Jottr is the notepad that doesn't lose your work and doesn't get in your way. It sits in your tray, opens with a hotkey, asks for a PIN when you walk away, and saves every keystroke atomically - so a crash, a power loss or a yanked USB cable can never eat your text.
It looks at home on Windows 11, but it's a tiny Python+webview app, so it runs anywhere Python and a browser engine do.
Jottr 2.1 adds folders, drag-and-drop, color tags, PIN-per-file
(config-stored, not file headers), a plugin system (.plugg files),
collapsable widgets and sidebar, smooth animations, and a one-file
PyInstaller spec for a single standalone Jottr.exe.
- Tabs with per-tab dirty indicators, middle-click close and
Ctrl+Tabcycling. - Atomic auto-save with debounce +
fsync+ atomic rename. Auto-save is silent: it never reloads the document, never resets the caret, and never flickers the cursor mid-typing. - Markdown highlighting (headings, bold/italic, code, links).
- Preview mode with eye toggle (Ctrl+Shift+V) - hides the editor and renders the note with proper headings, code blocks, lists, blockquotes and inline formatting. In preview mode you can still click a todo checkbox to mark an item done.
- Search (Ctrl+Shift+H on the home screen) - filters across every note by content with snippets.
- Line numbers with an active-line indicator and live
Ln/Colstatus. - Find / Replace (Ctrl+F) with case-sensitive and whole-word options, plus replace-one and replace-all.
- Multiple themes: Midnight, Graphite, Dusk, Paper, Solarized. Cycle with Ctrl+Shift+P.
- Configurable font size, word wrap, line numbers from Settings.
- Drag and drop any
.md/.txtfile onto the editor to import it as a new note.
- Notes live in
notes/next to the executable as plain.md/.txtfiles - yours to keep forever, syncable with Dropbox, git, Syncthing, whatever. - Recent files list in the sidebar and on the home screen.
- Pin favorite notes to a dedicated sidebar section - right-click any file in Recent and choose "Pin to sidebar".
- Reveal in Explorer from the right-click menu.
- Rename and delete from the right-click menu.
- Open with Jottr registers an Explorer context-menu entry (one toggle in Settings).
- Custom accent color - pick any color in Settings or cycle through presets. The active tab indicator, buttons and highlights follow it instantly.
- App-wide PIN with SHA-256 + per-install salt, stored locally.
- Per-file PIN stored as an HTML-comment header (
<!-- pin:... -->). - Lock now (
Ctrl+Shift+L) and auto-lock on minimize (when the app goes to the tray). - PIN entry lives in a single input - no keyboard hooks, no accessibility services.
- Tray icon (pystray) with Show / New Note / Lock / Quit.
- Global hotkey to summon Jottr (default
Ctrl+Alt+J, fully configurable). - Launch at Windows startup (per-user registry, no admin).
- Home screen with widgets: 7-day streak bar chart, quick actions, recent files and a rotating tip.
Type the word **todolist** into a blank note and it instantly
transforms into a structured checklist:
Enteradds a new item, focus jumps to it.Backspaceon an empty item removes it and jumps back.- Paste a list of lines - each non-empty line becomes its own todo item, perfect for converting a copied-out checklist into an interactive one in a single keystroke.
- Click the box to toggle done: the item turns green with a dark-green strikethrough, so completed work is obvious at a glance.
- In Preview mode (Ctrl+Shift+V) the same checklist renders read-only with the same green-done styling.
The same note remains a valid Markdown file on disk, so your todos are still diff-able, greppable and version-controllable.
- 7-day edit streak (consecutive days with at least one save).
- Minutes today (rough; bumps on each save).
- All-time word count.
- Per-day edit counts drawn as a bar chart on the home screen.
| Editor | Home screen | Todo list |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
Jottr ships a tiny plugin system: drop a *.plugg file into the Jottr
install dir and it shows up in Settings -> Plugins. Each plugin
is just a Python module with a register() function (and optionally
activate(api) / deactivate()).
The bundled first-party plugin, Note Encryptor (encrypt_decrypt.plugg),
adds right-click menu items to encrypt/decrypt individual notes with a
password. It's zero-dependency (XOR + base64) and lives in plugins/.
See syntax.plugg in the repo root for the full grammar of the
manifest format.
Notes can be organized into folders. Right-click a folder to create new notes inside, rename or delete. Notes can be dragged from the sidebar onto a folder to move them. Per-folder PINs apply to every note inside.
Every note and folder can have a color tag (set via the right-click menu). The sidebar icon and the recently-used widget pick up the color. Default: purple for folders, grey for files.
Click any widget header on the home screen to collapse / expand it.
Same for sidebar sections - the collapsed state persists across
sessions in config.json.
Every transition in the UI is animated: tab switches, panel collapses, toast popups, settings opening/closing, drag-over highlights, and the home screen widgets slide in on load.
git clone https://github.com/Compromisee/Jottr.git
cd jottr
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install pywebview pystray pillow keyboard
python jottr.pyGrab the latest installer or portable .exe from
GitHub Releases.
Jottr-Setup-1.0.0.exe- per-user installer (no admin needed)Jottr.exe- portable single-file build
See packaging.md for full packaging instructions
including PyInstaller, Inno Setup, macOS py2app, Linux AppImage
and GitHub Actions release builds.
pip install pywebview pystray pillow keyboard pyinstaller
pyinstaller --noconfirm --windowed --onefile \
--icon assets/icon.png \
--add-data "ui;ui" --add-data "assets;assets" \
--collect-all pystray --collect-all pywebview \
--hidden-import keyboard \
jottr.py
# -> dist/Jottr.exeFor an installer, see packaging.md section 4.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+N |
New note |
Ctrl+T |
New todo |
Ctrl+O |
Open file... |
Ctrl+S |
Force save |
Ctrl+W |
Close tab |
Ctrl+F |
Find / replace |
Ctrl+P |
Open Settings |
Ctrl+Tab |
Cycle tabs |
Ctrl+Shift+V |
Toggle preview mode |
Ctrl+Shift+P |
Cycle theme |
Ctrl+Shift+H |
Focus home search |
Ctrl+Shift+V |
Toggle preview |
Ctrl+Shift+L |
Lock now |
Ctrl+Alt+J |
Toggle window (configurable) |
All settings live in config.json next to the executable. The
file is human-editable but the recommended path is the in-app
Settings dialog. Useful keys:
| Key | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
theme |
midnight |
midnight, graphite, dusk, paper, solar |
pin_scope |
app |
app or per_file |
global_hotkey |
ctrl+alt+j |
Anything keyboard understands |
font_size |
14 |
Pixels |
word_wrap |
false |
|
startup |
false |
Windows only |
PINs are hashed with SHA-256 + a per-install salt; the raw PIN is never written to disk.
On every keystroke Jottr:
- Updates the in-memory buffer (no DOM swap, no caret reset).
- Schedules a debounced save 600 ms after the last keystroke.
- On flush, writes to a sibling
.tmpfile,fsync()s it, thenos.replace()s it onto the real path.
os.replace() is atomic on every modern filesystem, so the file
on disk is always either the previous version or the new version -
never half-written, never missing.
And because the buffer is never overwritten with the file contents during a save, your caret stays exactly where you left it. That's the part that matters most and the part most editors get wrong.
+-------------------+ +---------------------+
| Python process | | WebView (Edge/WK) |
| - jottr.py | js | - ui/index.html |
| - backend.py | <----> | - ui/style.css |
| - tray, hotkey | api | - ui/app.js |
+-------------------+ +---------------------+
| ^
atomic writes global hotkey, tray, registry
v |
notes/*.md, config.json
jottr.pycreates the window and starts the background threads.backend.pyis the single Python object exposed to JS viawebview.create_window(js_api=...).ui/app.jsis a hand-written controller - no framework, ~600 lines, easy to hack on.
Pull requests welcome. The whole UI is one HTML file, one CSS file and one JS file - fork it and have fun.
If you add a feature, please:
- Keep the no-framework rule (vanilla JS only).
- Don't introduce an emoji; use Material Symbols Outlined.
- Make sure atomic auto-save still doesn't reset the caret.
- Add a smoke-test bullet to
packaging.md.
MIT. See LICENSE.