AANO Notes

Minimalist, Beautiful & Private Cross-Platform Notes Suite

Android • Windows Desktop • P2P Local Drop • User-Owned Google Drive Sync

🌐 Live Web & Documentation: https://jamamjadalone.github.io/AANO/

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Overview

AANO Notes is an open-source, privacy-first cross-platform note-taking ecosystem built for users who demand elegant design, distraction-free productivity, and absolute ownership of their data.

• Zero Corporate Surveillance: No telemetry trackers, no analytics pixels, no third-party advertising SDKs.
• Cross-Platform Freedom: Seamlessly write on your Android device and continue on your Windows desktop workstation.
• Offline-First Storage: Fully functional with zero internet connectivity. Notes, folders, tags, and media are stored locally on your device.
• Hardware-Protected Encryption: Encrypted notes and sensitive credentials are safeguarded with AES-256-GCM cryptography.
• P2P Local Sharing (AANO Drop): Direct high-speed note transfers over local Wi-Fi without internet or cloud intermediaries.

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Download Official Releases

Download pre-built, production-ready releases directly from GitHub Releases:

Platform	Download Package	Requirements	Setup Guide
Windows	AANO-Setup-v1.2.0-beta.2.exe	Windows 10 & 11 (64-bit)	See Windows Guide
Android	AANO-v1.2.0-beta.2.apk	Android 8.0+ (API 26–35)	See Android Guide

First-Time Installation Guide

Because AANO is a free, independent open-source project without expensive corporate enterprise certificates, Windows and Android may show a standard safety prompt on the very first install. AANO is 100% clean, open source (GPL-3.0), and contains zero trackers or advertisements.

Windows PC / Laptop

1. Download and run AANO-Setup-v1.2.0-beta.1.exe.
2. When the blue "Windows protected your PC" screen appears:
   • Click "More info" (link under the text).
   • Click the "Run anyway" button at the bottom.
3. Follow the setup wizard. Once installed, AANO opens directly from your Desktop or Start Menu with no further prompts.

Android Phone / Tablet

1. Download AANO-v1.2.0-beta.1.apk on your device and tap to open it.
2. If prompted "For your security, your phone is not allowed to install unknown apps":
   • Tap Settings and enable "Allow from this source".
3. If Google Play Protect displays "Unrecognized app":
   • Tap "More details" and then select "Install anyway".
4. Launch AANO to start writing private, offline-first notes.

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Why Choose AANO?

If you are searching for a privacy-focused, zero-telemetry alternative to Google Keep, Standard Notes, Simplenote, or Obsidian, AANO delivers complete data sovereignty with zero monthly subscriptions:

Feature	AANO Notes	Google Keep	Standard Notes (Free)	Simplenote
Price & Licensing	100% Free & Open Source (GPL-3.0)	Proprietary	Freemium (Paid features)	Free (Proprietary cloud)
Telemetry & Trackers	Zero (0 Trackers)	Google Ad & Analytics	Minimal	Automattic Telemetry
Hardware Encryption	AES-256-GCM Hardware-Backed	No	Text only	No
Offline-First Storage	100% Offline Capable	Limited web cache	Yes	Limited
Direct Wi-Fi Beam (P2P)	Built-in (AANO Drop)	No	No	No
Cloud Sync Ownership	User-Owned Google Drive	Proprietary cloud	Standard Notes cloud	Automattic cloud
Cross-Platform	Android + Windows Desktop	Web / Mobile	Mobile / Desktop / Web	Mobile / Desktop / Web

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Key Features Across Platforms

AANO Drop (Peer-to-Peer Local Network Sharing)

• Local Wi-Fi Radar: Instantly discovers active AANO devices (Android phones & Windows PCs) on your local subnet (ports 8765/8766).
• Direct P2P Note Beam: Transfer individual or multiple notes—including formatted text, inline images, voice recordings, and tags—in milliseconds.
• QR Code Pairing & Web Fallback: Display a dynamic QR code on Windows or Android; any device with a camera can scan to receive or connect.
• 100% Zero-Cloud Transfer: Traffic stays entirely on your local home or office network with zero third-party relay servers.

Interactive Image Crop & Transform Toolkit

• Touch-Crop Overlay: Crop attached images directly inside the app with interactive touch handles and corner controls.
• Aspect Ratio Presets: 1-tap switching between Freeform, 1:1 (Square), 4:3 (Photo), and 16:9 (Widescreen) framing.
• 90° Lossless Rotation: Quick rotation button to fix sideways or upside-down document and receipt captures.
• Ultra-Efficient WebP Compression: Automatic optimization (max 1280px resolution, 80% WebP quality), slashing 4–8 MB smartphone photos down to ~100–150 KB with zero visible quality loss.
• Replace & Remove Actions: Swap an existing photo with a newly cropped one, or permanently delete unwanted photos with instant on-disk file purges.

Local Media Vault .zip Backup & Restore

• All-in-One Portable Archive: Bundles all local on-device notes (notes.json) along with attached media files (media/images/, media/audio/) into a single .zip file in Downloads/AANO/.
• Zero-Cloud Device Migration: Easily transfer your private notes and attachments to a new phone or PC without using cloud services.
• 1-Click Restore: Seamlessly unpacks the vault archive, automatically remapping local file paths into the app storage.
• Quick UI Access: Direct Backup (.zip) and Restore (.zip) actions integrated into the LocalFragment header banner and Settings.

Dual Synchronization Architecture

1. User-Owned Google Drive Sync (Primary):
   • Direct peer-to-peer cloud sync between Android and Windows using your own Google Drive.
   • Minimal permissions: uses restricted drive.file scope (AANO can only access its own aano-notes.json sync file).
   • Clean OAuth 2.0 flow with local loopback listener and branded GitHub Pages redirect (docs/oauth-success.html).
2. Cloudflare Edge D1 Sync & Gmail OTP (Standalone):
   • Distributed low-latency SQLite synchronization powered by Cloudflare Workers and Cloudflare D1.
   • Official 6-digit Gmail OTP verification bridge via Google Apps Script.

Super-Responsiveness Engine

• Android In-Memory Cache: Decrypted notes are cached in RAM (memoryCache) for instantaneous (0ms) folder filtering, tag extraction, and search queries.
• Zero-Stutter Mobile Typing: Removed network sync from the typing auto-save loop; cloud sync executes cleanly upon closing the editor or app switching.
• Windows Zero-Latency Modal Dismissal: Editor modal dismisses immediately on Save/Close (0ms); synchronization runs asynchronously in background threads.
• GPU Layer Acceleration & Search Debounce: 120ms debounce prevents DOM thrashing during rapid typing; CSS GPU compositing (transform: translateZ(0)) provides smooth 60 FPS scrolling on integrated Intel graphics.

Visual & Editor Experience

• Emerald Luxury Palette: Material 3 design centered on deep teal obsidian (#004D40) and emerald green (#00796B).
• 12 Aesthetic Paper Themes & Custom Color Palette:
  • Dynamic paper background shades: Lemon, Mint, Teal, Sky, Indigo, Lavender, Rose, Peach, Coral, Sand, Slate, and Charcoal Dark.
  • Custom Color Palette (🎨) with live Hex input (#RRGGBB) and a 20-color swatch palette grid.
  • Dynamic contrast adaptation for dark paper backgrounds.
• Rich Text Formatting Toolbar:
  • Headings: H1 and H2.
  • Styling: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough.
  • Pastel highlighters: Yellow, Mint, Pink, Blue, Peach.
  • Palette text colors: Emerald, Blue, Crimson, Purple, and Obsidian.
  • Automatic bullet lists, Undo / Redo history, and real-time word counter.

AppLock & Privacy Shield

• Salted PBKDF2 PIN lock + Biometric authentication (Fingerprint / Face Unlock).
• Android FLAG_SECURE prevents screenshots and hides previews in recent apps.

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Offline-First Quality System

AANO comes equipped with a unified, 100% offline-first coding quality system powered by Rust tools and offline rule engines:

# Run all quality checks across Python, Web, Security, and Android
quality.bat --check

# Run fast pre-commit check (<3 seconds)
quality.bat --quick

# Check system specs and installed tooling
quality.bat --audit

Tools integrated:

• Python: ruff (<15ms linter, formatter, security) + pytest
• Web: @biomejs/biome (<80ms JS/CSS/JSON static analysis)
• Security / Anti-Slop: fixmyslop (Grade A quality guardrail)
• Android: gradlew.bat offline unit tests & compilation verification

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Repository Architecture

AANO/
├── .github/workflows/   # Automated CI/CD (Android APK + Windows Setup installer)
├── android/             # Android Studio Kotlin Project (Android 8.0+)
│   ├── app/             # Application source, Material 3 layouts, vector drawables
│   └── gradle/          # Gradle version catalog and official wrapper
├── windows/             # Windows Desktop Application
│   ├── src/             # Python-Edge WebView2 bridge, AANO Drop server/client, Web UI
│   ├── assets/          # Multi-resolution aano.ico & branding assets
│   ├── installer/       # Inno Setup scripts (aano.iss) & build_installer.py
│   └── AANO.spec        # PyInstaller specification
├── backend/             # Cloudflare Edge Worker API (D1 SQLite + Mail OTP Bridge)
│   ├── worker.js        # Hardened Cloudflare Worker (Rate limiter + OTP)
│   └── schema.sql       # Cloudflare D1 SQL table definitions
├── docs/                # GitHub Pages Documentation & OAuth Landing
│   ├── index.html       # Landing page (jamamjadalone.github.io/AANO)
│   └── oauth-success.html # Branded Google OAuth redirect screen
├── scripts/             # Unified offline quality system runner
│   └── quality.py       # Python quality runner script
├── quality.bat          # 1-click Windows launcher for quality checks
├── bump_version.py      # Unified cross-platform version management script
├── CHANGELOG.md         # Keep a Changelog documentation
├── CONTRIBUTING.md      # Beginner-friendly guide for new contributors
├── VERSION              # Single source of truth version file (1.2.0-beta.1)
├── LICENSE              # GNU General Public License v3.0
└── README.md            # Master repository documentation

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Building & Running From Source

1. Android App

• Requirements: Android Studio (Hedgehog or newer), JDK 17+.
• Build Release APK:

  cd android
  ./gradlew :app:assembleRelease --offline

  Output APK: android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk

2. Windows Desktop Client

• Requirements: Python 3.11+, Inno Setup 6+.
• Install build dependencies:

  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Run directly from source:

  python windows/src/main.py

• Build standalone setup installer:

  python build_local.py

  Output Installer: windows/dist/Installer/AANO-Setup-v1.2.0-beta.1.exe

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Contributing

We warmly welcome contributions from everyone! Whether you want to fix a bug, suggest an idea, design a theme, or write code:

• Please read our Contributing Guide for a simple, step-by-step walkthrough.
• Check out existing issues or open a new one on GitHub Issues.

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Acknowledgments

• Built and engineered with pair-programming assistance from Google Antigravity (Advanced Agentic AI Coding Assistant).
• Grateful to the open-source community for the foundational libraries and tools that power AANO across Android and Windows.

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License

AANO is free and open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0).
Copyright (C) 2026 Jam Amjad Rasheed.