notes side by side (the open note beside of the note placed in the tab)

Add to all that the magic of bear and you would have a fantastic app for knowledge managament :wink:

Please don’t see that as a request. I am not that impertinent to demand or even to expect such a big decision. I just want to encourage the devs to see that it isn’t a bad idea to have similar but nevertheless different apps to attract even more users.

Thanks for reading my long post!

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Hi there,

Thank you for being active in the forum, and for leaving us a post.

Regarding Panda, as it is a long term goal everything for it is not set in stone just yet. But yes, the current plan is that it will remain file-based.

As it is not set in stone this means that the features possibly included in it aren’t either.

Therefore, all requests and ideas are welcome. We will discuss and review them with the team.

Thank you for providing examples and explanations for your suggestions.

At the moment I’m not sure if the knowledge management direction is the direction the team wishes to go in.

This is as we believe there are already specific apps out there that may fulfil this purpose.

Regardless, thank you for the suggestions. I’ll pass them onto the team to have a think about when moving forward.

In the meantime, hoping you’ve a Beary nice day!

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It is going to be exciting times when in communication between users and developers the standalone panda app can progress. I assume that here in this forum the discussion will find its main place?

TedwardBear, just to avoid a misunderstanding because my opening post could have been misleading: i didn’t mean panda to become a highly specialised app for pkm like logseq or roam research. The most i have requested anyway was announced for bear when panda editor once will be implemented (like backlinks) or is already available (like toc). I tried to advocate for implementing popular feature requests that doesn’t fit into the approach of bear and that would give panda a turn that could please some users more.

In my eyes panda - just by adding few features in a special manner - could become a very elegant mixture of bear, obsidian and ulysses. Even if panda would get the pkm features i requested above it would be more a universal tool than a specialised one.

I am waiting eagerly for all the discussions in the future :wink:

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Hi Chris,

Thank you for your clarification, and for your suggestions. I will pass them onto the team to discuss.

Regarding the platform on which to discuss Panda as a standalone, it has not yet been decided.

This is just as we are currently busy with the new Editor for Bear.

However, it will most likely be discussed here after the Editor has been implemented!