Slow Notes

A premium iOS app for capturing and organizing handwritten notes. Built with SwiftUI, designed for a calm, mindful note-taking experience.

Features

• Document Scanning - Capture handwritten notes using your device's camera with VisionKit integration
• Full-Text Search - Find notes instantly with SQLite FTS5-powered search
• Notebook Organization - Group entries by notebooks with brand support (Leuchtturm, Nuuna, Moleskine, Hobonichi)
• Entry Types - Categorize notes with customizable types and colors
• Tags & People - Link entries with tags and people references using [[PersonName]] syntax
• Markdown Rendering - Rich text display with custom styling
• Offline-First - All data stored locally for reliability and privacy
• Dark Mode - Designed exclusively for dark mode with a liquid glass aesthetic

Architecture

The app follows a feature-based architecture with clean separation of concerns:

• @Observable Pattern - Modern reactive state management
• Actor-Based Services - Thread-safe data access with Swift actors
• Dual Persistence - Local file storage (human-readable markdown) + SQLite search index
• Type-Safe Navigation - NavigationStack with strongly-typed routing

Key Technologies

• SwiftUI
• Swift Concurrency (async/await, actors)
• SQLite FTS5 (full-text search)
• VisionKit (document scanning)
• Keychain Services (secure storage)
• Textual (markdown rendering)

Project Structure

SlowNotes/
├── App/
│   ├── SlowNotesApp.swift              # App entry point
│   └── ContentView.swift               # Root view (enforces dark mode)
│
├── Features/
│   ├── AddEntry/
│   │   ├── AddEntryView.swift          # Entry creation UI
│   │   ├── AddEntryViewModel.swift     # Entry creation state
│   │   └── DocumentScannerView.swift   # VisionKit scanner wrapper
│   │
│   ├── Auth/
│   │   ├── AuthenticationView.swift    # Auth flow coordinator
│   │   ├── LoginView.swift             # Login form
│   │   └── SignupView.swift            # Signup form
│   │
│   ├── EntryDetail/
│   │   ├── EntryDetailView.swift       # Note detail & markdown display
│   │   └── EntryDetailViewModel.swift  # Detail state & editing
│   │
│   ├── FilteredEntries/
│   │   ├── FilteredEntriesView.swift   # Filtered list UI
│   │   └── FilteredEntriesViewModel.swift
│   │
│   ├── Home/
│   │   ├── HomeView.swift              # Main library view
│   │   └── HomeViewModel.swift         # Library state & sections
│   │
│   ├── Notebooks/
│   │   ├── ManageNotebooksView.swift   # Notebook CRUD UI
│   │   └── NotebooksViewModel.swift
│   │
│   ├── Onboarding/
│   │   ├── OnboardingView.swift        # First-launch experience
│   │   └── OnboardingViewModel.swift
│   │
│   ├── Search/
│   │   ├── SearchView.swift            # Full-text search UI
│   │   └── SearchViewModel.swift       # Search state & results
│   │
│   ├── Settings/
│   │   ├── SettingsView.swift          # App settings UI
│   │   └── SettingsViewModel.swift
│   │
│   └── Types/
│       ├── ManageTypesView.swift       # Entry type management
│       └── TypesViewModel.swift
│
├── Models/
│   ├── Models.swift                    # Core types (NoteEntrySummary, EntryType, Notebook, etc.)
│   ├── EntryDetail.swift               # Full entry model
│   ├── Person.swift                    # Person reference model
│   └── Tag.swift                       # Tag model
│
├── Networking/
│   ├── APIClient.swift                 # Generic HTTP client
│   ├── APIError.swift                  # Error types
│   ├── APIModels.swift                 # Request/response DTOs
│   ├── AuthService.swift               # Authentication service
│   ├── EntryService.swift              # Entry API & OCR jobs
│   ├── KeychainService.swift           # Secure token storage
│   └── UserService.swift               # User profile API
│
├── Persistence/
│   ├── LocalStorage/
│   │   ├── LocalEntryService.swift     # Main entry service (coordinates file + index)
│   │   ├── FileStorageService.swift    # Markdown file I/O
│   │   └── SearchIndexService.swift    # SQLite FTS5 search index
│   │
│   ├── AppDataService.swift            # App-wide data coordination
│   ├── ExportService.swift             # PDF/Markdown export
│   ├── ImageStorageService.swift       # Image file management
│   ├── NotebookStorageService.swift    # Notebook persistence
│   ├── PersonStorageService.swift      # People persistence
│   ├── TagStorageService.swift         # Tag persistence
│   ├── PersistenceController.swift     # Storage coordination
│   ├── Repositories.swift              # Repository pattern implementations
│   └── SwiftDataModels.swift           # SwiftData model definitions
│
├── Preview/
│   └── PreviewData.swift               # Mock data for Xcode previews
│
├── Services/
│   ├── MockServices.swift              # Mock implementations for development
│   ├── ProcessingJobsService.swift     # OCR job tracking & polling
│   ├── OnboardingStateService.swift    # First-launch state
│   └── Logger.swift                    # Unified logging with levels
│
└── UI/
    ├── Components/
    │   ├── Buttons/
    │   │   ├── GlassButton.swift       # Glass-effect button
    │   │   ├── IconButton.swift        # Square icon button
    │   │   └── TextButton.swift        # Plain text button
    │   │
    │   ├── Cards/
    │   │   ├── GlassCard.swift         # Base card with glass effect
    │   │   ├── NoteCard.swift          # Entry summary card
    │   │   └── NotebookIconView.swift  # Notebook brand icon
    │   │
    │   ├── Feedback/
    │   │   ├── EmptyStateView.swift    # No-data state
    │   │   └── ToastView.swift         # Temporary notifications
    │   │
    │   ├── Inputs/
    │   │   └── GlassTextField.swift    # Styled text input
    │   │
    │   ├── Lists/
    │   │   ├── ListRowButton.swift     # Interactive list row
    │   │   ├── ListRowNavigation.swift # Navigation list row
    │   │   ├── ListRowToggle.swift     # Toggle list row
    │   │   └── ListSection.swift       # Grouped list section
    │   │
    │   ├── Navigation/
    │   │   ├── FloatingActionBar.swift # Bottom action buttons
    │   │   └── SectionHeader.swift     # Time period headers
    │   │
    │   ├── Rows/
    │   │   └── NotebookRow.swift       # Notebook list item
    │   │
    │   ├── ModalOverlayContainer.swift # Liquid glass modal backdrop
    │   ├── NotebookPickerModal.swift   # Notebook selection
    │   ├── TypePickerModal.swift       # Entry type selection
    │   ├── TagsPickerModal.swift       # Multi-select tags
    │   └── PeoplePickerModal.swift     # People picker
    │
    └── Theme/
        ├── Colors.swift                # Color palette & semantic colors
        ├── Typography.swift            # Font styles & text hierarchy
        └── ViewStyles.swift            # Reusable view modifiers

76 Swift files organized across 11 feature modules.

Getting Started

Requirements

• iOS 17.0+
• Xcode 15.0+
• Swift 5.9+

Building

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-org/SlowNotes.git
cd SlowNotes

# Build the project
xcodebuild -project SlowNotes.xcodeproj -scheme SlowNotes build

# Or open in Xcode
open SlowNotes.xcodeproj

Data Storage

Entries are stored in two complementary formats:

1. Markdown Files - Human-readable files organized by notebook, year, and month

   Documents/
   └── <notebook>/
       └── <year>/
           └── <month>/
               └── <slug>.md  
   

2. Search Index - SQLite database with FTS5 for fast full-text search

Design System

The app uses a consistent dark-mode design language:

• Glass Effects - Ultra-thin material overlays for cards and modals
• Entry Type Colors - Slate, Amber, Emerald, Cobalt, Violet
• Notebook Brands - Visual identification by physical notebook brand
• Typography - Clean hierarchy with system fonts

Development

Preview States

Most views include multiple preview states for development:

• Empty state
• Loading state
• Populated state
• Edge cases

Guidelines

See CLAUDE.md for detailed development guidelines and coding conventions.

License

Copyright 2026. All rights reserved.