Decks

Decks, this is new, isn’t it? 21 minutes ago. It says Decks: an app to record, organize, and retrieve your ideas. What is that? Some kind of board?

It exists to bridge the gap between how people think and how tools force them to express those thoughts. Everything is accessible from a single place, so your idea and the other person’s context don’t remain scattered across a dozen apps, making it easier to remember information months or even years later.

Compared to apps like Notion and Obsidian, Decks is better because it doesn’t require complex setup and adjustments. Well, Notion and Obsidian aren’t really that complicated to set up either, to be honest.

It says: “The tool gets out of the way and leaves you with plenty of options to capture your ideas in whichever way works best for you.”

It starts as a subscription that gives you a year of updates. Yeah, man… wow! You know what I find off-putting? I mean, it starts by telling me… like, man, you’re throwing a subscription at me right off the bat. Look, I understand that obviously things aren’t made for free, right? But I don’t know, right out of the gate… well, it could also just be a deal from the app itself. I’d try to get it out there and build awareness first.

Lifetime… so it’s the Decks app. It’s not like it’s super expensive either. What I really don’t like is if we’re talking about a subscription, because if you’re going to pay 20 bucks and it’s a subscription… that one year of updates is fine, well, the updates are… Okay, so you get to keep the app itself. Okay, you’re only paying, so to speak, for updates. Well, it’s good that you clarify that, because otherwise, what a joke, man. Hey, I think we’re all burnt out from so many subscriptions, man. Wow! Everything is a subscription all day long.

Anyway, let’s see, features, features. It seemed to me… if I understood correctly, I think it refers to a board where you can drop ideas and organize them. What happens is that I already see a lot of classification here, which sometimes I think even in certain situations… There are things that just don’t get organized. I mean, so to speak, I can have a board where I have some notes, right next to it a video, and then an image. But if you now classify it, separate it, and group videos with videos and photos with photos, that’s great, but not for preserving the core idea. I don’t know if I’m making sense.

I feel like what it does is classify content. Okay, yeah, just a regular standard editor.

It says “link documents from any editor.” Well, here it’s actually linking things. It catches my attention now that I think about it that it compared itself to Notion. Hold on, tables and databases. I find it curious… Yeah, this is a kind of Notion too. We’re talking about a… Though maybe he framed it as an idea space to keep ideas together. Because there are things that do need to be linked together, connected. And honestly in Notion that can sometimes be a… well, it’s not a pain either because you just link to a new page.

Well, yeah, okay, no media files because this is local and Notion is online. If you want to add files there you’ll have to pay for storage. Here obviously, well, even though this video is embedded, it’s not a local file sitting there; it’s embedding a URL, like a YouTube video, you can clearly see that.

Multi-source support, it says: “You can upload videos directly or add them from YouTube and Vimeo.” It pulls titles and descriptions automatically.

Man, a mustache hair is tickling me right here. Okay, let’s see, no. I think it’s a bit of a weird hybrid, huh? Let me grab it, let me test it, let’s give it a try.

Silicon… I think… I hope many options aren’t locked out right off the bat for testing, because that would really be a buzzkill.

Let’s see, here it talks about… about what? Notice that here we have all kinds of files. Honestly, it will probably create mind maps and stuff like that later on too. That would be nice, right? Because XMind used to do that—I think that was the one that built cool mind maps, I think that was it.

100% local, no clouds, no servers, no nonsense, so we’re talking fully… offline. Decks it’s called, Decks.

Hey, now it’s catching my attention, huh? It actually just grabbed my interest. Notice that initially I was a bit hesitant, saying “Eh, eh…” But looking at it a bit more calmly, it catches my attention a little more now.

Okay, so I have it right here. For now, I don’t know whether to keep looking first or test this one… because it might be an app that takes us a while, you know? In fact, let’s dive right in. Let me open it right now, from the start. Decks. Instead of leaving it for later. Decks. Well, let’s put it in the Applications folder. And where is, I don’t see it. Here it is.

Credentials to continue… let’s set it to 7 days of trial. Kids collection… let’s see, for starters, I’ll look for the settings first. It would be nice, as always, if it were in Spanish, but I bet nope, nothing at all.

Current location, this is the directory where files will be stored. I’m going to set it… I’ll set it here, temp. I’ll create it there to take a look and see if it creates copies or links the files, or what happens. Because maybe if it only links them, it could be interesting, but if it’s creating copies, you’re taking up double space—which is what happens with many of these apps: in the end they create a sort of private vault where they put everything again, duplicating your files. Eventually you end up with… if you drop a video in, imagine using it to organize multi-gigabyte videos… if you drop a video, boom, disk space gone.

Anyway, let’s see. Wi-Fi sync with other apps on the local network. Local network only, from what I see. Devices, file transfer. Well, sync would need to be tested, but if it’s only within the local network… OpenAI API key, nah, we won’t look into that because no. Ollama endpoint, to use with what, Ollama? Okay.

Initially we’ll skip this because it doesn’t have many more options. I don’t see any option anywhere to configure backups. How weird, man. Only app or user settings.

Well, visual settings. This is the database size… this is what I mean, look: deck files. It’s going to have that issue. As soon as you copy or archive something, the problem will be right there: it’s going to duplicate files. Ugh, it’s always the same thing, man. Why not just use symbolic links? Or offer the option to either attach or create a symlink, because duplicating stuff… I’d love to organize things in one of these, but I can’t do it if I’m forced to duplicate all my content.

Let’s see, create collections. A collection of… let’s call it cards or something like that. Decks… I’m checking to see if it has other languages, but I don’t see language selection anywhere, so for now… Recently deleted, recent access… these are orphaned files. Well, let me create a collection to start with. New collection: this is basically like a test page, a Notion page. Let’s call it test and I’ll add one of these images, create.

We have list view and thumbnail view. New deck… I’m missing a bit of prior explanation of how this works, you know? Calendar and chat… add events—which I don’t get what events are doing here now—test, because if I link it, I can link it there. That’d be nice. Library… and now how do we go back? Do we close here? Wow, how weird, man.

A deck. I have no idea what the deck is. I’ll call it test so I don’t confuse it with the other one, I’ll pick another image. But it’s not very clear to me. What is this? It’s categorizing things here.

Kin folder, videos, cards, tables… How? Here we have this: these are folders, but I have to create a folder and then inside the folder… Let’s see, test table, column width. Column one, text, number, multi-select. Let’s leave it as a plain text column because I still don’t understand this. It could have a status or something, rating… And I don’t know what the rating percentage means. A select column will have several options, right? Option one… let’s leave it like that with just one. The thing is it’s separated by commas, man. Wow, what a flaw!

This would be like the database, so to speak. And this would be the second column, which is the select, right? There it is. So these would be like entries in a kind of database. But this is a database itself. It would be test… And why? Test. Base two, okay? It catches spaces. It performs searches in theory.

Let’s see, it’s a pretty simple table. Honestly, if you only need very basic tables, it shouldn’t… If I wanted to add another column now, column three… The strange thing is it has a rating, an evaluation, but it doesn’t have a status. Click to rate. A bit weird, isn’t it?

Well, let’s take it step by step. I see it has those tables, but of course, the point of this would be to create, for example, a new note. I’d always have to select in that… and a new note, maybe. Okay, we have access to a standard plain text editor, but where is the integration between one thing and the other? “Hello world.” Maybe a link, code, highlight… Man, it doesn’t even have a link option, huh? I’m more lost than Waldo with this!

If I drag an image directly into it, what happens? Nothing. Ah, like that it works. Look, it moved it, huh? This is the folder where I set image saving, it’s classifying them here. And notice it actually moved it. In a way I don’t hate that, though it’d be better if it asked me first… Ideally… it’s uploading it, but removing it from its original location. Must be because I dragged it.

Let me try uploading it via upload. Desktop, logo, open. Look, the issue was dragging it; otherwise, it makes a copy. Either it’s a bug or done on purpose. Which, if you know and keep in mind, might be fine. Because if you organize lots of heavy files, especially video, and want them organized visually, the only way is embedding them in some program. But of course, you can’t embed if you have a 70GB video. Yesterday, for instance, I was handling a 70GB video: you can’t throw that into one of these, because if it duplicates it, my entire drive crashes in 10 minutes.

Let’s see if disabling or holding a key… no. It’d be nice if dragging out allowed the reverse action. It doesn’t let you do that, which I don’t like as much. You’d have to hit download or reveal in finder. Well, no big deal, but something to keep in mind.

Notes. I created the note and it didn’t save, from what I see. “Hello”. I have to hit save no matter what. And here I don’t have images, gallery. I’d have to create image file, video… Here it did make a copy. For example, do I have any video here? Probably should. What is this? A clip of the short, alright, let me throw it in here.

Look, MKV isn’t supported. Right off the bat it didn’t like MKV, so that ruined it for me. What a shame… Let’s try putting an MP3 here, it should pick it up, right? Nope, man. And it claimed it could upload all those file types. And videos… man, it doesn’t pick up anything. MOV and MP4 don’t work.

Well, let’s see: brainstorm. Let’s create… I don’t know, let’s call it video. And now what? It’s just a brainstorming space to type names, because it doesn’t let me do anything else here. Video two… only assign colors. No linking whatsoever, it doesn’t let me create connections between them. Man, it’s not clear to me at all what this app is for, huh? If it’s just a place to archive stuff, Finder does the exact same thing.

Visual Workspace, New Canvas… Elements get added anywhere, man. Yeah, this is a bit awkward. It doesn’t show Canvas boundaries either. Some grid or something like that would be nice to insert images as is. I could drag them too.

Voice note, I imagine this is it. Permissions… I don’t think my mic is connected, but no problem. Recording save.

Tables, journal… let’s see what we can put here. It feels like it has a ton of features crammed together, but I still don’t see the purpose of having everything there.

To-do lists… this is a Kanban. A Kanban board, which is precisely what I was thinking earlier with the table. Because ideally you’d create… Kanban entries are great, but this is for a super basic to-do list. In Notion you could create this exact same Kanban view. I say Notion because it’s the first that comes to mind, but with apps like Ciyuan or similar you can do it too. Of course, if I open this to edit, does it allow more than doing this or linking? It says: “to link to a document”. Seriously, man? Everything feels super awkward to me.

It feels like forcing a classification before doing anything. I mean, not even… I thought maybe it would organize things for you, like I’ve seen in other apps where you write a note on a Freeform-style canvas, stick all your stuff there visually, and the software in the background separates and organizes your media (images, videos, etc.) while maintaining that visual board. Here I see a bunch of separate modules: post-it notes, which are fine, but if I can’t use them anywhere else and have to summon them weirdly or they just sit there… Okay, fine, it’s an all-in-one tool.

If that’s the goal, then it is what it is, and it’s fine. A single place where you throw everything so you don’t use 20 apps, but rather one single app. Okay, but I think the app description claimed it was an easier way… yeah, like a single hub for everything.

And what about search? Hold on, because I’m missing something here. Library… These, so to speak, could each be… You know what it feels like? A bit like Pinterest. This is a Pinterest board where you pin all your stuff, whatever you want. But the execution feels a bit weird.

And now, if I searched “video” here… it doesn’t even search, man, even though I used the word “video”. And if I click it, it doesn’t show it either; I have to keep clicking through everything again. Man, there’s no making sense of this, huh?

Let me make this window bigger to see if it’s because I have it small… I don’t know, no. Here it’s set up so you have to open it and click inside. “Test time, option 1 2, test 2”. Yeah, if I search “test 2”, why doesn’t it work? Don’t tell me it only searches the board title itself? Look at that…

Well, it’s tested. It’ll work for someone or be useful to somebody, probably. The developer who made it must have had a user in mind. I find the whole thing a bit odd. Even for navigation… why do some views close here while others require going back? The UI design feels a bit strange, you know? It’s not ugly—it looks nice, clean, has plenty of features—but I find it way too confusing.