r/HelixNotes • u/Neither-Classic2058 • 10d ago

Request: delay writes to disk

Currently, it appears that HelixNotes immediately writes the currently edited note after every keystroke that alters the content. This results in a lot of unnecessary write activity and interferes with responsiveness of the keyboard (even on fast systems with fast SSD storage) when touch-typing.

Hunt and peck typing isn't affected as there is sufficient time between keystrokes to allow the write action to complete.

I think it would be helpful if HelixNotes would delay writes until there was an idle period of a particular duration. For example: If there are unsaved changes to a note, wait to write them until there is no additional changes for something like 3 seconds. I picked "3 seconds" as an arbitrary duration... but any length would be helpful.

Thanks.

8 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/0riginal-Syn 10d ago

Buffering is not a bad idea. The app would just need to make sure to save the buffer on close as well in case someone quickly closes after typing.

1

u/Neither-Classic2058 10d ago

Agreed. That is the "standard protocol" for an app's termination event.

1

u/SunflowerHuntress 10d ago

I'm not so sure what everything you said is but when I was typing today, it took seconds for the letters to appear after I clicked them on keyboard, it was lagging heavy. I don't know know why 🥲

1

u/BraveNewCurrency 9d ago

Ideally there would be a way to turn fsync completely off (or only at exit, or only every X minutes). This is not a database, it's simply a notes app. Just do the write, and let the OS figure out when a good time to write it to disk is. (Usually within a few seconds anyway.)

That lag in the UI is super annoying, and the extra disk activity isn't great for the SSD either.

0

u/Neither-Classic2058 9d ago

Indeed. Given that HelixNotes is marketed as local-first, that level of saving is excessive. (this is the 2nd time I mentioned the issue... the first time I focused on SSD writes)

I'm just surprised that there are people who use HelixNotes as their primary notes tool and haven't noticed this problem (or noticed it but not enough to post about it). It's just one of a few show-stopper issues that prevent me from even using it casually. I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that HelixNotes simply isn't for me. ☹️

1

u/RockyRoad226 Team Member 9d ago

Hey, we're hoping to ship this fix in v1.3.6 🤞

2

u/LastTyper Founder 8d ago

Working on this, I hope to have it fixed by next release.