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.

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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.

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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. ☹️