dashtext
DashText
A text editor for quick capture, inspired by Drafts.
About
DashText is a desktop app for quickly capturing text that you’ll process later. It’s Drafts for people who aren’t on Apple platforms (or prefer vim keybindings).
Currently focused on fast draft capture with vim-style editing. Processing and actions coming in future releases.
[!NOTE] This is an early, opinionated personal project. I built it because I wanted a Drafts-like app for Linux that fits my workflow. It’s shaped by my preferences, though I’d love for it to be useful to others someday, maybe.
Features
- Quick capture window for rapid note-taking
- Vim keybindings always enabled (via CodeMirror 6)
- Tokyo Night theme
- Lazyvim-inspired layout with sidebar
- Local SQLite storage for drafts
- Word and character count
- Linux-focused (other platforms should work but are untested)
Installation
Binaries coming soon. For now, build from source.
From Source
Requirements
- Bun
- Rust
- Platform-specific Tauri dependencies (see Tauri docs)
Setup
git clone https://github.com/joshuadavidthomas/dashtext.git
cd dashtext
bun install
Building and Installation
Build the application and copy the binary to somewhere on your PATH:
bun run tauri build
cp src-tauri/target/release/dashtext ~/.local/bin/
Optionally, create a desktop entry at ~/.local/share/applications/dashtext.desktop:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=DashText
Comment=A text editor for quick capture
Exec=dashtext
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;
There’s no icon yet. If you’d like one, Icon Kitchen can generate one for you.
Someday/Maybe
- Tray icon / global hotkey for quick capture
- Draft actions/processing (similar to Drafts)
- Built-in actions for common workflows
- Scripting support for custom actions
- Vim configuration options
- Custom themes
- User settings
- Windows and macOS testing
- Web version
- Cross-device sync
Contributing
PRs are welcome, though I may be slow to review. This project uses:
- Frontend: SvelteKit + Svelte 5, Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn-svelte
- Editor: CodeMirror 6 with @replit/codemirror-vim
- Backend: Tauri v2 (Rust)
- Database: SQLite via Drizzle ORM
Acknowledgments
Inspired by Drafts for iOS and macOS.
License
DashText is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the LICENSE file for more information.