Tomboy-ng

If you know all about tomboy-ng, you may want to proceed straight to the github tomboy-ng page.

The tomboy-ng documentation exists on github wiki.

What is tomboy-ng ?

Tomboy-ng is a rewrite of tomboy attempting to duplicate its critical features but deliver an easier to install and easier to maintain system. Key features include -

Links between notes, search capabilities and indexing on headers to help you organise and find your information.
A range of font features including size, bold, highlight, strikeout, italic and bullets.
Synchronization between machines running tomboy. And/Or to your Android phone from Linux.
Notebooks to consolidate your notes in groups.
Quick and easy to use on Windows, Linux and Mac.
Automatic syncing, automatic snapshots to keep your notes safe.

For a detailed look at what tomboy-ng can do and might do in the future, please see tomboy-ng features .

Is it all ready to go ?

Yes ! This project started late 2017 when we realised that the existing tomboy was starting to look a little fragile. While the technology chosen, FPC and Lazarus may have been 'surprising' and it has proven to be a good decision. At present, tomboy-ng is probably at least as stable as the original Tomboy, for most people its easier to install and it appears, as hoped, will be easier to maintain long term. tomboy-ng matches almost all of Tomboy's capabilities (except network based sync) and introduces a number of new and useful features.

So, please consider using it. If you do, please =

please report any problems,
Understand there will almost certainly still be some bugs. Probably minor and you may never see see one !

Why a new or alternative tomboy ?

While tomboy is stable and efficient code, it depends on some libraries that are becoming problematic on the desktop platforms tomboy aims at. A Mac version has not been available for some time and the Windows install is not without its issues. Even Linux distributions are leaving tomboy out of default installs, reportedly due to the size of those libraries, libraries that only tomboy needs.

However, some tomboy users believe that the ideas behind it are more significant than one code base. Tomboy-ng is an attempt to deliver the key features but rewritten using Free Pascal and Lazarus. This approach is proving promising, a single code base for Mac, Windows and Linux means easier maintenance and pre-existing components such as KControls means less code to maintain specifically for this application.

A major benefit is the resulting executable binary is only 3Meg to 6Meg and has little or no dependencies (on Mac, Windows and GTK based Linux) making for an easy install.

So, tomboy-ng is all about keeping tomboy alive.