This app is primarily designed for native desktop platforms, and its WebAssembly (wasm) target has a limited feature set. wasm target is best suited for quick document sharing and editing, currently only landscape mode is supported (tested on Chrome):

https://staffengineer.github.io/velo?document=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/StaffEngineer/a2dc4c07c3306005554c1c690a4922ec/raw/d791d27fed7afe0734e4350dfedfc11b65096ee1/velo.json

At work, I frequently rely on lucid.app to brainstorm ideas with my colleagues or by myself. Typically, I share my ideas by sending either the diagrams themselves or screenshots of them. While I tend to stick with simple features like rectangles and arrows, I've been contemplating the idea of creating a similar tool in Rust. Not only would it allow me to learn the language, but it would also be an enjoyable project to work on.

• support rectangle/circle/paperlike notes
• add/remove note
• note resizing
• note repositioning
• wrapped text inside nodes
• paste screenshot from clipboard [native target only 🖥️]
• connect notes with arrows
• make app snapshot in memory and load from it (MacOs: Command + s[l])
• save app state to database and load from it
• change background color of notes
• move note to front/back
• positioning text inside note
• multiple documents/tabs support
• load app state from url
• ability to create sharable url of the document using "Share Document" button (.velo.toml should be created in user's home directory containing GitHub access token with "gist" scope) [native target only 🖥️]:

github_access_token = "<github_access_token>"

• initial markdown support
  • italic/bold text style
  • links
  • syntax highlighting
  • headings (proper headings support was temporarily removed)
  • inline code
  • ordered/unordered lists
• particles effect [native target only 🖥️]
• filter documents by text in nodes (fuzzy search) [native target only 🖥️]
• highlight nodes containing searched text [native target only 🖥️]
• ligature/emoji rendering support [emoji native target only 🖥️]
• dark/light theme support (app restart is required for now)

Archives of precompiled binaries for velo are available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Native:

cargo r --release

Wasm:

cargo install wasm-server-runner
cargo r --release --target wasm32-unknown-unknown

To create app bundle with icon (tested only on MacOS):

cargo install cargo-bundle
cargo bundle

cargo fmt
cargo clippy -- -A clippy::type_complexity -A clippy::too_many_arguments

• click on rectangle icon to create rectangle note
• double-click to select note
• start typing to add text to selected note
• resize note by dragging its corners
• click on canvas to deselect node
• move note by dragging it (only unselected note can be dragged to allow mouse text selection for selected note)
• click on little arrow connector icon to connect notes, arrow connector icons are placed on each side of note
• for native target there is search box that allows to filter documents by text in notes (fuzzy search)
• for wasm target there is url query parameter ?document=<url> to load document from url
• click save icon to save document to database on native platform or to localStorage on wasm target

All code in this repository dual-licensed under either:

MIT License or https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT Apache License, Version 2.0 or https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Contributions are always welcome! Please adhere to this project's code of conduct. If you have questions or suggestions feel free to share on velo discord server.

❤️