Wander

Paste markdown, generate a QR code, read it on your phone while you wander around.

Wander is a tiny desktop app for copying text you need to read — meeting notes, documentation, recipes, anything — and instantly making it available on your phone via a QR code. No cloud, no auth, no accounts. Just your laptop and your phone on the same Wi-Fi.

Built with Wails v2 (Go backend + React frontend), SQLite, and server-side markdown rendering.

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What It Does

1. Paste markdown into the desktop app.
2. Click "Save Payload" — a QR code appears.
3. Scan the QR with your phone — it opens a clean, beautifully rendered page on your local network.
4. Wander away and read it. That's it.

Notes are stored in a local SQLite database in ~/.wander/wander.db. They stick around between sessions but are ephemeral by design.

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Screenshots

Desktop	Mobile Viewer

Left: The desktop app with the markdown editor, QR code panel, and recent payloads drawer. Right: The phone viewer — a clean, server-rendered markdown page with syntax highlighting and dark mode.

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Go 1.25+
• Node.js 18+
• Wails CLI v2.10+: go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest

Development

# Install frontend dependencies
cd frontend && npm install && cd ..

# Run in dev mode (hot reload for frontend + Go backend)
wails dev

Production Build

# macOS (arm64)
wails build

# macOS (universal)
wails build -platform darwin/universal

# Windows (from macOS)
wails build -platform windows/amd64

# Linux
wails build -platform linux/amd64

Outputs are in build/bin/.

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How It Works

LAN Access

Wander auto-detects your machine's local network IP (e.g., 192.168.1.x) and constructs the QR code URL as http://<ip>:3030/note/<id>. The editable LAN base URL field lets you override this if you're on a VPN or the auto-detect picks the wrong interface.

No Authentication

The /note/:id route is public by design. Anyone on your local network can scan the QR and read the note. There is no auth layer — this is intentional for the "wander around" use case.

Port Handling

The HTTP sidecar starts at port 3030 and automatically increments if the port is taken. The actual port is displayed in the desktop app.

Markdown Rendering

• Desktop app: react-markdown + remark-gfm + rehype-raw + react-syntax-highlighter (Prism)
• Phone viewer: Server-side rendered with goldmark + GFM extension + DefinitionList extension + Chroma syntax highlighting + raw HTML support. Includes Mermaid.js for diagram rendering. Pure HTML/CSS with no JavaScript required for basic markdown.

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Features

• Full GitHub Flavored Markdown — tables, strikethrough, task lists, autolinks, definition lists
• Mermaid diagrams — ```mermaid blocks render as diagrams in the phone viewer
• Syntax highlighting — code blocks rendered with Prism (desktop) and Chroma (viewer)
• QR code generation — server-side PNG, displayed as base64 Data URL
• Note management — create, edit, delete, regenerate QR for existing notes
• Relative timestamps — notes show "2h ago", "3d ago", etc.
• Heading anchor links — auto-generated IDs for table of contents
• Raw HTML — <details>, <summary>, and other inline HTML renders correctly
• Dark mode — easy on the eyes, phone-friendly
• SQLite persistence — notes survive restarts

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Tech Stack

Layer	Tech
Desktop Shell	Wails v2 (Go + Webview)
Frontend	React 19 + Vite + Tailwind CSS
Backend	Go 1.25+
Database	SQLite via modernc.org/sqlite (CGO-free)
QR Codes	skip2/go-qrcode
Desktop Markdown	react-markdown + remark-gfm + rehype-raw + react-syntax-highlighter
Viewer Markdown	goldmark + extension.GFM + extension.DefinitionList + goldmark-highlighting + html.WithUnsafe (Chroma)

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Project Structure

wander/
├── app.go                      # Wails App struct + Go bindings
├── main.go                     # Entry point
├── wails.json                  # Wails config
├── go.mod / go.sum
├── internal/
│   ├── db/
│   │   └── db.go               # SQLite CRUD + schema init
│   ├── lan/
│   │   └── lan.go              # Auto-detect LAN IP
│   ├── port/
│   │   └── port.go             # findAvailablePort()
│   ├── qr/
│   │   └── qr.go               # QR generation (PNG → base64)
│   ├── markdown/
│   │   └── markdown.go         # goldmark + GFM + Chroma highlighting
│   └── server/
│       ├── server.go           # HTTP sidecar setup + /note/:id handler
│       └── template.go         # Embedded viewer HTML/CSS
├── frontend/                    # Vite + React
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── App.tsx             # Main dashboard (single page, panels)
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   │   ├── NoteEditor.tsx  # Markdown textarea
│   │   │   ├── RecentPayloads.tsx # Notes list with actions
│   │   │   └── QrPanel.tsx     # QR display
│   │   └── main.tsx
│   ├── index.html
│   └── vite.config.ts
└── build/
    ├── bin/
    │   └── Wander.app (macOS)
    │   └── Wander.exe (Windows)
    │   └── wander (Linux)
    └── ...

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Database

SQLite file lives at ~/.wander/wander.db. It is created automatically on first run. Schema:

CREATE TABLE notes (
  id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
  content TEXT NOT NULL,
  created_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

WAL mode is enabled for better concurrent read performance.

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Development

Scripts

Script	Description
wails dev	Start dev mode with hot reload
wails build	Build for production (current platform)
wails build -platform <target>	Cross-compile

LAN Development

The HTTP server binds to 0.0.0.0 so it's accessible from any device on your network. No special configuration needed — just ensure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi.

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Why Wails?

Wails gives us a lightweight desktop shell with a native webview, Go backend bindings, and trivial cross-compilation. The entire app is a single static binary per platform with no runtime dependencies.

modernc.org/sqlite keeps the build CGO-free, so cross-compiling to Windows and Linux from your Mac is a one-liner.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Copyright (c) 2026 Aggressively Beige Holdings, LLC