AnyType allows me to keep a list of movies I want to watch and create various views based on different criteria such as movie language ... but it's hard to automate adding data to AnyType. Easiest way is to type it all in manually.

My own app lets me do things as I wish and I can automate movie information retrieval easily from say IMDB, but it is task-specific and I can't easily store (or rather, store in an organised fashion) movie information side-by-side with say, book info, or a comic book collection.

Can I find a middle ground?

#PersonalDataManager #AnyType #Swift #SwiftUI #Automation

@f if you find a solution I’d love to hear about it. My current system is very very crude.

It is an Apple notes file with a variety of sections (sorted by streaming service for tv shows and some movies, by form factor for books (print, ebooks by ebook reader app, audiobooks) but it uses a lot of catch all categories and doesn’t store much detail (just whatever I type in) would love something richer yet also simple to scan & keep updated as I buy/watch/read things

@Rycaut Will do 🙂

Ideally, what I’d like to have is a free-form database along the lines of FileMaker, Bento, or Records where I can define the schema for each table, set up relations and so on so that I can go to town in precisely defining how each type of information is stored …

But it seems like a really long-term project and I’m not sure that it’s feasible …

AnyType actually works really well, is free, and is open source. Only trouble is that it’s heavily (but slowly) under development and so far doesn’t have an API and so isn’t easily extensible …

I did manage to write an importer for movies for it yesterday but it involves creating a single JSON file for each movie and then importing each JSON file in manually (and individually). So a bit cumbersome …

A custom solution would be the fasters, but then I’d have to create separate apps for each type of data, or it would only cater to the types of data I want and so might not work for others …

@Rycaut I haven’t gone through each of the items in the following list in detail yet, but there might be something there that might work for you 🙂

https://alternativeto.net/software/filemaker-pro/?license=opensource

My first instinct always is to go for a solution that I can extend/code for, and so I’ll need to do some checking on each … If I find one that I really like, will let you know …

@f as I read your responses I had the thought that I wonder if a wiki platform with some degree of templates/customization might be sufficient for both of us? I’ve long been a bit ambivalent about generic wikis but once there is a structure/template in place they can be pretty useful. Something like perhaps https://tiddlywiki.com (or another open source simple wiki though I think I’ve heard good things about that one - the challenge is a lot of wiki projects are named similarly

@Rycaut As I started reading your reply and got to “wiki”, I was thinking TiddlyWiki since I’ve used it in the past … and then you mentioned it 😛

I’ll have to go see how it looks/functions now since I haven’t used it in at least 10 years perhaps? It was really easy to use back in the day …

But I think my issue with a wiki is always that I see it as browser-based and somewhat heavy … I want a “light” app that I can bring up as needed and dismiss when I don’t want it. But I think that’s a peculiarity on my part …

I do want to go take a look at TiddlyWiki now that you’ve reminded me, thanks!

I’m currently getting ready to install NocoDB on my NAS since it’s open source and works like AirTable, which I’ve also found in the past to be very easy to use for almost any type of data … What always put me off was the data limits on the free plan, even if I never hit the limits 😛

@f @Rycaut

#AnyType is not Free Software nor Open Source since it doesn't use licenses by FSF nor OSI.

They use a custom license that is a juridical nonsense and that limits you A LOT.

AnyType is so called "source available".

With that license, no one should use it, really.

P.S. devs are cryptocurrencies fanatics, never trust those guys when they say something will be Open Source since they don't know what that means.