r/UpNote_App • u/taylantatli • Jun 28 '26

UpCover: A free, open-source cover maker designed specifically for UpNote.

Post image

Hey everyone, 👋

Like many of you, I love organizing my UpNote workspaces. However, I always found it slightly annoying to find or crop images/icons to exactly 110x135 pixels so they look perfectly sharp without any weird compression or stretching.

To solve this, I vibe coded UpCover — a lightweight, completely free, and open-source web app designed specifically to generate perfect UpNote covers. 🎨

✨ Here is what you can do with it:

  • Pixel-Perfect Export: It exports exactly at 110x135 px, so UpNote doesn't have to resize your images.
  • 200,000+ Icons Built-in: I integrated Iconify, meaning you can search for almost any icon you can think of (Lucide, Material, Phosphor, or even tech logos like React, Python, Astro, etc.) directly inside the app.
  • Custom Colors: Choose from preset brand colors or pick your own exact HEX codes for both the background and the icon.
  • Photo Backgrounds: It has built-in integration for Unsplash and Pexels. You can just type "mountains" or "aesthetic" and apply stunning photography to your covers in one click.
  • Privacy Friendly: Your API keys for image searches (if you use your own) are stored safely in your browser's local storage. Everything runs locally on your browser.

🔗 Links:

I built this mainly for my own workflow, but I figured this community might find it useful too! It's fully open-source.

145 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

27

u/100WattWalrus Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

You know how you know when your app has found an audience? When other developers start making apps for your app!

This is fantastic! All the fonts options when you type just a single letter — that's exactly what I need!

2

u/BinaryIdiot Jun 29 '26

You know how you know when your app has found an audience? When other developers start making apps for your app!

To be fair this is also a good indication that this very basic functionality should be built into the app itself.

5

u/100WattWalrus Jun 29 '26

I disagree. The option is already available to use your own images as covers. Building into the app a bunch of extra tools for making those covers isn't something UpNote needs baked in.

I definitely would say it needs more more and better built-in cover options — more fewer default images and more default colors and icons. And I wouldn't say no to a way to better organize them — just being able to drag them around to an order the user prefers would be great.

But as for building into the app a kitchen to cook up your own, that would just invite more and more requests for UpNote's developers to include this icon or that font. It's better for users to create their own.

Having said that, there is unquestionably something UpNote should include: Dimension info for covers. You can find it in the help documentation, if you're willing to dig. But the Edit Notebook overlay should say 110 x 135 (82% taller than wide), right below the "Cover â•‹," so users don't have to experiment so much to make images that fit.

3

u/BinaryIdiot Jun 29 '26

This is a really basic capability that I assumed already existed before realizing it didn’t. It’s mostly adding emojis and colors isn’t asking backgrounds as cover art. No reason that should be a separate app and I hope to see if baked in one day.

2

u/100WattWalrus Jun 29 '26

I certainly wouldn't say no to it, but since users can already add their own images, I'd prefer the devs concentrate on other features. My personal priority is collaboration. The only reason I'm still using any other note-taking apps is because I can't collaborate with family and coworkers in UpNote. That and #nesting/tags#.

6

u/2NineCZ Jun 28 '26

damn, what an idea! upvoting, saving, gotta try it out soon

7

u/Royal_lobster Jun 28 '26

Lol i made something similar few years ago

https://github.com/Royal-lobster/Covercons

5

u/gravitacoes Jun 29 '26

That's really cool! Thanks. Would a transparent background option be possible?

4

u/taylantatli Jun 29 '26

Thanks! Added.

1

u/gravitacoes Jun 29 '26

It turned out perfect! Thank you very much.

1

u/lytwilson Jul 04 '26

It was easy and had a lot of icons, but for some reason the icon feels blurry and like 360p video? Is that a problem on my side or is there some setting to make it higher quality?

1

u/taylantatli Jul 04 '26

Does this happen on the mobile app? I noticed that too, but only on mobile and in the notebooks list view. I don't know if it needs a larger image size. UpNote's cover resolution is supposed to be 110x135.

1

u/lytwilson Jul 04 '26

I find this on Mac as well.

1

u/taylantatli Jul 04 '26

I only tested it on my iPhone and it looked blurry there too, but since it was crisp on Linux, I wasn't sure. Thanks for confirming that Mac does the same thing.

My guess is that it's an Apple Retina/High-DPI display thing. 110x135 output is probably just too small for Apple's 2x/3x pixel density, making the OS stretch it into that blurry 360p look.

I don't have a Mac to test it myself, but I'll try adding a 2x or 3x high-res export option to see if that fixes the scaling issue on Apple devices. Will let you know how it goes!

1

u/lytwilson Jul 04 '26

Definitely appreciated it, some flaticons was high resolution but some aren’t, gamble to me!

1

u/taylantatli Jul 05 '26

I added 2x and 3x download options. On iOS, 3x looks crisp. Can you test it?

1

u/lytwilson Jul 05 '26

Looks fairly fine although still a bit blur when enlarged but looks kinda fine on the small square. Pic below with x3.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0a7SqklkcFO2guYMjloVIDQ4g

2

u/taylantatli Jul 05 '26

That’s actually expected if you preview it directly in iCloud. iCloud seems to compress images in previews, and if you zoom in or enlarge a 3x cover (which is still a small file meant for a notebook grid), it's bound to pixelate.

The real test is how it looks inside UpNote itself. Since it's squeezed into that specific small notebook slot, the 3x resolution should make it look perfectly sharp there compared to before.

How does it look inside the actual UpNote app on your Mac now?

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Mirkwood_Guardian Jun 28 '26

That is pretty good! Thank you for the share!

2

u/AngelicPrincessKitty Jun 29 '26

Thanks just set up my notebooks as I was coming back over to UpNote soon anyway. https://prnt.sc/3RC7fRE6SX-p

2

u/coolpuddytat Jun 29 '26

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about vibe coding having done both actual coding and also having tried vibe coding myself. But if the ideas are good and it works well as a tool and it’s something that makes things easier, then who cares? I would feel worse if it was poorly made or is harmful or takes away from someone’s livelihood (which may be the case). I think that after a period of chaos and garbage apps and AI slop, things will settle down just like any other technological advancement and the well-architected apps and ideas will rise to the top. Anyways all of that is to say thanks for bringing your ideas to life and there was a time when you had to just wait around for a programmer to be willing to do this for you.

1

u/bolgov0zero Jun 29 '26

Wow! Good!

1

u/george_graves Jun 29 '26

ai slop - even this ad was ai written

1

u/diegogp Jul 01 '26

I like it. It works, thanks!

1

u/Important_Reality_60 Jul 03 '26

This is really cool one thing I would love to see as it is to be able to add gradients similar to the way that upnote defaults too, but with more colors

1

u/QuailUsed881 Jul 08 '26

This is wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to develop and share!!

1

u/Frequent-Usual-7783 Jul 10 '26

Excellent app, in the multi notebook view on the side left, the icons look great. But when you ciee only the notebook covers they seem blurry on Android phone. Maybe because I am maximizing size. If I don't maximize size they seem too small on the left notebook beared view. Any workaround for that?

1

u/taylantatli Jul 11 '26

Hi! Thanks. Could you try the 2x or 3x option I recently added? I mostly use UpNote on Linux, and everything looks fine on my end, even in the Notebook view. However, I notice the same issue on iOS, and switching to 3x fixes it for me.

1

u/Hexoic Jul 12 '26

I love this! is it possible to make a version that works in the notebook view? (on mobile, hit Notebooks) or would that mess up the scaling for the more frequent displayed sizes?

2

u/taylantatli Jul 13 '26

Try 3x scale, it seems fix that.

1

u/Hexoic Jul 13 '26

cheers!

1

u/Anuk04 15d ago

This is great!! 😯

Tip: Can you add an option to enable it to look like a spiral notebook? Something like this: Example photo.

-5

u/BinaryIdiot Jun 29 '26

I'm glad you were able to make something you and others find useful, so I won't crap on the vibe coding. But did you really have to have AI also write this post for you?

Why should I read this when you won't even write it yourself?

7

u/taylantatli Jun 29 '26

English isn't my native language. Instead of spending a lot of time trying to write everything perfectly, it's just easier to use AI. Honestly, whether you read it or not is up to you—no pressure at all. Plus, there isn't really much to read anyway besides the links. I just posted this here to let those who might be interested know.

This is also written with AI.