Announcing Inkdrop plugin developer license
You can use it for free, forever, if you create a plugin for Inkdrop.
⚠️ NOTE: The plugin developer licenses are suspended. New licenses are not issued at the moment. See this post for more details.
Hi, it’s Takuya. Inkdrop is a note-taking app that lets you organize your Markdown notes across devices including mobile. I am building and maintaining it alone. It has successfully grown with 1,500 paid customers and I am now living off of it. I believe it improves your productivity more than its monthly cost ($4.99). That’s why people (and maybe you) are paying for it. I would like to make it better and better, instead of bigger like VC-backed startups. I would not focus on making a huge revenue from it. But in order to keep it evolving, it is not possible without your help because I am alone and like to be small.
I have got a lot of feature requests which would look nice to have. But my solo development policy is that I only add features that I use. Recalcitrant? — Maybe. But that keeps the app simple, consistent and stable as I discussed in this article. I still strongly believe that less feature set makes the app better. That’s the trait solo developers have which lets you do better than big companies. But at the same time, I understand people have their own ways and various preferences on using such kind of note-taking apps. Besides, Markdown was originally designed by John Gruber in 2004 and now has a lot of dialects made by many people such as GitHub because its syntax was kind of too simple. So, how can I solve those issues?
That’s the one of big reasons why I implemented plugin system into Inkdrop. It allows you to extend various functionalities of the app.You can find plugins here (https://my.inkdrop.app/plugins).
Inkdrop’s plugin can extend not only Markdown but also its functionalities like the editor, file import & export, theme, etc. Learn more about how to install plugins here. Thankfully, we've got great community-made plugins in addition to Inkdrop’s official plugins. For example, Otawara-san made a beautiful syntax theme named “material-dark-mod-syntax” which has got downloaded more than 2 thousand times:
libeanim created a Markdown renderer extension called “admonition” that allows to add block-styled side content to your notes, which got over a thousand downloads:
And more. This is incredible. How can you believe that they made those plugins while paying for Inkdrop? I can’t appreciate enough such great contributions because it definitely helped grow Inkdrop’s community. I was deeply thinking about it and I recently decided to provide them a special license which allows to use the app for free, forever. They told me they are so happy to get it — and I’m very happy with that. It’s one of the greatest experience I have ever had through Inkdrop.
By the way, recently plugin is even supported in the mobile version from v3.5.0:
Having this update, both the desktop and mobile apps can be now extended by your hands. It looks like the apps have got mature enough — So, I guess it’s time to encourage the users to develop plugins.
Again, this app is for hackers.
Twitter has succeeded because third-party hackers invented great tools and apps with its public API. I have ever built a Twitter web client long time ago, too. I love hacking with APIs to make life more convenient. It’s not only for myself but also for their community. I would love to see that people make it happen also in the Inkdrop community. To encourage that, I would like to introduce Plugin Developer License for Inkdrop. Here is the detail:
What you get
You can use Inkdrop for free, forever
Who is eligible
You must have at least one plugin you originally created
How to request
First, create a user account on the user forum. By logging in to it, your account will be automatically created based on the Inkdrop account.
Email me at [email protected] from your registered email address so that I can identify your account, with your plugin link in the mail body and your forum username.
Guideline
Basically, I will not hesitate to offer you the license but please respect the following guideline:
- You have to be an original author of the plugin
- Your plugin must add at least one feature that cannot be done with configuration
- If there is an existing similar plugin, you have to explain the differences from it.
- Provide documentation in English on how to install and use your plugin in
README.mdwith screenshots if necessary (screenshots are required for themes) - You have to keep maintaining your plugin
- No beta or WIP version
Note
Be sure that you can’t get a refund for the past payment. If you made any contribution on other people’s plugin, you can get 20% discount valid for 1 year instead.
FAQ
How to build plugin?
There are tutorials on how to create a theme and a plugin on the documentation:
- https://docs.inkdrop.app/manual/creating-a-theme
- https://docs.inkdrop.app/manual/plugin-word-count
- https://docs.inkdrop.app/manual/plugin-for-mobile
What to make?
You can get ideas from topics tagged with plugin-idea on our forum here. I’m always happy to help you build.
I hope it would be a good perk for your plugin development. I’m looking forward to seeing your great works! Can’t wait to make Inkdrop better together :D
Thank you for all your support!
Homepage: https://inkdrop.app/
Send feedback: https://forum.inkdrop.app/
Contact us: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/inkdrop_app
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/craftzdog/
