Trilium promo video

[ricolandia]

I've been meaning to make a promotional video for Trilium for a while, and with this new release( a great, great one!!), I see it's time to finally move forward.

What I already have so far:

1. The script
2. The base 3D scene, built in Blender
3. The kinetic typography template in Blender
4. Voice-over
5. Soundtrack

What's still missing:

6. Kinetic typography — I already have the Blender template for the text motion; I just need to animate each text block and render them out with an alpha channel to overlay on the videos.

7. Screen captures for each scene described in the script. I was planning to do all of them myself, in a separate Docker instance on my homelab (I've already installed and populated it).

But… I thought it would be fair to invite the community to participate, so I paused my production. After all, I don't want to make this decision alone — I'm just an enthusiastic user! :)

My proposal, if you agree:

7.1 First, review the script and let me know if this is the direction that developers, contributors, and the wider community would like to see.

7.2 Once the final script is approved, we could proceed in one of two ways:

a) Each interested user could record one of the screen captures (in FullHD or 4K) and make it available, so I can composite it into the Blender 3D scenes.

— or —

b) If you prefer, I can make all the source files available in a public repository. Let me know which path you'd rather take.

The script is attached below.

Final Script.md

Rendered Frame

[adoriandoran]

That's actually great news! Trilium is still flying a bit under the radar when it comes to promotion. I checked the script, and it seems to cover the big picture and the key features that differentiate it from other applications.

But I think some other aspects deserve attention as well, such as the text editor capabilities, Markdown notes, spreadsheets (the note type, not the collection), mindmaps, PDF annotations, canvas, and geo maps. These would show users who have never used Trilium before that it’s a feature-rich application, not just a self-hosted open-source note-taking app that works with text. I believe showcasing these visually in the background during the voice-over would be sufficient; they don’t necessarily need to be mentioned in the script.

I also think we should create a few new demo notes, since the existing ones are heavily outdated. They might be useful for the video.

[ricolandia]

Hi @adoriandoran, I really like the improvements! If you put together these demo notes, I can import them into my instance and take screenshots of the results. Can you do that?

I'll wait a couple of days to see if anyone else has suggestions. After that, I'll rewrite the script with these new scenes and share it with you before the next milestone.

Thank you!

[adoriandoran]

Sure, I’ll take care of the demos over the next few days.

[Staenly]

This sounds like an amazing initiative! I very like it. However, I’d like to share my thoughts on the timing of the release. Nowadays, having a mobile app is almost a deal-breaker for many users when choosing a note-taking tool. Since Trilium currently lacks a stable mobile app, some people might lose interest once they realize that. Therefore, I’d suggest holding off on releasing the video until the official mobile app is out, which seems to be happening very soon

[ricolandia]

Hi @Staenly, good point. An official version would attract more users. I personally am satisfied with the pocket version by @Nriver, but I totally understand what you're saying.

We also still have the synchronization bottleneck. A one-click sync service is needed, as already outlined in discussions #9572 and #9084, when we talked about having something that is easy for the average user.

We should also consider unifying the repository for the scripts (which we call plugins, add-ons... or do we fully adopt the term "scripts" once and for all?). I've tried something that I am using for my personal organization. It is mentioned here: #9954.

In any case, nothing prevents us from creating scenes based on what we already have, and since the scenes are "modular", we can insert and reorder them on the Blender timeline (VSE). I'll move on with what we have and await considerations like this one to deliver a "final video".

Once all the scenes are ready with what we have, I will share the source files with everyone (I just need you to tell me where to upload the files), and then we will have material that can be used by all.

I am also willing to create reusable material in .svg (via InkScape) or via Penpot, to have a promotional repository that maintains visual consistency. I'll leave that up to you. This is my contribution.

[eliandoran]

@Staenly , personally I appreciate all marketing efforts because we are most certainly lacking in that department. 😅
Regarding both mobile and a one-click service, both are on our roadmap. For mobile, I expect an Android version to come sooner rather than later.

So feel free to start your work on it; the script itself seems nice.

[ricolandia]

Hello @eliandoran. Yes, I’m proceeding with the plan. We’re going to have something modular, which we can add to and reuse.