Hey everyone, I'm new here 👋 Long story short, I made an app called KanbanTab in 2020. I finished a huge update that I'm proud of, and I want to show it off. It's a browser extension & mobile app.
Background
I had the idea to make Chrome's new tab load up Trello so I don't have to go to their website every time, so I installed a Chrome Extension to open my Trello board. It worked but I was a little bit frustrated at the loading times... Especially due to my internet at the time because I was stuck on a mountain in Malaysia due to Covid (long story).
That's when the idea was born to make a web extension that can load my tasks instantly (locally) instead of having to wait for Trello or other apps to load. I created KanbanTab and I used it myself for a bit, but later decided to release it to everyone which I released a few months later in 2020.
Last year I decided it was time to upgrade it because I wanted it to work on my phone as well, and that's where I am right now. I added live sync between devices, and also End-to-End Encryption to keep the users data truly private. (The database data is always encrypted, but the client-side encrypted data is inaccessible even to me as the developer)
What makes KanbanTab different?
🔵 Instant loading: it's local-first, using web workers and other techniques to make the data load instantly, while also relying on WebSockets to keep data synced between devices in real-time.
🔵 Simplicity: KanbanTab is not a project management tool, it's a personal productivity tool that aims to be simple to use, without unnecessary features that just bloats the UI.
🔵 Privacy: Privacy is important, and I don't want to worry about data breaches if they do happen (knock on wood). The End-to-End Encryption makes it so the data in the servers' database is completely unusable unless you have the keys that are only accessible on the client.
Stack
I code from scratch because I like lightweight applications, which is especially important for an app like KanbanTab since loading time is a huge factor for me, and my users. Here's what I use:
🔵 Vanilla JavaScript / CSS: No React or Tailwind, just clean JS.
🔵 IndexedDB/LocalStorage: For the local-first instant-loading.
🔵 Python: Running the backend with Flask for the API and WebSockets.
🔵 MySQL: For the main database.
🔵 CryptoJS: To handle the client-side AES-256 End-to-End Encryption.
🔵 Capacitor: To wrap the web app into a native Android application.
Feel free to check it out - you can try it without signing up here, or check out the website that I finished today:
https://kanbantab.com
No ads, no signup required, no huge paywall. Just a good ol' organically coded app 🤠I currently have around 70 daily active users, but I'd really love to get some fresh eyes on it from other developers to help me take it to the next level.
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