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app4soft
BeeRef is an alternative clone of proprietary PureRef.[0]

Sadly, both PureRef and BeeRef actually are unmaintained.

But for BeeRef there is at least one active fork[1] that still is maintained.[2,3]

[0] https://alternativeto.net/software/beeref/

[1] https://github.com/mini-ninja-64/beeref

[2] https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/issues/62#issuecomment-14476...

[3] https://github.com/rbreu/beeref/issues/61#issuecomment-14490...

vadansky
I've been using PureRef for years now and it's pretty much done, so I'm not too worried it's not being maintained.
unshavedyak
Quite awkward to install on NixOS though, given the way PureRef wants to be downloaded.
rebuilder
Here’s a seemingly underserved niche - a cross-platform reference board that works on desktop as well as Android and iOS, and syncs your boards across devices.
sitkack
Applications should arguably form a swarm over a PAN and use an OT/CRDT to be kept in sync with each other. The device boundary needs to disappear completely.
hulitu
> The device boundary needs to disappear completely.

and so will your data, sooner or later. In the clouds /s

sitkack
No, it will exist in a replicated log on all devices. Just like git. No clouds required.
tomcam
Not a graphic artist--does reference board describe what BeeRef does?
rebuilder
Yes. Basically an infinite canvas to put images (why not videos as well) on.
dfrankle
What makes BeeRef unique compared to PureRef? What features does it offer that PureRef doesn't?
llanowarelves
Good question, I'm wondering the the other way around.
gorb314
Not a feature, but an advantage: From what I can tell (I have only used PureRef so far) is that BeeRef has a open file format. For someone with their own image tagging system, it is hard for me to export an image query to PureRef. Having an open file format would make that easy.
app4soft
> Not a feature, but an advantage: From what I can tell (I have only used PureRef so far) is that BeeRef has a open file format

Guess I should add news here: someone reverse engineered PureRef's file format[0] just few weeks ago[1,2]

[0] https://github.com/FyorUU/PureRef-format

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31lsz3JNtCU

[2] https://www.pureref.com/forum/read.php?2,2912

gorb314
I saw this post too; I didn't mention it here because it is not an officially documented file format structure. An open and documented format is almost always a better alternative, IMHO.
app4soft
BeeRef offers you source code, so you would be able to modify and extend it with the knowledge of Python and PyQt6.

PureRef offers you just a blob as is.

zzzmarcus
I've never used BeeRef or PureRef but if you're on the latest version of OS X and don't need cross platform compatibility, Apple's new app Freeform seems to overlap in functionality with Bee/PureRef quite a bit.
jmaselbas
I made another simple clone[1] of pureref mainly has an exercise to learn X11, however I don't really use it that often.

[1] https://github.com/jmaselbas/sref

app4soft
Looks nice! I really like lightweight X11-based apps.

Has You seen AzPainter[0] image editor app? Latest AzPainter v3.x has really nice own modern looking X11-based `mlk`[1] widget toolkit and there are many apps built with it.

I maintain(-ed) AzPainter v2.x community repo[2] (for packaging, l10n, wiki), that was based on its older `mlib`[3] toolkit.

[0] https://gitlab.com/azelpg/azpainter

[1] https://gitlab.com/azelpg/azpainter/-/tree/master/mlk

[2] http://azsky2.html.xdomain.jp/soft/index.html

[3] https://github.com/Symbian9/azpainter

[4] https://github.com/Symbian9/azpainter/tree/master/mlib