Reflection: Work offline, while still collaborating

What is the project about?

All organized groups need tools for collaboration, such as shared documents, shared folders, or financial management. Traditional platforms like Google Docs or Microsoft Office offer practical features, but they come with drawbacks in terms of privacy, data sovereignty, and sustainability. Reflection is a collaborative text editor based on the local-first paradigm that works without constant server synchronization. With best practice examples, UI/UX patterns, and a code snippet library, Reflection aims to serve as a reference for other developers who want to integrate local-first features into their own applications.

Which audience does the project address?

Reflection aims to strengthen collaborative, decentralized, and secure applications as a whole, thereby supporting people in vulnerable contexts who value data privacy and sovereignty, such as activists and journalists. To this end, the project also aims to reach free software developers and spark interest in a local-first approach, particularly in the GTK app community surrounding the GNOME desktop environment.

What is to be achieved?

Reflection is a local-first text editor that enables secure, decentralized, and privacy-friendly collaboration, including UI features for document and access management, multi-cursor, versioning, and undo/redo functionality.