Copycola

A calm, spatial canvas for ideas

Copycola is a native macOS app for arranging notes, references, images, links, places, and other useful fragments on canvases. Each canvas keeps a simple four-column rhythm, an optional dot grid, and an open vertical workspace so related ideas can stay visible together.

What you can make

• Note cards for quick, editable thoughts
• Image cards with captions and optional links
• Link cards with page metadata, favicons, and theme-aware surfaces
• Map cards backed by MapKit
• Header cards generated automatically for naming and grouping each canvas

Cards share a common visual treatment while keeping their own editing and display rules. Canvases are persisted locally with SwiftData, and the sidebar provides compact previews of each board.

Requirements

• macOS 27 or later
• Xcode 27 or later
• Swift 6

Copycola is currently an unsigned development project. Signing, notarization, and App Store distribution are intentionally not configured yet.

Build

Clone the repository and open the Xcode project:

git clone https://github.com/lainsce/copycola.git
cd copycola
open Copycola.xcodeproj

To build an unsigned macOS app from Terminal:

xcodebuild \
  -project Copycola.xcodeproj \
  -scheme Copycola \
  -configuration Debug \
  -destination 'platform=macOS' \
  -derivedDataPath /tmp/Copycola-DerivedData \
  build \
  CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO \
  CODE_SIGNING_REQUIRED=NO

Focused Swift Testing sources are kept in tests/ alongside the application source.

Project layout

src/                         application source
  Canvas/                    canvas layout, gestures, grid, and card creation
  Card/                      shared card shell and type-specific card views
  Sidebar/                   canvas list and preview artwork
  PrivacyPolicy/             privacy policy window
tests/                       Swift Testing tests
data/                        asset catalog, icon, localization, privacy, entitlements
Copycola.xcodeproj/           Xcode project and shared scheme

The data/ folder is part of the repository so a fresh checkout contains every resource required by the project.

Development checks

For a fast source-only parse:

find src tests -name '*.swift' -print0 | \
  xargs -0 xcrun swiftc -frontend -parse \
  -sdk /Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk

Resource metadata and privacy files can be checked with:

find data/Copycola.xcassets data/Copycola.icon -name '*.json' -print0 | \
  xargs -0 -n1 jq empty
plutil -lint data/Copycola.entitlements data/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy

Privacy

Copycola includes a privacy policy window in the macOS Help menu and ships its required privacy manifest in data/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy.