I made a delightful note-taking app called Zen Write
It's almost a year since I wrote my last blog post here. Today I want to share about one of my weekend projects that I really love: Zen Write.
I built this project because I need a calmer application to write blog post. iA Writer is a great application for this need, but it's not available on Linux and Android yet. Besides, I can't just spend half of a million IDR to purchase the license. We Indonesian called this "tim mendang-mending", meaning that we will search for other cheaper solutions instead of accepting existing solution.
I've tried ghostwriter, NeoVim + Goyo plugin and Obsidian + Focus Mode plugin. All of these apps are free, but none of them fit my preference. The idea of building my own note-taking app suddenly comes when I plan to migrate all my web tools to a new domain: https://tools.adipurnm.com.
The first version of Zen Write were just a text area field that support focus mode like iA Writer did.
But it didn't feel as calm as I want, so the in the next iterations I asked my coding agent to make it calmer. And here's the result:
The current state of Zen Write as of I write this blog post:
- Visiting Zen Write tool will automatically enter the zen mode. Toolbar is hidden by default. Toggle it by clicking the floating triple dot at top-center of the screen.
- The default file is markdown instead of txt. It supports highlight for inline markdown syntax (bold, italic, underline, hyperlink, code)
- Pressing enter when on the list will automatically continue the list, both ordered and unordered list.
- Add a vault system to store notes using IndexedDB.
- Change the toggle dark mode to theme-based UI. Light, warm, noon, or night, choose one you like.
All notes are stored locally in the browser, so you own your own data. Your note is yours, no data transfer to external servers at all. It's 100% free and no registration required to use it. Install it as a PWA on your computer or smartphone, and start writing your blog post.
Please try it at https://tools.adipurnm.com/zen-write. If you have some feedback, please email me.