Heynote

General Information

Website: heynote.com
Documentation: heynote.com
Changelog: heynote.com

Heynote is a dedicated scratchpad for developers. It functions as a large persistent text buffer where you can write down anything you like. Works great for that Slack message you don't want to accidentally send, a JSON response from an API you're working with, notes from a meeting, your daily to-do list, etc.

The Heynote buffer is divided into blocks, and each block can have its own Language set (e.g. JavaScript, JSON, Markdown, etc.). This gives you syntax highlighting and lets you auto-format that JSON response.

Available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Features

Persistent text buffer
Block-based
Syntax highlighting:

C++, C#, Clojure, CSS, Erlang, Dart, Go, Groovy, HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSX, Kotlin, TypeScript, TOML, TSX, JSON, Lezer, Markdown, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Shell, SQL, Swift, Vue, XML, YAML
Language auto-detection
Auto-formatting
Math/Calculator mode
Currency conversion
Multi-cursor editing
Dark & Light themes
Option to set a global hotkey to show/hide the app
Default or Emacs-like key bindings

Documentation

Documentation is available on the Heynote website.

Development

To develop Heynote you need Node.js and you should (hopefully) just need to check out the code and then run:

> npm install
> npm run dev

Run Tests

To run the tests:

> npm run test

To run the tests in the Playwright UI:

> npm run test:ui

Contributions

I'm happy to merge contributions that fit my vision for the app. Bug fixes are always welcome.

FAQ

Where is the buffer data stored?

See the documentation.

Can you make a mobile app?

No, at the moment this is out of scope, sorry.

Can you add a feature for naming blocks and/or adding tags? (#44)

Currently, I'm not planning on adding this. The main reason is that it goes against the scratchpadness of the program.

I can totally see the usefulness of such a feature, and it's definitely something that I would expect from a more traditional Notes app. However a large part of Heynote's appeal is it's simplicity, and if that is to remain so, I'm going to have to say no to a lot of actually useful features.

What are the default keyboard shortcuts?