What a journey! After 4 years, Starlight has been acquired!
In 2021, frustrated with the note apps available (Evernote, OneNote, NotePad++…), I started developing Starlight.
The premise was simple: increase productivity by removing note and task management overhead, letting users focus on their actual work while staying on top of the business. The app enabled that by:
1. Adding structure using smart templates and dynamic formatting
2. Enabling users to combine notes and inline actions
3. Consolidating actions across all notes into an easily digestible view
Being brutally honest, I thought it would be much faster to develop than it actually was, my initial assessment was 6 to 12 months. Not quite…
All in all it took me almost two years to develop, double my original estimate.
There were many contributing factors, but mainly:
- Although SwiftUI had been around for a while, macOS support was flaky (arguably still is)
- Smart formatting and in-line actions required significant optimization work to ensure responsiveness in long notes
- Integrating in-line actions and task objects in CoreData was a great feature, but very tricky to get right
No regrets though – since its launch in May 2023, Starlight has received 10 major updates and has established a small but mighty loyal user-base.
So why sell?
Starlight is free to download and use, however keeping it updated requires significant time and effort. As I look forward I’m going to be focusing on smaller hobby projects or revenue-generating apps.
What will happen to my data?
Your data is yours, no user data is being shared as part of this sale.
Can I continue to use the app?
Yes! If you have already downloaded Starlight, it will continue to work as normal.
Can I try Starlight?
Although Starlight is no longer available to download here’s some great alternatives: Obsidian, Agenda or TaskPaper
Will there be more app updates?
Starlight 1.2.2 is the final update.
I have a question!
Do not hesitate to reach out
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Thanks to all the users of Starlight, and doubly so to those who shared feedback to make the app better!
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All previous posts about Starlight:
– What differentiates good from great Product Managers?
– Struggling with a basic macOS SideBar, RowList & DetailView app in SwiftUI
– Identifying combinations of dates in text using regex
– Counting Core Data entries based on relationship entities
– Multiple Word, Random Order Search – CoreData & SwiftUI
– Using NSSortDescriptor to sort Dates and nil values
– SwiftUI modifier order matters, a lot
– Preventing edits in TextFields unless cell is selected
– Iterating on MarsManaged Palette & Icon – First Round
– Making an editable Label with SwiftUI
– Working on all new TO-DO views for MarsManaged
– Expanding TO-DO views for MarsManaged
– SwiftUI macOS Preference Pane | Preferences
– MarsManaged March update, Alpha coming soon?
– TextField Recommendations / Autocomplete – SwiftUI macOS and iOS
– Badges? Gray Badges? Color Badges!
– Creating a macOS “About” screen the SwiftUI way
– Adding an overlay when there’s no content to show – SwiftUI Empty States
– Schedule & re-Schedule any action with Dynamic Date parsing
– Replacing NSTextView text programmatically without affecting its style and format
– Bom Dia
– MarsManaged July Update: New Palette, Icon, UX Improvements…
– SideBar: The Silent Super-Feature
– MarsManaged onboarding – Unleashing a new golden age for humanity!
– Restoring macOS window after close – SwiftUI WindowsGroup
– Easily linking any AppKit or UIKit class with SwiftUI
– And just like that, MarsManaged has reached Beta!
– Leveraging SF Symbols from code
– Starlight – Soft launch, week 1 update
– Starting to code again 🙂 on in app purchases 🙁