Syncs via iCloud Drive so you can run it on multiple machines. Window shades so you can hide it nicely.
YellowNote is a single-file macOS app: one main.swift, a build script, and a font. No Xcode project needed. It draws its own window chrome from scratch using raw AppKit to recreate the look of a System 7 notepad.
Your note is saved automatically to iCloud Drive (~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/YellowNote.txt) and syncs across your Macs. Changes from other devices are picked up within a couple of seconds.
I built this solely for my own use, so it's not signed, distributed on the App Store, or anything like that. You can build it for yourself and change it however you like.
- Pinstriped title bar with close box, drawn pixel by pixel
- Chicago bitmap font (the System 7 UI typeface)
- Window shade on double-click (collapses to just the title bar)
- Custom drag-to-resize handle
- Auto-save with 1-second debounce
- iCloud sync via a plain text file
- Remembers window position between launches
- Full Edit menu with undo/redo
Requires swiftc (ships with Xcode or Xcode Command Line Tools).
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh
This compiles main.swift, then assembles YellowNote.app with the binary, Info.plist, icon, and font bundled inside.
To run:
open YellowNote.app
The entire app lives in main.swift. It bootstraps NSApplication manually, creates a borderless NSWindow, and hand-draws the title bar, close box, and resize handle. There are no dependencies beyond Cocoa.
See DESIGN.md for more detail on the drawing approach.
Inspired by Nebu by Devine Lu Linvega. ChicagoFLF font by Robin Casady (public domain).
MIT