I’ve wanted this for a long time – a kanban style productivity desktop app that writes Markdown files to disk. And that is what Signboard is.
It looks like this.
And here is this board represented on disk as directories and files.
You can grab a copy for macOS or Windows today and give it a try. Or, you can download the source and modify it if you’d like.
I have tried a few apps like this; such as the Obsidian Kanban Plugin. Which works but is fairly limited and doesn’t do exactly what I’d like. Also, it is inside Obsidian and I’d prefer a standalone app.
So a few weeks ago, after thinking about it for far too long, I decided to give it a try. But I had a few goals in mind.
- Be open source
- Be fast
- Write pretty good Markdown (meaning, as little “front matter” as possible)
- Use web languages HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Don’t use an enormous framework like React (in fact, I’d like to not use a framework at all)
- Use as few dependencies as possible
I realize how ironic that last one might seem. Signboard is an Electron app, so right out of the gate it has that as a dependency. That also requires code signing for desktop apps (which come with their own needs). It reads and writes Markdown, and of course I’m not going to rewrite ways do that in JavaScript, since it has already been done by better programmers than me. So, it has some dependencies, but – where possible – Signboard has those built right in as static files.
In fact, the Signboard app makes zero requests to the web. It runs locally and privately.
This app is also very early and basic. It doesn’t even have an icon yet! I figured that the less I build before making it public allows for more people to shape the app. I still hope the app stays opinionated, but that it may include things that I would have never thought of.
I’m already using the app everyday and I’m looking forward to seeing more people give it a try.