beorg extensions

beorg is free to download and most functionality is available to you without requiring any of your money. beorg is developed by just one person and I have a long list of new features I would love to add.

As with many indie developers¹ I develop apps for other companies in addition to my own. Whilst I get to work on many exciting projects for third parties I want to spend more time on my ideas. If you are a beorg user then probably you want this as well! beorg has lots of enthusiastic users, but is a long way from being able to pay my mortgage and support my family on its own.

The current monetisation model for beorg is to offer a small number of features as extensions. There is also the option to tip via an in-app purchase.

When a new version of beorg is released you’ll be told What’s New and are unobtrusively asked for a tip if you want to say thank you. I’m contemplating a subscription option, so you get all extensions for free and support beorg on an ongoing basis, however I’m not going to have this replace one-off purchases for those that want them.

Here is an overview of what are the current extensions and why they might be useful to you:

• Templates. beorg allows you to create two templates for free, and this extension gives you unlimited templates. A template tells beorg to automatically fill in certain fields - either with static or computed values (such as today’s date). You can use Scheme macros and a simple interpolation system so you are never forced into particular date formats. Most powerful is the ability to specify where a new item gets added into a file. If you use Org mode in Emacs then beorg templates are akin to capture templates. They aren’t quite as powerful yet but much easier to create.
• Dark Mode. Switch to a darker theme for those of you who like this sort of thing. Dark mode as an extension will likely go away later this year once beorg supports iOS 13 dark mode. For advanced users you can create your own colour themes.
• Saved Searches. beorg contains a flexible system for searching items. For example s TODO t Shopping will show you all items with a TODO state that are tagged with Shopping. You don’t need to remember this syntax as a helper bar above the keyboard gives you an easy way to create your searches. Searches become even more powerful if you save your most frequent ones. For example I’ve got saved searches to quickly show tasks which are IN-PROGRESS or WAITING, flagged tasks, stuff I need to get from the shops, and tasks in my high priorities projects only. You can use saved searches on both the Agenda and TODO tabs.
• Box Sync. beorg comes with a number of sync backends to put you in control of your data. For free you can use iCloud, Dropbox and WebDAV. If you like Box (or are forced to use it by your company) then this extension is what you want.

I’ve got a new extension in development so you can choose from a number of styles for export to PDF or viewing a formatted file on the screen. In addition to the upcoming built-in themes you’ll be able to define your own using CSS.

If you find beorg useful then take a look at the above extensions. Purchasing extensions and using the in-app purchase tips gives me more scope to spend time adding powerful new features and improving beorg. Thank you for your support.