Durandal

A terminal-inspired note-taking app built with Qt 6 and C++17.

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Features

• Markdown & HTML Editing — Edit .md and .html files with live syntax highlighting
• Live Preview — Real-time rendered preview using cmark and Qt WebEngine
• Wikilinks — Navigate between notes using [[wikilink]] syntax
• Backlinks — See which notes link to the current note
• Full-Text Search — Search across all notes instantly
• Tag Management — Browse and filter notes by #tags
• Plain Files — No database, no lock-in — just folders on disk
• Themes — Light and dark terminal-inspired themes
• IDE-Style Layout — Draggable dock panels (Files | Editor | Preview | Backlinks/Search/Tags)
• Cross-Platform — Windows, macOS, and Linux support

Screenshots

Download

Grab the latest release:

• Windows: Durandal-vX.X.X-Windows-x64.zip — extract and run Durandal.exe
• macOS / Linux: Build from source (see below)

The Windows release is a portable ZIP. No installer needed.

Building from Source

Requirements

• Qt 6.11+ (with WebEngineWidgets, Svg modules)
• CMake 3.20+
• C++17 compiler (MSVC, GCC, or Clang)
• Ninja (recommended)

Windows

# In a MSVC Developer Command Prompt
cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\Qt\6.11.0\msvc2022_64 -B build
cmake --build build --config Release

The executable will be at build/Durandal.exe.

macOS

cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$(brew --prefix qt@6) -B build
cmake --build build --config Release

Linux

cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/lib/qt6 -B build
cmake --build build --config Release

Usage

1. Open a Folder — Use File → Open Folder to select where your notes are stored
2. Create Notes — Right-click in the file tree to create new .md or .html files
3. Navigate — Click files to open; [[wikilinks]] to jump between notes
4. Search — Use Ctrl+F for full-text search across all notes
5. Tags — Use #tag in notes; browse all tags in the Tags panel
6. Themes — Toggle light/dark mode via View → Theme
7. Reset Layout — If you mess up the docks, View → Reset Layout restores the default

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+N	New note
Ctrl+S	Save current note
Ctrl+F	Search across all notes
Ctrl+Tab	Switch between Editor / Preview
Ctrl+,	Open Settings
Ctrl+Q	Quit

Tech Stack

• Qt 6 — UI framework (Widgets, WebEngine, Svg)
• cmark — CommonMark Markdown parser (via FetchContent)
• CMake — Build system

Why Durandal?

Inspiration by the rampant ai in Bungies Marathon.

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 — see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• Qt — for the framework
• cmark — for standards-compliant Markdown parsing
• Bungie's Marathon series — for the name