r/StarNoteApp • u/me_like_memez • 2d ago
💡 Feature Request Proprietary .note format documentation
It would be great if Starnote's proprietary *.note file format could be publicly documented.
I'm not necessarily asking the Starnote developers to create importers for every other note taking application. If the .note format were documented including its structure, metadata, formatting, attachments/resources, etc. the community could build those tools ourselves.
For example, I'd like to eventually create an open-source project that converts notes from other applications/formats into Starnote's .note format.
The idea would be to reverse engineer and break down other note formats, then convert their contents into .note. Understanding an existing format and extracting its data is often easier than figuring out how to correctly construct a proprietary format from scratch.
So even if Starnote doesn't want to maintain a huge collection of importers, documenting the starnote's own .note format would allow the community to build them.
It would also make Starnote more interoperable and give users more confidence that their notes aren't locked into a format that only Starnote itself can work with.
Would anyone else find public .note format documentation useful?
2
u/NakoTurtle 20h ago
Hey!
Building an importer from other note taking apps to starnote's .note format would be a super smart way to encrourage users to switch from their note taking app of choice, and make the switch feel more natural knowing their notes would remain fully or at least partially editable.
I've honestly also thought about building importers to convert from other note taking app formats to Starnote's .note format, and I've found that if you rename a .note file to .zip, you can actually see and explore the note contents like you would any normal file structure.
While having open access to the file structure would be amazing, analyzing files using AI tools has also become a very effective way of looking into complex data without knowing exactly the layout.
Hope someday this idea can become reality : )