Hey selfhosters 👋
A few weeks ago I shared Ideon here and got great feedback that shaped a lot of what I've been working on since.
Since my last post here, Ideon crossed 200 stars on GitHub and I wanted to say thank you ❤. It means a lot to see people interested in what started as a side project. It motivated me to work on it literally every day since then.
For those who missed it: Ideon is a self-hosted visual workspace where you lay out everything about a project on an infinite canvas: notes, Git repos, code snippets, checklists, sketches, links and connect them together. Two containers, no external dependencies.
Since then, a lot has changed and I wanted to share an update.
Self-hosting got smoother. Docker permission issues with bind mounts are gone, build times are faster, and there's a new GIT_ALLOWED_HOSTS env variable so you can whitelist your internal Git servers (Gitea, Forgejo, GitLab behind a VPN, etc.) without the SSRF filter blocking them.
Collaboration got real structure. There are now 4 project roles (Creator, Owner, Editor, Viewer), a Request Access workflow for private projects, and the canvas supports real-time multiplayer with conflict-free editing.
The canvas got a lot more usable. Keyboard navigation (arrow keys + vim keys), a command palette, freehand sketch blocks, drag-and-drop checklists with progress bars, markdown tables and task lists, emoji reactions on blocks, edge labels, and a bunch of stability fixes for large projects.
Where this is going next:
Right now Ideon lets you see your project. Git stats, issues, PRs show up on the canvas, but you can only look at them. For the v1 I want to move from visibility to control. Merge a PR from the canvas. Trigger a deployment. Restart a service. Turn the workspace into an actual cockpit where you operate your project, not just view it.
That's the direction. Curious what this community thinks about it.
If you tried it and hit something rough, or if you've been waiting to try it, now's a good time. Feedback always welcome.
While the comment was obviously a bit rude, perhaps you can take something constructive out of it. I see that you have a nice compose file prepared as an example with postgres, and a curl into bash for ‘automatic installation’.
Many feel a bit uncomfortable with doing that - especially if the script ultimately just sets up docker containers again. Maybe you could add a ‘quickstart’ section there which just consists of a single
docker runcommand setting up the sqlite version.That way you have the best of both worlds and both people wanting a production setup example and those just wanting to quickly try are served.
ohh okay good to know, thanks for the advice !
On a more personal note, still eagerly reading your updates here every couple of weeks. Sounds like it's shaping up nicely!
Good luck with the api wiring to let people control the forges directly from the interface for 1.0 - if you ever need a tester for forgejo integration you can hit me up.
ohh you're great, I definitely won't forget !