Devava Notes

A desktop notes app whose notebooks know what they hold, built by devava XP Studios.

A notebook of class notes knows about lectures, assignments and exams, and tells you what is due next. A notebook of competitive programming knows about Codeforces, AtCoder and LeetCode problems, sorts them by algorithm, technique and difficulty, and keeps your C++ ready to reuse. A general notebook is just notes with tags. Every note is a plain Markdown file on your disk: no accounts, no cloud, no Java to install.

Home	Competitive Programming

Class Notes, reading view	Dark theme

Download

⬇ Download the latest version for 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. On that page, under Assets:

File	Then
…-windows-x64-setup.exe	Recommended. Open it. If Windows shows "Windows protected your PC", click More info → Run anyway (why). Keep the suggested folder and finish: Devava Notes appears in the Start menu and, unless you untick the box, on the desktop. No administrator rights needed.
…-windows-x64-portable.zip	No installation: unzip anywhere (a USB stick works) and open Devava Notes.exe.

macOS and Linux versions are planned.

First steps

1. Create a notebook with + New notebook and pick its type: General, Class Notes (one per course) or Competitive Programming.
2. Write a note with + New (Ctrl+N). In a Competitive Programming notebook, paste the problem's link: the judge, the problem's ID and a solution block with your C++ template are filled in.
3. Fill in its properties above the text (the due date of an assignment, the algorithms of a problem…) and the notebook's views on the left sort it for you.

Updating and uninstalling

Install a new version the same way: the installer replaces the previous one. To uninstall: Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Devava Notes → Uninstall (the portable version: delete its folder). Either way your notes stay in your Documents folder.

Why does Windows show a warning?

The downloads are not code-signed: a signing certificate costs money every year, and this is a free project. Windows therefore shows "Windows protected your PC" the first time; More info → Run anyway opens it, and Windows remembers your choice. Every release is built by GitHub Actions from the tagged source code, so the build log shows exactly what went into the files, and each release lists their SHA-256 checksums.

Notebook types

Each type brings its own properties (shown above the note), templates for new notes and views (on the left). Every view shows its notes as a list or as a table with sortable columns.

• General: Tags and Pinned. Views: all notes, pinned, by tag.
• Class Notes: lectures (date, unit, topic), assignments (due date, status) and exams (date, topics, grade). Views: lectures, by unit, Upcoming (what is still to do, soonest first, late work in red), assignments, exams, all notes. Right-click an assignment to mark it as done. Home lists what is coming up in all your courses.
• Competitive Programming: problems (link, judge, ID, difficulty, status, algorithms, techniques, date) and snippets for the Code Library. Views: all problems, To review (solved with help), by algorithm (subtopics such as graphs/dijkstra nest under graphs), by technique, by difficulty, by judge, by status, and the Code Library. Difficulty is kept as the judge gives it (a Codeforces rating, AtCoder points, LeetCode's Easy / Medium / Hard) and also on one scale for all three judges, shown in the judge's colors. + Solution adds another solution block; Insert snippet… copies code from the library into the note; each notebook has its own C++ template (notebook menu → C++ template…).

Writing

Notes are Markdown. The editor draws headings, emphasis and code as you type; the reading view (Ctrl+E) shows the finished note.

• Math: $e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0$ inline, or a block between $$ lines, drawn by KaTeX.
• Code: fenced blocks (```cpp) are colored by language; the reading view numbers their lines and adds a Copy button.
• Links: [[Another note]] (or [[Another note|shown text]]); typing [[ suggests the titles. Ctrl+click follows a link in the editor, a click in the reading view. A link to a note that does not exist yet is orange in the reading view, and following it creates the note.
• Tags: #tag anywhere in the text (#topic/subtopic works too); a click on a tag shows every note that has it.
• Pictures: paste one with Ctrl+V or drop the file on the note. It is saved in the notebook's attachments folder and linked where the cursor is.
• Tables, task lists (- [ ]) and strikethrough, as on GitHub.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+N	New notebook (on Home) or new note (in a notebook)
Ctrl+O	Quick open: any note by its title
Ctrl+Shift+F	Search the text of every note (accents and case do not matter)
Ctrl+E	Read or edit the open note
Ctrl+F	Find (and replace) in the open note
Ctrl+V	Paste a picture, when the clipboard holds one
[[	Link to a note, with the titles suggested
Ctrl+click	Follow the [[link]] under the mouse, in the editor
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / redo

Where your notes live

Everything is in a Devava Notes folder inside your Documents folder (OneDrive redirection is honored). Each notebook is a folder, and each note a .md file named after its title:

Documents\Devava Notes\
├── settings.json                 the theme
└── Algorithms\
    ├── .notebook.json            the notebook's type and its C++ template
    ├── attachments\              pictures pasted or dropped on its notes
    └── CF 4A - Watermelon.md

A note's properties are its YAML front matter, so the files open anywhere Markdown does (Obsidian included), and notes written elsewhere show up in the app:

---
url: https://codeforces.com/problemset/problem/4/A
judge: Codeforces
id: 4A
difficulty: 800
algorithms: [math, brute force]
status: Solved
---
## Idea
Two even parts only if w is even and greater than 2.

• Every change is saved a moment after you make it; files are written atomically, so a crash never leaves half a note.
• Deleting a note or a notebook moves it to the Recycle Bin.
• Folders you create by hand become General notebooks.
• To keep the notes somewhere else, start the app with -Dnotes.home=<folder> (from source) or set the environment variable JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-Dnotes.home=<folder> (installed app).

---

For developers

Java 21, JavaFX 21 (with WebView), Maven (wrapper included), Gson and commonmark-java. The editor is CodeMirror 6, with KaTeX for math, bundled by esbuild into one script that the WebView loads. Tests use JUnit 5; the compiler runs with -Xlint:all and the build is expected to stay warning-free.

./mvnw javafx:run                  # run from source (JDK 21 required)
./mvnw test                        # unit tests
./mvnw verify -Dsmoke=true         # also opens the real window and saves screenshots in target/smoke

The editor's source is editor/main.js. After changing it, rebuild the bundle (Node.js 20 or later) and commit the result, src/main/resources/com/devavaxp/notes/editor.js:

cd editor
npm install
npm run build

The app icon is drawn by tools/icon/Icon.java: java tools/icon/Icon.java writes packaging/icon.png, packaging/icon.ico and the window icon.

Building the application

packaging/build-windows.ps1 compiles with the Maven wrapper, copies the dependencies, builds a trimmed Java runtime with jlink (the JDK modules in packaging/jdk-modules.txt plus JavaFX) and calls jpackage with that runtime and the application jars on the class path. It needs a full JDK 21 (with its jmods folder), found through JAVA_HOME or -JdkHome:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\packaging\build-windows.ps1

The result is dist\Devava Notes\Devava Notes.exe. -Destination "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs" -Shortcut installs it for yourself with a desktop shortcut, and -Type exe builds the installer, which needs the WiX Toolset 3.x.

Releasing a new version

Releases are built, smoke-tested and published by GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/release.yml), so every download comes from a clean build of a tagged commit. To publish, for example, version 1.1.0:

1. Set <version>1.1.0</version> in pom.xml.

2. Add a ## [1.1.0] - <date> section to CHANGELOG.md (it becomes the release's "What's new") and its link at the bottom of the file.

3. Commit and push, then push the tag:

   git tag v1.1.0
   git push origin v1.1.0

Running the workflow by hand from the Actions tab is a dry run: it builds and tests everything and keeps the files as workflow artifacts, without publishing a release.

License

MIT © 2026 devava XP Studios. The app bundles CodeMirror and KaTeX (MIT), commonmark-java (BSD-2-Clause), Gson (Apache-2.0) and a Java runtime with JavaFX (GPL-2.0 with the Classpath Exception); see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.