That’s a super big bummer. I love Agenda. But, I’ve stopped using it. And, I will not be using it again until either my (Fortune 100 - 75,000 employee) company’s security department decides to allow us to store corporate data on Dropbox or iCloud, or one of my favorite independent application developers finds time on their already crowded roadmap to support Box or Google Drive. I’m not holding my breath for either one. 
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Google Drive I can see them allow, but I color me highly surprised if a Fortune 100 company’s security department that doesn’t like iCloud or Dropbox, would sign off on Box to be honest…
@mekentosj - Do you work for a Fortune 100 company? My guess is that Box is not seen as a competitive threat, whereas Apple and Dropbox might be. Don’t want your corporate data hosted on a competitor’s service. Google is only allowed because I work for a subsidiary of said Fortune 100 company that was acquired as a start up and all our docs were in Google.
Perhaps you are right, never thought of it that way. I’d think you wouldn’t want to rely at all on an outside company to host sensitive documents, especially if it’s not clear whether they are up for sale, can go bust at any time etc. But I have to admit that I don’t know Box well enough to make any judgement on them in this respect.
There should be at least one self-hosted sync solution with at least one standard protocol like WebDAV. Not every company and country allows storage location in locked-in Cloud services.
If this (and Spotlight search in iOS/ipadOS) comes to Agenda, I will buy Agenda in a heartbeat.
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As an avid OmniGraffle user, I really like this suggestion for Agenda!
does someone know about hosting your own WebDAV server on a Mac Mini?
An old post, but it pretty much describes the steps to enable this: https://gigaom.com/2010/10/01/how-to-enable-webdav-on-your-mac-for-iwork-on-ipad/
Because I sincerely believe that the more feedback you get about the different ways people are using Agenda with backup/sync services, here is my environment:
I’m lucky enough to work from home, where I have my own local backup data on a Synology NAS (runs Linux and has all sorts of apps you may need) — Time Machine, for instance, backs up directly to the NAS, but, on top of that, I also have a ‘cloud’ option to sync most things and the ability to access it remotely, share with other people, etc.
Because my apartment may be subject to natural catastrophes (fire, etc.) I also rely on further backup/sync solutions. Most of the data on the Synology NAS also gets sync’ed to an Office365 1 TByte OneDrive (enough for most of my important things!). But because I also mistrust any ‘corporation’ — not because they’re not legitimate; but rather because they tend to drop their services or change them completely, or, worse, start charging absurd prices for them (anyone still remembers Google Buzz? Or, well, Google+? Picasa?… you get my point). So who knows if Microsoft stops offering their TByte of free OneDrive data with an Office365 subscription; it might not happen in 2019 or 2020, but who knows what Microsoft (or any other corporation) will do in 2050? Even Apple might give up on iCloud if it doesn’t generate enough money to be profitable as an independent service…
As such, I run my own private cloud on my own server (hosted somewhere in France, I think…); I have tried out several alternatives but settled with Pydio Cells (mostly because it’s written in Go, i.e. natively compiled), which I can run on the NAS as well if I really wished to do so (in practice, I prefer to rely on different technologies… who knows who will be out of the market first, Synology or Pydio…). What this means is that I have to cope with different technologies which will evolve (or silently disappear…) over time — this means dealing with ‘bit rot’ and legacy ways of storing data, as well as dealing with the relatively short time that companies will offer their services in the same way as I’ve subscribed to them at the beginning.
As such, if this thread remains open for a few more years, it will become obvious that every year user’s requirements will slowly change, as the market changes as well. Those who are working today at company X which allows Dropbox will possibly work for Y tomorrow when only OneDrive is allowed. Dropbox might be bought by Google or Microsoft, any of which will ‘migrate’ all data to their own solution and discard the Dropbox API after a period; or, by contrast, Microsoft might drop OneDrive and let it be run by a different company. Remember when Google bought SketchUp, changed lots of things, added a new service (the 3D Warehouse Marketplace), and ultimately sold it back to the original owners…?
I could give trillions of similar examples — I’ve been using the Internet actively since late 1991, so I’ve seen all sorts of things happening, and nothing surprises me any more. I’ve also used services that were ‘migrated’ or ‘transitioned’ to different companies, as these are acquired or merged with other companies — sometimes, the ‘migration’ is peaceful enough, but this is rather the exception than the rule…
So… to summarise… I propose that, instead of figuring out what sync protocol (and cloud provider) to support next, based on users’ requests and market share, spending a month of development on each successive solution, what about a radical conceptual change? Introduce the notion of ‘Agenda plugins’ which can be developed by the community, possibly as open-source endeavours, or as part of an ‘Agenda marketplace’, where both Momenta B.V. and eventually independent developers may sell their plugins and extensions (see how Panic does it with Coda 2, for instance — to avoid giving Omni.Group as an example, or Adobe with Photoshop, since they’re huge compared to Momenta B.V…).
You might say that this would require even more development. But surely you have some ‘proto-plugin’ code built-in into Agenda, since some options are paid while most are not — therefore, there must be a way you have some control over which ‘modules’ (or whatever you call them) can be activated in Agenda. The trick is now figuring out exactly how you would be able to allow third-party modules, extensions, plugins, etc. to be ‘incorporated’ within Agenda.
This would obviously solve your issues of having to support a trillion different ways of dealing with synchronisation. Just support a few for free (say, maybe just iCloud). Add a few more, but each would be an official Momenta B.V. plugin which would be activated only after paying a fee (and possibly de-activated if the fee is recurring and the user stops paying for that particular feature). And then allow third-party plugins to be offered in the ‘Agenda Marketplace’ as well, using whatever solution you prefer — there are plenty of examples out there, from things like WordPress (it’s easy to write plugins/themes and offer them on the WordPress Plugin/Theme Directory, but you can technically get them — and install them — whatever the origin); plugins written with a ‘safe’ special scripting language (say, a Lua, Python or Javascript variant), such as FilterForge filter (developers pay extra to have the ability to design their own filters and offer them on their marketplace); or require full-blown development experience such as writing plugins for Adobe Photoshop. No matter how easy or difficult it is for writing third-party plugins — and that will mostly be a reflection of Momenta B.V.’s internal culture! — there will always be volunteers more than willing to do ‘free’ development to get the features they need…
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Thanks for the very detailed and thoughtful contribution. I think we can all relate to your frustration with services coming and going.
Plugins is an interesting idea. The main issue there is Apple. Most apps today are in a sandbox, making it very difficult or impossible to load outside code, and on iOS this is totally forbidden.
Having said that, we do have ideas, and have experimented with an alternative sync option that is much more open. It could be that that becomes a way for people to build their own system. I expect we will be exploring more of these options next year. At least this is the current plan.
Thanks again for the feedback!
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It will be great if option for Google Drive sync is provided! (as Dropbox provide only 2G free space, and anyway lots of people have already GDrive because of the Gmail)
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WebDAV would be the ideal protocol to support this, as it gives you freedom on which provider you would like to use (Nextcloud, Owncloud, hosted storage providers,…)
Instead of adding more proprietary providers it would be nice if you could first look into an open protocol based implementation like this.
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Totally agree on this!
Make it a paid feature, it will be sold like sliced bread… 
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I agree, but if it is free will also pull many users into Agenda, of course devs will decide on which plan it will go 
For example I myself stumbled and decide to give a try to Agenda because I did not find any other app Dropbox or other sync (user defined) for free with no number of notes limit + attachments…
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Sounds great. It’s possible to link to any Storage Provider App in iOS 13
https://www.textasticapp.com/v8/manual/integration_other_apps/git_client_working_copy.html
Users can then choose their own Storage Provider like a self-hosted solution or if they doesn’t care about privacy in their own notes and project documentation, using something like Google or Microsoft.
Current problem: in many Storage Provider Apps it doesn’t work, because developers doesn’t take care of this feature. “Working Copy” and “Secure Shellfish” are two Storage Provider Apps, where linking works.
No option. Just read the first post. He asked for a private sync solution. Notes are only saved on own managed storages and not managed (and indexed) by someone else like Amazon, Apple, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft…
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I think if it’s allowed with Dropbox you already have, it should not be problem with Google Drive?
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Apps that just store simple text files can indeed use pretty much any storage provider. But Agenda is much more complex than that. It is not just simple text files, so we need to write very custom code to support a new provider. We will consider other options in future.
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No. I don’t allow me to save anything to a storage that isn’t owned by me. Also no iCloud Backup and my server is running at home. I only use Agenda for testing for now. Please read the first post. He asked for a self-hosted solution, not for another foreign cloud company.
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Ah ok, i read the title and I thought it is for other storage commercial services.
I Don’t Want To Use Google Docs Either, But…
I’m going to try and be as constructive as possible, and I know I’m being naive, so I appreciate any insight on the matter.
Context:
I’m a freelance headline contributor for The Onion, which means that each week I end up writing 40-60 headlines that I then I have to whittle down to 10 that I end up submitting. Historically, I have used google docs exclusively because it’s standard practice: the ability to share and edit and punch up each other’s work on a free platform (it is also, FYI, the standard writing app employed by, well, pretty much the entire freelance comedy writing community).
Frustration
Why can’t any of the vanguard note-taking/writing app developers entertain the notion of a workflow that integrates Google Docs? When it comes down to it, Agenda and Bear are the two absolute best note-taking apps, without question, and I want to use the shit out of either one of them, but if I can’t seamlessly integrate the material I am creating in an editable google doc (not a PDF, not a convoluted work around or shortcut: native integration and bidirectional communication between the two) then it’s absolute torture to know I’m engendering a workflow that is going to fu** me in the long run. And that’s extremely disheartening because Agenda is probably one of the most promising apps I’ve seen in a very, very long time—the nature of my work, as you can see, is very much archived and catalogued on a timely basis.
I have read enough of these topics and replies and opinions to know that it’s “just not a priority” right now when “we have so many other features we are focused on”, or that “it’s too expensive” or temperamental, but I am at the point where I just need to know if I should give up, because I am tired of falling in love with these incredible apps that scoff at the very mention of google drive/docs.
I don’t want to use google docs either…that’s the point. I want to use Agenda. Sometimes you have to use an app because, well, you have to, and I hope the fine developers at Agenda can comprehend that it behooves them to acknowledge the possibility of incorporating integration with an app that they personally can’t conceive of integrating themselves.
Thanks, I really did try and remain constructive but I am so frustrated because I love this app so much.
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Thanks for the insights and I see where you are coming from in using Google Docs, at the same time however I’m not sure how you would see Agenda exactly integrate with Google Docs? How would this work in an ideal world for you?
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