From the insomnia-ridden mind of DatJavaClass
An autosaving digital journal and odd-ball file examiner. Your documents are leaves, and they never get lost.
OpenFall is a desktop text editor with two ideas at its core:
- Autosave everything, always. Every open document (a leaf) is mirrored to disk on an interval. Nothing is lost between sessions; leaves persist across restarts and can be exported to other formats.
- Leaves, not tabs. Instead of tabs along the top, open documents are angled bookmark ribbons that jut from the left and right edges of the window, past a transparent border, tilted up-and-outward like bookmarks fanning out of a book. They self-name from their first words and can be double-clicked to rename.
It is also good at examining unusual files: code leaves render with syntax highlighting, odd binaries show a hex view, and search results appear as a Terminal console or a vertical List ("HTML breakdown") tree.
OpenFall = Open (open source) + Fall (the season the leaves turn and let go). It is named for its own leaves: the documents that hang off the window like leaves off a branch. Open-source, and a little autumnal.
This is an early alpha. The core is real and works: autosave, the leaf model, the examiner, search, multi-window, themes, and a sandboxed web leaf, all backed by a unit and integration test suite. Expect rough edges; builds are unsigned, the visual polish is still settling, and APIs may change. Feedback and issues are very welcome.
- Signature bookmark leaves: two rails of tilted ribbons overhanging a transparent window edge; the active leaf juts further with a brass accent.
- Autosave on a configurable interval (10s / 30s / 1min / 5min) to a directory you choose; state survives a full restart.
- Self-naming leaves from their first words; double-click to rename (the name then sticks).
- Code examiner: read-only, syntax-highlighted view for code leaves, with a color legend.
- Content-aware highlighting: a note that looks like code gets live, editable syntax highlighting (named code files stay a read-only examiner).
- Odd-ball file examiner: paste or open something strange and read it as a hex dump.
- Other View: split the workspace into two independent editor panes.
- Separate View / Join View: pop a leaf into its own window and send leaves between windows, with a shared, synced store.
- Search, two ways: Find and Transform (Search / Replace / Remove / Add, with Match case / Whole word / Regex), shown as a Terminal dock or a vertical List tree.
- Web Quick Search: a locked-down browser leaf, with a choice of search engine.
- Categories, Sort, Export As (
.txt .md .html .pdf .json .rtf), Dark / Light / System themes, spellcheck, line numbers, word wrap, and zoom.
Code leaves get syntax highlighting and a legend; renamed-by-hand binaries reveal themselves in a hex view.
| Code examiner | Odd-ball file examiner |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Run a search across your leaves and read the results the way you like: a Terminal console of path:line:col hits, or a vertical List tree grouped by folder, leaf, and match.
| Terminal | List (HTML breakdown) |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Type into Quick Search and OpenFall opens results in a locked-down web leaf, a sandboxed view that lives right beside your notes. (This is web search; it never touches the contents of your leaves.)
Dark by default; flip to Light or Match System at any time.
Grab a build from the Releases page:
| Client | What you get |
|---|---|
| Windows installer | OpenFall Setup *.exe, a standard NSIS install |
| Windows portable | OpenFall *.exe, a single file, just run it, no install |
| Linux | openfall-*.tar.gz (AppImage and .deb build on a Linux host) |
| Portable (any OS) | index.html, one self-contained file, runs offline in any modern browser |
npm install
npm run dev # web app at http://localhost:5173
npm run dev:electron # the desktop app (Vite + Electron, hot reload)
npm run package:win # Windows installer + portable .exe -> release/
npm run package:linux # Linux tar.gz (+ AppImage/deb on Linux)
npm run build:portable # single-file portable client -> dist-portable/index.html
npm test # Vitest unit + integration suite
npm run typecheckOne React and TypeScript renderer (Vite, Zustand for state, CSS custom properties for theming) runs behind a single PlatformAdapter seam with two backends: Electron (a frameless, transparent window with real-filesystem autosave) and web (localStorage plus the File System Access API). The same renderer also bundles to one self-contained index.html for the portable client.
src/
components/ React UI (leaves, editor, search, dialogs, ...)
state/ Zustand stores plus persistence orchestration
lib/ pure logic: tokenize, leaf-naming, search, export, seed
platform/ the PlatformAdapter seam (web plus electron)
electron/ main process plus preload (transparent window, app:// protocol, fs autosave)
Created by DatJavaClass, with Claude (Anthropic) assisting on implementation. Mascot: Codeman.
MIT.