BoostNote-Legacy

Note-taking app for programmers.

Apps available for Mac (Intel & Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux.

Built with Electron 11, React + Redux, Webpack 1, and CSSModules.

This is the legacy branch of Boostnote — a markdown-first, open-source note-taking application for developers. Notes are stored as local files (.cson) in user-defined storage directories.

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Features

• Markdown notes with GFM, KaTeX math, syntax highlighting, diagrams (mermaid, flowchart.js, PlantUML, sequence)
• Snippet notes — multi-tab code snippet collections
• Folder & tag-based organization
• Full-text search across all notes
• Multiple storage locations
• English interface
• Full keyboard navigation
• Vim/Emacs/Sublime keymaps for CodeMirror

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More screenshots

Recent updates (v0.17.x)

Version	What changed
0.17.22	Fix CodeQL alerts (ReDoS, sanitization, permissions); force dependency versions via yarn resolutions
0.17.21	Bump deps (uuid, fsevents, http-proxy); fix passive event listeners; strip sourcemaps
0.17.20	Fix extension convention for dist artifacts (.tar.gz macOS, .zip Linux); remove ISSUE_TEMPLATE; update docs
0.17.19	Patch CodeMirror and react-sortable-hoc touch listeners as passive; cleanup repo and workflow
0.17.18	New app icon and logo, fix mouse wheel scroll in markdown editor-only mode
0.17.16	Remove appdmg dead code, strip dead files from git history (23→18 MB), fix prettier
0.17.14	Remove snap, docs, FAQ, TASKS, non-en locales, VSCode gitignore, stale code_style refs
0.17.13	Replace broken .dmg artifacts with cross-platform .zip archives; remove create-dmgs CI job
0.17.10	Cleanup dead config, fix CoffeeScript bug, normalize line endings, fix CI workflow
0.17.9	Upgrade Docker to node:22, add macOS DMG build workflow, fix Node 22 test compat
0.17.8	Add layout styles for Preferences modal info and snippet tabs
0.17.7	Strip hash fragment from file:// URIs in context menu builder
0.17.6	Guard spawnUpdate null-deref, fix storageNoteMap key / folderNoteSet init, remove spurious backspace events
0.17.5	Remove dead File > Update menu item and auto-update infrastructure
0.17.4	Fix Settings modal Escape crash with bound close method, add git tag on version bump
0.17.3	Fix DevTools CSS source map warnings, add build-test-verify agent skill
0.17.2	Fix font selection in Settings, fix Settings crash, remove Custom… option
0.17.1	Prettier lint fix for UiTab.js editor font dropdown
0.17.0	Removed all non-English interface languages; English-only Settings UI
0.16.9	Greek (el_GR) spellcheck dictionary, rewritten readme, version-bump agent skill
0.16.8	Unified Dockerfile for Intel & Apple Silicon
0.16.7	Electron 5 → 11.5.0, native arm64 (Apple Silicon) build, Dialog API migration
0.16.6	Removed BoostIO marketing integrations, auto-update UI
0.16.5	Removed all analytics telemetry (AWS SDK, tracking calls)
0.16.4	Removed auto-update, git commit hash in About dialog, zero-lint-warning baseline
0.16.3	Upgraded all deps to latest compatible; markdown-it 12 fix
0.16.2	Electron 1.x → 5.0.13, multi-stage Dockerfile

Full changelog: CHANGELOG.md

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Build (Docker only)

All builds run inside Docker — never run npm/yarn/electron/grunt on the host.

amd64 (Intel Mac / Linux / Windows)

docker build --build-arg GIT_COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD) -t boostnote-legacy .

arm64 (Apple Silicon Mac)

docker build --platform linux/arm64 \
  --build-arg GIT_COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD) \
  --build-arg BUILDARCH=arm64 \
  -t boostnote-legacy-arm64 .

Export all artifacts

# Intel
docker cp $(docker create --rm boostnote-legacy):/app/dist/Boostnote-darwin-x64 ./dist/ && docker cp $(docker create --rm boostnote-legacy):/app/dist/Boostnote-darwin-x64.zip ./dist/ && docker cp $(docker create --rm boostnote-legacy):/app/dist/Boostnote-linux-x64.tar.gz ./dist/
# Apple Silicon
docker cp $(docker create --rm boostnote-legacy-arm64):/app/dist/Boostnote-darwin-arm64 ./dist/ && docker cp $(docker create --rm boostnote-legacy-arm64):/app/dist/Boostnote-darwin-arm64.zip ./dist/

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Development

docker run --rm boostnote-legacy npm run dev

Starts webpack-dev-server on :8080 with Electron HMR.

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Test & Lint

# All tests
docker run --rm boostnote-legacy npm test

# Lint
docker run --rm boostnote-legacy npm run lint

# AVA only
docker run --rm boostnote-legacy npm run ava

# Jest only
docker run --rm boostnote-legacy npm run jest

Note: Jest picks up test files inside dist/Boostnote-darwin-*/ — pre-existing failures with environment mismatch. attachmentManagement test fails with fs-extra/graceful-fs incompatibility; normalizeEditorFontFamily test fails with CSS quoting mismatch. These are unrelated to code changes.

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Architecture

index.js → Squirrel lifecycle → lib/main-app.js
                                    ├── lib/main-window.js (BrowserWindow)
                                    ├── lib/main-menu.js (native menu)
                                    ├── lib/ipcServer.js (node-ipc)
                                    └── lib/touchbar-menu.js
                                            ↓
browser/main/index.js (webpack entry → compiled/main.js)
    ├── Redux store (browser/main/store.js)
    ├── Main.js → SideNav | NoteList | Detail
    ├── components/ (MarkdownEditor, MarkdownPreview, CodeEditor, etc.)
    └── lib/ (markdown processing, search, i18n, data API)

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Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Runtime	Electron 11.5.0 (Chrome 87, Node 12)
UI	React 16 + React Router 5
State	Redux 4 + Immutable.js (via Mutable.js wrappers)
Editor	CodeMirror 5 (GFM mode + custom BFM mode)
Markdown	markdown-it 12 (15 plugins)
CSS	Stylus + CSS Modules
Build	Webpack 1 + Babel 6 + Grunt
Packaging	electron-packager 15
Tests	AVA + Jest

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License

GPL v3