RasterNoteNative

Hand-built Windows sticky notes starter in C++20 + Win32 + Direct2D + DirectWrite.

The project is intentionally built without RichEdit. The text core is owned by the app:

• Plain text only
• Bold is the only inline style
• Floating launcher with recent notes
• Minimal main window with a custom rendered editor surface
• IME composition preview through IMM
• Autosave to local files

Design Direction

The UI follows a restrained Raster-NOTON inspired direction:

• neutral paper-like background
• black grid lines and thin borders
• uppercase utility labels
• dense but quiet information hierarchy
• almost no ornamental chrome

Why No RichEdit

RichEdit is powerful, but it is also heavier than this app needs. This starter keeps the critical path in local code:

• custom gap-buffer text storage
• custom bold-range model
• DirectWrite layout generated on demand
• Win32 input, selection, clipboard and IME handling
• note persistence in a tiny custom file format

That keeps the editing model understandable, hackable, and performance-focused.

Core Architecture

src/text_document.*

• custom gap buffer for low-overhead insertion near the caret
• selection state, caret movement, delete/insert logic
• non-overlapping bold ranges with merge/split logic

src/note_store.*

• stores notes in %LOCALAPPDATA%\\RasterNoteNative\\notes
• one .rnote file per note
• UTF-8 text body plus serialized bold spans

src/note_app.*

• launcher window and main window
• Direct2D render targets
• DirectWrite text layout cache
• hit testing, selection painting, caret painting
• clipboard, IME preview, autosave timer

Performance Notes

This starter is biased toward smoothness first:

• no heavyweight edit control
• text layout is rebuilt lazily, only when content or width changes
• only one lightweight brush per render target
• note files are tiny and saved independently
• selection and caret are rendered directly from cached layout hit-testing

For the next optimization pass, the most valuable upgrades are:

1. add an undo/redo command stack
2. move note saving to a background worker
3. switch from ID2D1HwndRenderTarget to a DXGI flip-model swap chain
4. add virtualization if the recent-note list grows large
5. add richer IME caret feedback inside the composition range

Build

Recommended toolchain:

• Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools, or full Visual Studio 2022
• Windows 10/11 SDK
• CMake 3.24+

Configure:

cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022"

Build:

cmake --build build --config Release

Current Shortcuts

• Ctrl+N: new note
• Ctrl+S: save now
• Ctrl+B: toggle bold
• Ctrl+A: select all
• Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V: clipboard
• Esc: hide the main window or close the expanded launcher

Storage Format

Each note is stored as a simple text file:

RASTERNOTE/1
modified=1711111111
bold=0:5,18:4
---
actual text body here

This is easy to inspect, migrate, sync, and replace later.