Sticky Notes

This project is a remake of indicator-stickynotes using pop-os/libcosmic and targeting the Cosmic DE

There are two components in sticky-notes

• notes-service is a core application to deal with notes and settings
• notes-applet is an applet in Cosmic Panel providing main menu for notes-service

Other details is to be provided when version 0.1.0 has come

Quick start

Prerequisites

Common

• rust. The recommended way to install with rustup is a good choice:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

• casey/just. Because the project sticky-notes is built with cargo and rust compiler the good choice to install just is

cargo install just

Ubuntu 24.04, Pop!_OS 24.04

• library xkbcommon (Otherwise the compilation error will occur: "The system library xkbcommon required by crate smithay-client-toolkit was not found"). The command to install the library in Ubuntu or Pop!_OS

sudo apt install libxkbcommon-dev

Build from source code

• Open terminal
• Create working directory to host the project code and temporary files. Example

mkdir ~/build
cd ~/build

• Clone the project

git clone https://github.com/0xAAE/sticky-notes.git
cd sticky-notes

• Build release version

just release

• (optional) Run to test everything is good in terminal

just run-service

Stop notes-service in terminal with Ctrl-C

• Install sticky-notes

sudo just install

Configuration

The path to configuration is ~/.config/cosmic/com.github.aae/sticky_notes/v1.

Each value is stored in a separate file having following names.

service_bin

❗ highly desired

To provide a full pathname to notes-service binary file. It is used by the notes-applet to automatically launch the notes-service if it is not detected after start.

Value type: string (i.e. surrounded with double quotes)

Example: "/home/user/.bin/notes-service"

Default value: "/usr/local/bin/notes-service"

connect_service_pause_ms

optional

When notes-applet starts it connects the notes-service. If connecting fails the applet launches the service (defined in service_bin), then it waits some time and retries to connect after that again. This parameter defines in milliseconds how long the applet will wait before retrying to connect the service.

Value type: integer

Example: 2_000

Default value: 1_000

import_file

optional

To provide a pathname to indicator-stickynotes database file relative to user's home directory. It is used for importing notes when

• no database detected on startup
• command Import selected in notes-applet menu

Value type: string (i.e. surrounded with double quotes)

Example: ".config/indicator-stickynotes"

Default value: ".config/indicator-stickynotes"

restore_notes_width, restore_notes_height

optional

Overrides the width and height of the window to restore notes.

Value type: integer

Example: 1024

Default values: restore_notes_width is 480 and restore_notes_height is 400

edit_style_width, edit_style_height

optional

Overrides the width and height of the window to edit selected note style.

Value type: integer

Example: 1024

Default values: edit_style_width is 480 and edit_style_height is 800

about_width, about_height

optional

Overrides the width and height of the window to display application info.

Value type: integer

Example: 1024

Default values: about_width is 480 and about_height is 840

note_min_width, mote_min_height

optional

Overrides the minimum width and the minimum height of the note sticky window. If user manually violates minimum values (making window tiny) they will be accepted until the next start. The next start the minimum values will be applied. If default values are too large, one might override them setting these parameters.

Value type: integer

Example: 32

Default values: note_min_width is 64 and mote_min_height is 64

toolbar_icon_size

optional

Overrides the size of icons in the sticky window toolbar.

Value type: integer

Example: 32

Default value: 16

notes

❗ auto generated

Contains sticky-notes database.

Value type: JSON string (i.e. in double quotes).

❗ Edit carefully otherwise it won't be read properly. It is highly recommended to edit notes in sticky windows and settings

Build, install and run

There are two components must start

• notes-service
• notes-applet

☝️ The notes-applet automatically launches notes-service if it is not detected and if service_bin parameter is set in config. User might setup service_bin once and require to launch only notes-applet then.

A justfile is included by default for the casey/just command runner.

Develop and build

• just does the same as

just check
just debug
just rund-applet

• just debug builds both notes-applet and notes-service with debug profile
• just release builds both notes-applet and notes-service with release profile
• just check runs clippy on the project to check for linter warnings
• cargo test invokes all unit tests

Run

• just rund-service builds and runs the notes-service with debug profile
• just rund-applet builds and runs the notes-applet with debug profile
• just run-service builds and runs the notes-service with release profile
• just run-applet builds and runs the notes-applet with release profile

Install

• sudo just install installs the project into the system
• sudo just uninstall uninstalls the project from the system