BeePad 🐝

BeePad is a real-time multiplayer plain text note-taking application that enables seamless collaboration while being resilient to network issues.

Features

• 📝 Plain Text First: Focus on your content with a clean, distraction-free plain text editor
• 🔄 Connection Resilience: Keep working during connection issues - changes sync automatically when reconnected
• 👥 Real-Time Collaboration: Work together with others in real-time, with changes syncing seamlessly
• 🎨 User Highlights: See who made which changes with customizable user colors that fade over time
• 🔗 Simple URLs: Access notes with human-readable URLs - just add your preferred name to the URL
• 🔌 REST API: Full CRUD operations available through a RESTful API
• 📦 Embeddable: Embed any note in your website or application using a simple iframe
• 📚 Version History: Every change is automatically versioned with full restore capability
• 📱 Cross-Platform: Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux

Getting Started

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Start the development server
pnpm dev

# Build for production
pnpm build

How It Works

BeePad uses Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) to enable real-time collaboration while maintaining data consistency during network interruptions. Changes are synced with the server when connected, and the editor remains fully functional even during connection drops.

Creating & Accessing Notes

Creating a new note is as simple as visiting a URL with your chosen name:

https://beepad.app/my-awesome-note

If the note doesn't exist yet, it will be created instantly. If it does exist, you'll join the existing note.

REST API

The BeePad API provides programmatic access to notes:

# Create a note
POST /api/notes
{
  "slug": "my-note",
  "content": "Hello, world!"
}

# Get a note
GET /api/notes/my-note

# Update a note
PUT /api/notes/my-note
{
  "content": "Updated content"
}

# Delete a note
DELETE /api/notes/my-note

# List versions of a note
GET /api/notes/my-note/versions

# Get specific version
GET /api/notes/my-note/versions/123

All API endpoints return JSON responses. Authentication is required via Bearer token.

Collaborative Features

User Highlights

• Each user's edits are highlighted in their chosen color
• Highlights gradually fade over days, showing the age of changes
• Customize your highlight color in the settings
• Colors are remembered per device using cookies

Version History

Every change to a note is automatically versioned. Access previous versions by adding /versions to any note URL:

https://beepad.app/my-awesome-note/versions

You can:

• Browse through all previous versions
• See what changed between versions
• Restore the note to any previous version
• Copy content from old versions

Embedding Notes

Embed any note in your website or application using an iframe:

<iframe 
  src="https://beepad.app/my-awesome-note"
  width="100%"
  height="400"
  frameborder="0"
></iframe>

Tech Stack

• Node.js 22.9.0
• PNPM 10.6.1
• [Additional dependencies to be added as project develops]

Roadmap

• Basic text editor implementation
• Connection resilience
• CRDT implementation
• Server sync implementation
• REST API implementation
• Real-time collaboration
• User highlight colors
• Time-based highlight fading
• Slug-based URLs
• Instant note creation
• Version history
• Version restoration
• Iframe embedding support
• Network resilience

Support

For support, please open an issue on our GitHub repository.