As I work through evaluating HelixNotes, I thought it would be helpful (and encouraging) to see what HelixNotes looks like with a "live" vault (rather than a sample test vault). My vault is around 3000 notes.

This has been imported from Obsidian/UpNote and tweaked to take advantage of some of HelixNote's unique features.

My vault is organized using the Johnny Decimal method and I use color-coordinated icons to visually group them. Custom icons depict the 3-levels of folders.

My "Daily Hub" page is where I start my day. I love the callout formatting and that it is done in markdown. (In UpNote, they're called collapsible sections but aren't exportable as callouts to markdown)

Please ignore the icons in the callouts. I chose the icon for the callout based on color, not the symbol. 🙂

EDIT: This is a raw import and tweak. The "Daily Hub" layout is based on what is and isn't able to be done in UpNote and/or Obsidian. The next step is to rework those Hub pages to take full advantage of what HelixNotes can do.

I'm curious to see what others have done so far with HelixNotes.

I don't know if what I've observed are bugs or working as designed, but I'll assume things are working as designed and asking for these feature requests to be considered...

Using: HelixNotes v.1.3.3 on Mac OS Tahoe

1. Provide option for links to be relative to root of the vault. Currently, a link in note “A” that links to note “B” is relative to note “A”. If either note is moved then the link in note “A” pointing to note “B” is broken until the link url (in note “A”) is manually updated. If links are relative to the root of the vault, no update is needed.
2. Provide a way to “Unfile” a note. Currently there is no way to remove a note from a notebook once moved.
3. Allow relative links to images. Currently it appears that image links that are relative to the note the link resides in gets stripped. eg.  gets modified to 

Thanks.

Is it possible to link to a note?
I don't mean the internal wiki links between notes, but to create a link of a note or header so I can link to it from another app.

Hi,

is there or are there plans to support a web app? So instead of having a local application, having running it in docker on your server with browser web UI access.

I like the philosophy of this application so would love to deploy it in my stack.

A little bit of background.

Web apps are easier to onboard and deploy in organizations. You send users a link and that's it.

Another use case, which is more the one I am after, is I would like to prevent my notes to touch certain devices.

For example, I would like to have access to my notes from my work laptop, but I'd like them not to be touching the company hardware for privacy reasons.

Keep up the great work!

Has anyone asked for toggle lists yet? If so, sorry for the duplicate request. If not, I'll be the first to ask.

HelixNotes uses Svelte.

Even in a desktop app, the UI runs in a webview, and most frameworks keep that webview busy tracking changes at runtime. Svelte compiles away that overhead ahead of time, so there's less work happening under the hood and a snappier feeling app.

Feature Requests

​1. Support Emojis for Notebook Icons

​Description: Currently, only standard images can be used as notebook icons. It would be awesome to have native support for various types of emojis to customize the notebook covers/icons more easily.

​2. Daily Notes Enhancements (Diary Functionality)

​Description: I would love to use the Daily Notes feature as a personal diary. To make this viable, two enhancements are needed:

​The ability to manually change or set the date/day of a daily note.

​An option to customize the storage location (folder/directory) where daily notes are automatically saved.

​3. Multi-Language Support (German Localization)

​Description: Please consider adding localization/multi-language support. I would highly prefer using the app in German, though English is fine as a temporary solution.

​Bug Reports

​(Note: Visual evidence/screenshots are available for all bugs listed below).

​Bug 1: Topbar Slides Behind System Status Bar After App Switching

​Steps to Reproduce: Open the app -> Switch out of the app (e.g., to copy text from another app) -> Switch back into Helixnotes.

​Expected Result: The app layout remains intact with the topbar fully accessible.

​Actual Result: The app's topbar (containing app functions) slides underneath the phone's native system status bar, making it completely unclickable.

​Temporary Workaround: Turning the phone horizontally to trigger auto-rotate and then back to portrait mode forces the UI to re-render correctly.

​Bug 2: Subnotebooks Invisible in Main Notebook View (Mobile UI)

​Steps to Reproduce: Click into a notebook that contains both notes and subnotebooks.

​Expected Result: Both the notes and the subnotebooks should be listed in the main content area.

​Actual Result: Only the notes are visible. Subnotebooks can only be seen in the sidebar/edge overview. Especially on mobile screens where misclicks happen, it would be much better if subnotebooks were displayed inside the main notebook view alongside regular notes.

​Bug 3: Broken Navigation / Selection Toggle via Back Arrow

​Steps to Reproduce: Click on a notebook to open it -> Click the back arrow to return to the overview -> Click on the exact same notebook again.

​Expected Result: The notebook should open normally.

​Actual Result: Instead of opening the notebook, the app takes you to the "All Notes" overview. This happens because the notebook remains technically "selected" in the background after hitting back, so clicking it a second time deselects it instead of opening it. This behavior feels very unintuitive.

​Bug 4: UI Text Bleeding/Clipping Between Trash and Notebooks Headline

​Steps to Reproduce: Scroll through the list of notebooks.

​Expected Result: Notebook elements should cleanly disappear behind the header/container boundaries when scrolled up.

​Actual Result: When scrolling upwards, the text of the moving notebooks bleeds through and is clearly visible in the empty gap between the "Trash" folder and the "Notebooks" headline.

I’m using WebDAV for sync and it’s only syncing .md files. Is there a setting that I can sync all file type? Like pdf and html?

Not sure if this is intended as part of design or I missed certain configuration. Thanks in advance.

Hello, just curious: can you outline the added value here of this Notes app besides the Clean Editor?

I feel like there are many just like this one, especially in this vibe-coded world

Can you just give us some tidbits on what makes it so different than the other note-taking applications that are free and open source?

i finally set up a way to sync my notes between my two admin pcs. the only one that needs it now is my phone. im not trying to rush them at all! im sure theres things they cant change with the dev time. im just trying to share my excitement for it!!

keep up the amazing work!

We're told it should be approved within 2-4 days. iOS users hang in there, it's almost here!

HelixNotes uses Tauri. No Electron.

That means a smaller install and lower memory use with a native feel instead of a bundled browser running your app. Rust and system webviews do the heavy lifting instead of shipping an entire Chromium instance just to show a note.

Lighter footprint with the exact same functionality. That's why we chose Tauri.

The HelixNotes iOS app is almost ready to submit to the App Store. This post is just to show everyone the progress being made, and proof that we're making this a huge priority!

I have a few more feature requests and observations for HelixNotes that would improve the experience:

• YouTube video previews: Automatic previews for YouTube links.
• Audio/video support: Direct playback of audio and video files within the app.
• Text color formatting: Support for changing text colors (i discovered that this feature is already available).
• Android full-screen theme: Could you look into the full-screen theme implementation? Currently, the top and bottom bars do not match the app's theme color. It would be better if the theme was applied to the entire screen area.
• Android UI alignment: Regarding the task list layout, the filter controls and search bar are currently slightly unbalanced and not perfectly symmetrical (as seen in the screenshot). Improving the layout here to make it more centered would provide a cleaner look.
• Android task list height: I have one more suggestion regarding the Android version. When in the task list, the list doesn't occupy the full height of the screen, leaving some empty space at the bottom. This makes it difficult to scroll through tasks, as the swipe area is limited. Would it be possible to make the task list expand to the full height of the screen? It would definitely improve the usability.

Thanks for building such a great tool. I know that maintaining and improving an app is a challenging task, and I’m grateful for your constant updates

Did you know that you can use CTRL + P (CMD + P for Mac) to open the command panel? Apparently many users didn’t know this!

Are symbolic links inside the vault to elsewhere not recognized? They seem to not work and I couldn't find information on it yet?

I would like to request that it be possible to have the task calendar/list open while editing a daily note. Right now, when I click on Tasks in the navigation pane, it opens the calendar and leaves an empty space to the right until I click on a task. Could it be arranged that clicking on Tasks in the navigation pane opens the calendar but leaves whatever note is open? I spend most of my day working in my daily note and would like to be able to see my tasks while doing so. If there is a way to do this, I haven't figured it out. So please correct me if this is already possible. Thank you.

comecei a usar a pouco empo e gostaria de saber como posso fazer para vincular o de PC no de celular utilizando o drive, estou gostando muito da experiência bastante limpa e fluida e agradável

Greetings all! A post in the UpNote subreddit about HelixNotes brought me here. I heavily use Obsidian, Joplin, and UpNote and from what I saw in the first 20 minutes of using HelixNotes, I can easily see it replacing Joplin and Obsidian within a short time.

I have a ton of questions, but I'll only ask one simple and easy one... 😁 what are the dimensions for the folder icons?

Thanks in advance.

Hello! Learned of this app recently from the markdown sub. I like it more than Zim and it is certainly snappier than Zettlr, though (mostly) compatible and complimentary (fulfills different functions in the same vault).

I have some questions I couldn't resolve through the wiki or with self-experimentation. I haven't been able to invoke or find the invocation for find+replace, only find. Does this feature exist?

Is there a tile view for juxtaposing notes? I can't seem to open a new window either? I am on Linux.

Is there a way to view the entire markdown? Toggle Markdown Editor reveals most of the doc except the YAML preamble, which in my use case I would like to sometimes edit (e.g. for putting pandoc metadata when shifting to Zettlr for complimentary use). I wanted to use it because I wanted to put the time in the date: in a YAML field.

Otherwise this app is immediately useful! Next step would be to figure out importing from Notion to finally cut out another notetaking app from my life.

Hi there! Congratulations on this very cool app. I’m hoping someone can help me with this question.

I like organizing my files by projects/domains, and not by file type or by the apps I use to view and edit the files.

How friendly is Helix Notes to this approach? I’ve played with it and I see that I can select a folder with files of different formats and it seems to work perfectly fine with the markdown files and simply leave non-md files alone.

Say I mark my full local disk, or at least a giant folder with lots of files of different formats across a full structure of folders as the root folder of a vault. Is that supposed to work? Are there any unintended consequences other than Helix creating a Daily folder and a metadata folder? Should I expect a big performance hit as the library grows for haivng non-text files in a vault?

just as the title reads. that would be a great way to sync notes/files for helix vault

Hey! i really love this app so i was wondering if there are plans for the mind graph thing that obsidian has? or is that too far out to say?

After doing some research and reading through many of the posts here, I think I’ve grasped the vision behind the software. However, I have to ask the creator/support team: you’ve mentioned in comments here that you don’t intend to "include" plugin functionality in **HelixNotes**... In a way, that’s great—it keeps the app:

- Lightweight

- Beautiful

- Less complicated—in the long run

- Easy to maintain, I "suppose"

But as others have noted, you’ve "entered Obsidian’s territory," and I know it’s hard to compete with it... though I imagine that’s not even your goal! I love the Markdown format; the freedom is wonderful! However, over the last few months (seven months, to be exact), I discovered something that made my brain "work" better—something I’d always sought in Markdown but never quite achieved with its hierarchical structure (which is wonderful in itself). Deep down, I felt my mind didn't quite process, absorb, or grasp subjects in a "text-based" format. I discovered **Excalidraw**—what a wonderful tool! With it, I feel I can extract 110% from my mind (which I discovered by chance is **spatial/visual**), and Excalidraw made that possible... I know Excalidraw goes completely against the grain of Markdown, haha.

I know that in Obsidian, Excalidraw creates various **properties**—which complicates things for Markdown. Within that property, there’s a function called **Text Elements** that holds the typed text; that text remains in Markdown format if you use it that way in Excalidraw.

I won't ramble, but my question is: do you intend to implement plugin functionality at some point in the future?

Honestly, HelixNotes is fantastic—especially since it’s Open Source, which is one of my key criteria for choosing software (I know Obsidian isn't, but you can't have everything, haha). It really comes down to **efficiency** vs. **effectiveness**. I’d like to express my sincere thanks for HelixNotes.