Black Orb

Black Orb is a lightweight and anonymous stock price tracking dashboard. It does not require any credentials or logging in - just add stock tickers and start tracking them. It offers a beautifully designed interface with glassmorphism and a premium dark mode aesthetic. Real-time stock data is seamlessly fetched using the Yahoo Finance API via IPC to bypass browser CORS constraints, providing accurate, reliable market data.

Features

• Anonymous: stores your settings, target prices and ticker list locally in localStorage on your machine without needing a database or sharing them with third parties.
• Real-time data: fetches the latest quotes without limits using Yahoo Finance.
• Black aesthetics: enjoy a beautifully designed, premium user interface with interactive "gold on black" highlights.
• Cross-platform: readily packages for Mac, Windows and Linux using electron-builder.

Note: due to new Apple restrictions it will not let you run the app without allowlisting it in Security settings. Please be assured that this app was not made to inject any malware that may harm your operating system or compromise your privacy: all code is open source and can be seen by everyone on GitHub.

To fix this on your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Privacy & Security in the sidebar and scroll down to Security section. Click Open Anyway. This button is available for about an hour after you try to open the app. Enter your login password, then click OK. The app will be saved as an exception to your security settings, and you can open it in the future by double-clicking it, just as you can for any authorized app.

Development

Customizing Default Stocks

You can customize the default list of stocks loaded on the first run (or when resetting storage) by using an environment variable.

1. Create a .env file in the root of the project.
2. Add the STOCKS variable with a comma-separated list of ticker symbols:

STOCKS=AAPL,GOOGL,NVDA,AMD,INTC

When you start (npm run dev) or build the app, it will read this variable and use those tickers as your default dashboard!

Requirements

• Node.js (24 or newer recommended)
• npm (Node Package Manager)

Installation Instructions

1. Clone the repository (or download and extract the project):

   git clone git@github.com:Marketionist/black-orb.git
   cd black-orb

2. Install dependencies - to install all necessary packages run the following command in the project root:

   npm install

3. Start the development server - to run the app locally with hot-module replacement, execute:

   npm run dev

   To run it as a web server on http://localhost:5173/, execute:

   npm run dev:web

Building Instructions

The app is built using electron-builder which allows for generating highly optimized executables for different operating systems. Below are the commands you can use to package the app.

macOS Build

To package the application as a macOS .dmg installer:

npm run build:mac

The compiled disk image and raw binaries will be located under the release/ directory.

Windows Build

To package the application as a Windows .exe installer (using NSIS):

npm run build:win

The compiled installer will be located under the release/ directory.

Linux Build

To package the application as a Linux .AppImage installer:

npm run build:lin

The compiled installer will be located under the release/ directory.

General Build

If you want to run a complete build pipeline without a specific flag (defaults to your current operating system host):

npm run build

Technologies Used

• Frameworks: Electron, React, Vite
• Languages: TypeScript
• Styling: Vanilla CSS (CSS Variables, Flexbox/Grid, Animations)
• APIs: Yahoo Finance API (direct fetch)
• Icons: Heroicons

Thanks

If this app was helpful to you - please give this repository a ★ Star on GitHub.