Capnote

Capnote is a desktop app for notes and journaling. Everything stays on your computer: there is no account and no cloud sync.

Features

• Rich text and Markdown: headings, lists, task lists, quotes, dividers, tables, code blocks, links, strikethrough, images and file attachments, Markdown shortcuts while typing ("## ", "- ", "[] ", "```"; they can be turned off in the settings), undo for every tool, plus Markdown notes with a live preview and an HTML preview.
• Links between notes: type [[ to link to another note; a note lists the notes that link to it, and the note graph shows all the links as a map.
• Organizing: folders with colors, tags with a tags page and a tag filter, favorites, pinned notes and folders, a Today view, a custom order by dragging (folders can go between notes), selecting several notes at once, an archive for notes kept out of the list, sorting and search.
• Templates: start a note as a journal entry, meeting notes or a weekly plan.
• Year in review: a card with the year's notes, words and writing days, the months written most, the most frequent mood, the longest streak, the most used tag and the longest note, to save as an image and share.
• Journaling: mood and weather for each note, an overview with a mood calendar, the writing streak, how moods and weather are spread and the words per month, word and character counts, reading time and an edit history.
• Reminders and to-dos: reminders with desktop notifications, and a to-do list grouped into sections.
• Locked notes: a locked note is encrypted with its password (PBKDF2-SHA256 and AES-GCM). If you forget the password, the note cannot be recovered.
• Export and backup: export a note as PDF, HTML, plain text or JSON, export every note as Markdown files and import Markdown files, back up or restore all data as a JSON file, and go back to one of the automatic daily backups of the last 7 days.
• Desktop integration: a quick note window (Ctrl+Alt+N from any app opens a small always-on-top note in the corner of the screen), tray icon, close to tray (Windows), start at login, a chosen start page, light and dark themes, accent colors, and English and Turkish.
• Edit text files: on Windows, "Edit with Capnote" in the right-click menu of .md, .txt and .html files opens the file in Capnote as a file note; saving it writes the file back, as a text editor does (Capnote asks before overwriting a file changed in another program). The menu entry can be turned off in the settings, and uninstalling removes it.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl/Cmd + N	New note
Ctrl/Cmd + S	Save the note being edited
Ctrl/Cmd + E	Edit the open note
Ctrl/Cmd + D	Duplicate the open note
Ctrl/Cmd + F	Search notes
Ctrl/Cmd + K	Add or edit a link in the editor
Ctrl/Cmd + Z / Y	Undo / redo in the editor
Ctrl/Cmd + Enter	Leave a code block in the editor
Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + N	Quick note window from any app
Esc	Close the open dialog or editor

Where your data lives

Notes, folders, reminders, notifications, to-dos and settings are stored as JSON files in the app's data folder:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Capnote
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Capnote
• Linux: ~/.config/Capnote

Images and files added to notes are copied into the uploads folder there. Once a day, Capnote copies the data files into backups/ and keeps the last 7 days. To move to another computer, use Settings → Data Management → Export Data and import the file on the other side.

Development

Requires Node.js 22.12 or later.

npm install
npm run dev      # start with hot reload and DevTools
npm start        # start normally
npm run lint     # ESLint
npm run format   # Prettier
npm run icons    # regenerate the icons from assets/icons/source/*.svg
npm test         # app tests (starts the real app per test)
npm run test:visual  # compare screenshots of every screen

The main process is in src/main/, the preload bridge in src/preload.cjs, and the interface in src/renderer/: js/app.js plus one module per feature in js/features/, the markup of the editor and the dialogs in js/templates/, and stylesheets in css/, loaded in the numbered order.

Interface changes follow the design rules in docs/DESIGN.md: one layout for every screen, a shared set of components, no borders, spacing on a 4px grid, and the shared tokens for surfaces, sizes, shape and type.

Tests

Each file in tests/cases starts the real app with an empty data folder, runs a script inside the window and compares the result with the expected value in the same file (a regular expression or a function can stand in for values that change, such as dates). Tests that need existing data, for example data left by an older version, write it in a seed step first. npm test -- search runs only the tests whose name contains "search"; --print shows every result.

npm run test:visual captures every screen and dialog in both themes and compares them pixel by pixel with the screenshots accepted earlier on the same machine (font rendering differs between machines, so they are not in git). The first run, or npm run test:visual -- --accept after a wanted change, accepts the current screenshots; differences are saved as images in tests/visual/diff.

Building

npm run build-win    # Windows installer (NSIS)
npm run build-mac    # macOS disk image
npm run build-linux  # Linux AppImage

Output goes to dist/.

Releasing updates

Installed copies on Windows and Linux check GitHub Releases for a newer version, download it in the background and install it on restart (Settings → About shows the status). macOS updates need a signed app, so the macOS build does not update itself.

Releases are built and published by hand, from a Windows machine with the GitHub CLI signed in:

1. Raise the version on a branch and merge it into main:

   npm version minor --no-git-tag-version   # 1.1.0 -> 1.2.0; patch or major as fits

2. Check the code:

   npm test
   npm run test:visual

3. Tag the release on main and push the tag:

   git tag -a v1.2.0 -m "Capnote 1.2.0"
   git push origin v1.2.0

4. Make a draft release with notes listing the changes, build the installer and upload it (with the latest.yml the updater reads) to the draft, then publish it:

   gh release create v1.2.0 --draft --verify-tag --title "Capnote 1.2.0" --generate-notes
   GH_TOKEN=$(gh auth token) npx electron-builder --win --publish always
   gh release edit v1.2.0 --draft=false --latest

The Linux AppImage is built on Linux the same way (npx electron-builder --linux --publish always). To try a build without releasing, use npm run build-win.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.