LittleNotepad

A fast, lightweight code editor built with Tauri 2 — Rust backend, plain HTML/CSS/JS frontend. No Node.js, no npm required.

Features syntax highlighting for 20+ languages, multi-tab editing with session restore, an integrated multi-session terminal (CMD, PowerShell, Git Bash), LSP support (Python, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript), live Markdown preview, multiple cursors, code folding, git status indicators, global search, and auto-save.

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Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Install
Rust	≥ 1.77.2	rustup.rs
Tauri CLI	^2.11	cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2.11"
WebView2 (Windows)	any	Ships with Windows 11; download for Windows 10

Verify

rustc --version
cargo tauri --version

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Local development

git clone https://github.com/openidle-dev/littlenotepad.git
cd littlenotepad
cargo tauri dev

JS/CSS/HTML changes hot-reload instantly. Rust changes recompile automatically (5–30 s).

Type-check only (no app launch)

cd src-tauri
cargo check

Security audit

cd src-tauri
cargo audit

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Production build

Must be run on each target OS — Tauri cannot cross-compile.

cargo tauri build

Artifacts in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/:

OS	Artifact
Windows	msi/LittleNotepad_x.y.z_x64_en-US.msi
macOS	dmg/LittleNotepad_x.y.z_x64.dmg
Linux	deb/littlenotepad_x.y.z_amd64.deb, appimage/LittleNotepad_x.y.z_amd64.AppImage

Windows: Run Unblock-File .\LittleNotepad_*.msi in PowerShell before distributing to strip the MOTW block.

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Bumping the version

Two files must stay in sync:

src-tauri/Cargo.toml

[package]
version = "0.2.0"

src-tauri/tauri.conf.json

{
  "version": "0.2.0"
}

Then tag and push:

git add src-tauri/Cargo.toml src-tauri/tauri.conf.json
git commit -m "chore: bump version to 0.2.0"
git tag v0.2.0
git push origin main --tags

Pushing a v* tag triggers the GitHub Actions release pipeline, which builds on Windows, macOS, and Linux and publishes a GitHub Release with installers attached.

Until then, build manually on each OS and upload via:

gh release create v0.2.0 --generate-notes \
  "src-tauri/target/release/bundle/msi/LittleNotepad_0.2.0_x64_en-US.msi"