TermiNotes

A hyper-lightweight macOS menu bar utility for developers who need to store and sanitize terminal outputs, ASCII diagrams, and multi-line commands without them "breaking."

Installation

1. Build

The easiest way to build is using the provided build script, which creates a proper macOS .app bundle:

chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh

2. Install (Global Command)

To launch TermiNotes from your terminal and have it persist even after you close the terminal window:

# 1. Create a launcher script (already in project as terminotes_launcher.sh)
mkdir -p ~/bin
cp terminotes_launcher.sh ~/bin/terminotes
chmod +x ~/bin/terminotes

Note: Ensure ~/bin is in your $PATH. This command uses open to launch the app bundle, so it stays alive even if the terminal is killed.

Why TermiNotes?

Standard note apps often "help" you by converting straight quotes to smart quotes, dashes to em-dashes, and wrapping long lines. This destroys terminal diagrams and breaks code snippets. TermiNotes is built to be a "dumb" raw buffer that preserves everything exactly as it was in the terminal.

Key Features

• Menu Bar Resident: Lives in your top bar (look for the >_N icon).
• Canonical No-Wrap: ASCII art and terminal graphs (like git log --graph) never wrap. They scroll horizontally, preserving their visual structure.
• Terminal Sanitizer: Copy text back to the terminal safely with CMD + Shift + C. It automatically:
  • Escapes newlines with \ for safe multi-line pasting.
  • Converts "smart" quotes and dashes back to ASCII.
  • Trims trailing newlines to prevent accidental command execution.
• Zoom & Resize: On-the-fly font scaling (CMD +/-) and a custom corner dragger for window expansion.
• Pure AppKit: Built with native macOS APIs for near-zero memory footprint and maximum responsiveness.

Usage

1. Launch: Run terminotes from your terminal (if aliased) or open the TermiNotes.app.
2. Persistence: Your notes are automatically saved to ~/Library/Application Support/TermiNotes/notes.txt.
3. Shortcuts:
   • CMD + V: Paste (Raw, no-wrap).
   • CMD + Shift + C: Safe Copy for Terminal (Sanitized for multi-line pasting).
   • CMD + = / -: Zoom text.
4. Launch at Login: Toggle this in the menu to have TermiNotes start automatically when you log in.