⚠️ REQUIRES LIBWEBKIT2GTK/WEBKITGTK ⚠️

Scratchpad

A lightweight, glass-themed markdown note-taking application built with Tauri (Rust) and JavaScript.

Features

• Markdown Editor - Full markdown support with live preview toggle
• Syntax Highlighting - Beautiful code blocks with language-specific highlighting
• Multi-tab Editing - Open and edit multiple notes simultaneously
• Auto-naming - Note titles auto-extract from first non-empty line
• Folder Organization - Create custom folders and drag notes between them
• Wiki-links - Link notes with [[Note Title]] syntax, includes autocomplete
• Backlinks Panel - See what notes link to the current note
• Tags System - Add tags to notes and filter by tag
• Undo/Redo - Per-note undo/redo history with Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Y
• Auto-save Toggle - Enable/disable automatic saving
• Bulk Operations - Select multiple notes to delete or move
• Real-time Search - Search notes by content and title
• Dark/Light Theme - Glass-themed dark mode (default) + light mode toggle
• Glass UI - Beautiful transparent interface with blur effects
• Markdown Storage - All notes saved as plain markdown files with YAML frontmatter
• Copy/Paste - Full clipboard support in the editor

Tech Stack

• Frontend: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (ES6+)
• Backend: Rust with Tauri
• Storage: Local filesystem (markdown files)
• Libraries: marked (markdown parsing), highlight.js (syntax highlighting), turndown (HTML→Markdown conversion)

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust (latest stable)
• Node.js (v16 or higher)
• npm or pnpm
• libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev (Linux only)

Quick Install (Linux/macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/viewerofall/GlassPad/main/install.sh | bash

This will:

• Download the latest binary
• Install to /usr/local/bin/scratchpad
• Create a .desktop launcher
• Install icons to ~/.local/share/icons

Then just run: scratchpad

Build from source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/viewerofall/GlassPad.git
cd scratchpad

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run tauri build

Releases

Check the Releases page for pre-built binaries.

Usage

Creating Notes

• Click + Note in the toolbar or press Ctrl+N
• Type your content - the first non-empty line becomes the title automatically
• Notes auto-save every 2 seconds when auto-save is enabled
• Manually save with Ctrl+S or the save button

Formatting

• Bold: **text** or Ctrl+B
• Italic: *text* or Ctrl+I
• Underline: <u>text</u>
• Bullet points: Start line with - or click the bullet button
• Headings: Start line with ## or click the H2 button
• Code blocks: ```language code here```

Wiki-links

• Type [[ to see a dropdown of note titles
• Select a note to create a link: [[Note Title]]
• In Preview mode, click the link to jump to that note
• Use the backlinks panel to see what notes link to you

Organizing Notes

• Create folders with the + button in the sidebar
• Drag notes and folders to reorder them
• Delete notes/folders with the × button (shows themed confirmation)
• Bulk select notes with the ☑ Select button, then delete or move them

Themes

• Click the 🌙 moon icon in the titlebar to toggle between dark and light themes
• Theme preference is saved automatically

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl+N - New note
• Ctrl+S - Save current note
• Ctrl+W - Close current tab
• Ctrl+B - Bold
• Ctrl+I - Italic
• Ctrl+U - Underline
• Ctrl+Z - Undo
• Ctrl+Y / Ctrl+Shift+Z - Redo

File Storage

Notes are stored as markdown files with YAML metadata in:

• Linux: ~/.scratchpad/notes/
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.scratchpad\notes\
• macOS: ~/.scratchpad/notes\

Each note is a .md file with frontmatter containing metadata (id, title, folder, tags, timestamps).

Development

# Install Tauri dependencies
cd src-tauri
cargo build

# Return and run dev server
cd ..
npm run dev

# Watch for changes and rebuild
npm run tauri dev

Releases

Releases are automatically built and published for Linux, macOS, and Windows via GitHub Actions.

To create a release:

# Tag a commit (e.g., v1.0.0)
git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

This triggers the GitHub Actions workflow which:

• Builds binaries for Linux (x86_64)
• Builds for macOS (x86_64 + ARM64)
• Builds for Windows (x86_64)
• Creates a GitHub release with all artifacts
• Users can then install with: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/viewerofall/GlassPad/main/install.sh | bash

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please discuss what you're working on first.

Roadmap

Currently feature-complete. This project may be archived.

Acknowledgments

• Built with Tauri
• Inspired by Obsidian and Notion
• Glass UI design using CSS backdrop-filter