Tada

A lightweight, multi-window sticky note-taking app for the desktop(macOS). Built with Electron and React.

Features

• Sticky notes — Each note opens in its own compact, always-on-top window with movable and resizable switchers
• Rich text editing — Editor with Markdown support and task lists
• Local-first — Notes stored in SQLite on your machine; no cloud required

Tech Stack

Layer	Stack
Desktop	Electron
Frontend	React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
Editor	TipTap (Markdown, task lists)
UI	Radix UI, Lucide / Phosphor / HugeIcons
Database	SQLite (better-sqlite3), Prisma migrations
Validation	Zod
State	Valtio
Build	Vite, pnpm workspaces, Turbo

Project Structure

Monorepo managed with pnpm workspaces:

tada/
├── packages/
│   ├── api/          # Database API layer (Zod, SQLite client)
│   ├── database/     # Prisma schema and migrations
│   ├── editor/       # TipTap rich text editor component
│   ├── interfaces/   # Shared TypeScript types
│   └── ui/           # Shared UI components (Radix, Tailwind)
├── tada/             # Main Electron app
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── electron/ # Main process, services, IPC
│   │   └── app/      # React pages (dashboard, note, about)
│   └── templates/    # HTML entry points per window type
├── assets/           # App and tray icons
└── package.json

The app uses a multi-window layout: note windows, dashboard, and utility windows (About, etc.) each have their own HTML template and React entry point. The main process uses a Context-based dependency injection pattern and services (tray, note windows, note manager) that communicate over IPC with a unified, Zod-validated API.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm 10+ (npm install -g pnpm)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/your-username/tada.git
cd tada
pnpm install

Development

From the repository root:

# Start Vite dev server and Electron
pnpm dev

Or run pieces separately:

pnpm dev:react    # Vite dev server (default port 3524)
pnpm dev:electron # Electron main process

Notes and dashboard hot-reload. The app uses PORT=3524 in development so Electron loads the React app from the dev server.

Build

# Clean, build frontend, transpile Electron
pnpm clean
pnpm transpile:electron
pnpm build

Package for distribution

Uses Electron Forge. From the repo root:

pnpm package

This runs clean → build → transpile → Forge package and make. On macOS you can build:

• Universal (ARM64 + x64): default make target
• ARM64 only: configure in forge.config.js / Forge makers
• x64 only: same via Forge config

Outputs go to the out/ directory (or as configured in Forge).

Environment

Variable	Description
PORT	Dev server port (default 3524). Used by Electron to load the React app in development.

Database

• SQLite database path: app.getPath('userData')/tada.db
• Migrations: Prisma in packages/database/migrations/
• All access goes through @tada/api with Zod-validated inputs and outputs

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue to discuss larger changes, and ensure tests and lint pass before submitting a pull request.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a branch (git checkout -b feature/your-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/your-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see LICENSE for details.